Jack Frost (1934) User Reviews

Learning The Hard Way

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 24 May 2008]

This is another of those moralistic cartoons in which kids are given the message to listen to their elders, or they'll be sorry. In this case, it is the warning from "Jack Frost" that winter is fast approaching and you better prepare for it.

A little grizzly bear thinks because he's fuzzy and warm and a bear, the cold won't bother him, so he disobeys his parents, tries to sneak off, gets caught and gets spanked and then, after wiping away his tears decides to run away from home. (Hey, we've all been there, at least in thought!)

Of course, the bear doesn't find he's as strong and insulated as he thinks he is and gets chased all over by Old Man Winter, who is blue and looks like The Grim Reaper. That character was seen in a couple of these old Celebrity Productions color cartoons of the day.

The songs in here were very good. Most of the dialog is sung and the little bear's tune and voice sounded reminiscent of Shirley Temple. In all, a cartoon and message mainly for kids but one that adult can be mildly entertained.

A Little Bear Learns To Heed Warnings

[theowinthrop · 8/10 · 20 April 2008]

This little cartoon is basically very charming. It is about a small bear who is enjoying the last days of summer, when he and the other animals are made aware by the arrival of Jack Frost that winter is on the way. Frost, when not painting the autumnal colors, warns everyone that they should prepare for the total change in the weather (i.e., prepare to hibernate). But the little bear doesn't believe the cold weather will effect him - he has a nice fur coat. His mother puts him to bed, but he tries to get away, and she spanks him. When she and her husband fall asleep he sneaks away, sniffling that his mother would be sorry.

Naturally, he soon finds he has made a dreadful mistake. He is freezing, especially when confronted and chased by old man winter. He tries to find another shelter, but only one (with a skunk in it) is willing to let him in. In the conclusion he is helped back home by Jack Frost.

The colors of the cartoon are rich, particularly in scenes where Jack Frost is painting the various leaves autumnal colors. In one nice sequence he is painting pumpkins, turning them into jack-o-lanterns. They end up doing a spooky dance that scares the little bear. He is also present when a scarecrow begins dancing (this five years before Ray Bolger made a dancing and singing scarecrow his first career role). As a charming little cartoon for children about six or seven or eight years old this is fine, and grown-ups will appreciate the art work.

Jack Frost was a nice Ub Iwerks cartoon

[tavm · 7/10 · 1 December 2017]

Just watched this Ub Iwerks ComiColor cartoon on YouTube. It concerns a kid bear who defies his parents and decides to go out during Winter because of his big fur. The title character gently warns him but he keeps singing of how he'll survive because of his skin. Being from the '30s, this short shouldn't surprise when some inanimate objects come to life like some pumpkins or a scarecrow who in this case channels Cab Calloway! There are some touches of humor but this seems mostly to teach kids in the audience a lesson about staying inside when a snow storm comes. That's okay in this instance so on that note, I recommend Jack Frost.

The title deity of this picture has been identified . . .

[pixrox1 · 7/10 · 25 September 2023]

. . . by leading seminarian End Times Instructors as an actual horseman of the Apocalypse. JACK FROST, aka the onset of Winter, is so fearsome that some quailing traditions substituted Famine for Frost so that the kids could sleep at night. However, on six of the Globe's seven continents more people freeze to death than expire from starvation in a given year. Furthermore, a consensus of pain experts rank a frigid demise a fate worse than buying the farm with an empty tummy. As their capillaries explode one by one, many victims turning into literal pop-sickles have been heard to bargain that they'd swear off food for a year for one mug of hot chocolate. JACK FROST does NOT give this scourge of glacial glazing his just desserts.

This is NOT a Christmas cartoon

[Sober-Friend · 6/10 · 30 March 2017]

A young grizzly bear, undaunted by his mother's warnings of the coming winter, runs away from home only to be confronted by Old Man Winter himself.

This is an enjoyable animated short. I have a problem with the fact that it is "SOLD" in a DVD collection of "Christmas Animated Shorts". this is not a Christmas short. It takes place in Winter. There is no "Santa" or even a "Christmas Tree". However it is an enjoyable thing to watch.

This Animated Feature has some very impressive animation (For it's time).

It is available;e for free on many streaming sights.

Iwerks near his best on his own.

[llltdesq · 9/10 · 31 July 2003]

Ub Iwerks was a technical genius, but often plots and story were afterthoughts. Exceptionally visual cartoons not needing much plotting work splendidly, while those needing strong characterization, story or plot fare less well as a rule.

This one is an exception to that. Visually excellent and technically superb, this is also engaging and has fascinating characters and a good plot. Iwerks was creative in his own area of expertise and one of the reasons that Iwerks and Walt Disney worked so well together was that their strengths were complementary to one another. This is Iwerks Studios near their best. Absolutely beautiful short, it's good to see this in print. Well worth getting. Recommended.

Scary and Fun!

[only_an_ocean_away · 10/10 · 7 April 2002]

This cartoon is one of my all-time favorites. I absolutely love old cartoons and movies, so naturally I had to give this one a try and I found that this is a frightening little goody. It's about a little bear who has run away from home and is one the run from "Old Man Winter." His adventure is wonderfully written and even more wonderfully animated. This cartoon will have you smiling from the very beginning to the cleverly done end.

