Dave Fleischer was responsible for many gems. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques.
'Barnyard Brat', as regrettable as it is to say, is a long way from being one of his gems. Even more regrettable being said is that it's not a good cartoon at all from personal opinion. To me, 'Barnyard Brat' is one of the worst Hunky and Spunky cartoons, none of which are among my favourites, and one of Fleischer's worst from this period and overall. Unwatchable it isn't, but there is not much to recommend let alone much to say that's great.
Only two assets are outstanding. 'Barnyard Brat's' best asset is the animation. Simply put it is great, very colourful and atmosphere with smooth character designs, meticulous if not innovative attention to detail and gorgeously detailed backgrounds.
The other outstanding asset is Sammy Timberg's music score. It is both lively and lush and adds a lot to the cartoon's mood and action. A couple of mildly amusing moments.
Spunky however is a truly unlikeable brat, whose brattiness is well overdone and doesn't match his cute exterior. He also doesn't learn very much at all. The barnyard animals are a little more interesting, but would have been easy to relate to if they weren't so irritating and took their retaliation to extremes. Hunky is the best character here, but has very little to do, the most memorable contribution being heavy-handedly delivering the cartoon's important but very over-familiar and unsubtly delivered moral.
When it comes to the story, it is very flimsy and also very predictable, with no surprises as to what will happen next let alone at the end. When the retaliation is introduced and things get a tad more interesting, it's still not fun or suspenseful and feels like a different cartoon.
'Barnyard Brat' is far too sugary sweet, drags in especially the first half and there is not much at all in the way of humour, when there is any it is too few and is not very funny, the treacle and irritants just get in the way too much.
In summary, bland, saccharine, easily forgettable and very annoying. 3/10 Bethany Cox