If you ever wonder why Ub Iwerks failed after he left Disney, this cartoon should explain it!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 3 May 2014]

This cartoon is from Ub Iwerks--the guy who did most of the animating in the early Disney Company cartoons, such as "Steamboat Willie". After a few years with Disney, Ub decided to go out on his own--and less than a decade later, he was back with Disney. Although he was very talented, and you can see some of it in "Jack Frost", you can also see why he failed. On the plus side, the cartoon's animation is very nice. Not as nice as the Silly Symphonies and Mickey cartoons coming from Disney, but still very nice. The cartoon also had color. While it wasn't the Technicolor that Disney was using (they had exclusive rights to it for several years), the Cinecolor looks very nice and has a wider color spectrum than many Cinecolor films--with some actual blues. BUT, despite looking good, the cartoon itself is insipid mush! It consists of lots of happy singing animals in the forest, Jack Frost and Old Man Winter singing and cavorting--and not a single trace of humor!! All in all, this is like torture to have to watch today, as the cartoons were amazingly dull (aside from Disney's) during this era. Cute characters and singing...YECCH!!!

A beautiful, underrated classic

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 7 June 2015]

Jack Frost is not quite one of my favourite cartoons of all time, but it is a beautiful and hugely enjoyable cartoon that's deserving of more praise. It's also one of those cartoons that I love and appreciate even more as a 23-year old adult than as a child.

The animation in Jack Frost is absolutely wonderful. Not just the beautifully drawn wintry landscape, that sets up the entire atmosphere of the cartoon and its story so well, and the animation on the autumn leaves and at the end, but also some truly imaginative work in the creation of the snowman and the spooky sight gags. Regarding the latter, the pumpkins/Jack O-Lanterns part stood out. The colours are a lovely mix of brightly colourful and dark, the characters are drawn well with little roughness and no obvious over-cutesiness and the backgrounds are truly beautiful on the eyes.

Music is a component that is very important to me when judging animation, or any film and such for that matter. The music in Jack Frost in no way disappoints, the little bear's song is adorable without being sickly sweet. In fact all the songs are lovely, with the standout being the irresistibly catchy one of the scarecrow, that song is also a lot of fun and the sequence itself is hilarious. The incidental scoring has a lot of haunting depth, rhythmic energy and lush orchestration, no surprise as it is from Carl Stalling whose work on cartoons was always consistently great, often elevating them to a higher level.

Often, 1930s cartoons or very visual/technical cartoons are not so strong in the story department, which can have an afterthought feel(but when so many components for that cartoon are so good and when the story still has appeal that's easy to ignore). The story in Jack Frost doesn't come over quite as strikingly as the animation and music, but it does fare stronger than the stories of most cartoons made around the time. It moves swiftly, sustains the running time just right with little obvious padding, and is just a charming, hugely entertaining and poignant story in general. One where you can identify every step of the way with the little bear without being manipulated into doing so. The cartoon has some sweet humour, like with the scarecrow, and the darker parts with Old Man Winter and the spooky sight gags are very imaginatively handled, and in a way that didn't feel too much or out of place. There's even room for morals on obedience and respect, and while it could have been so easy to hammer the morals in a heavy-handed manner Jack Frost manages to avoid this trap, it also couldn't have ended more perfectly either.

Characters in Jack Frost do a great job moving the story forward and making it as succinct as possible(children will be able to follow it with no problem and it shouldn't be too demanding for adults either). The bear is an adorable leading character without over-sentimentalising the story, as can happen with cute characters, while Jack Frost is similarly engaging and Old Man Winter in his brief appearance is a suitably sinister 'antagonist' without being too scary, in fact he's also fun in a very twisted sort of way. The characters are solidly voiced too.

All in all, a beautiful classic cartoon and should be seen more often. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Cub in the cold

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 5 December 2017]

"Jack Frost" is an American 8.5-minute cartoon from 1934, so this one is already over 80 years old, actually closing in on 85. The director here is Ub Iwerks and that's not from his very early days of filmmaking, but also for example a long time before his work was acknowledged greatly (even if without a competitive win) at the Oscars. Here in his 30s still he gives us a little tale of a young bear who may be slightly too much of an adventurous rascal for his age. But luckily somebody is out there to protect and help him from the likes of a Jack Frost who is at least as creepy as the ones with the same name in the horror films, even if he is just a supporting character. I am truly surprised this film was named after him as he really doesn't have too much screen time. But he is probably more memorable than the bear, I'll give them that. Anyway, this little movie is getting more attention these days again with Christmas coming up or I should maybe better make a reference to winter as the Christmas component is not existent in here. Overall, I was neither impressed by the story, the animation or the characters (except J.F.) and that includes the little bear especially. The film also came really short on the cuteness scale. I mean come on, the have a young furry animal and that's all the impact they make there? Not good enough. Watch something else instead.

Whimsical tale of snowy terror with a happy ending.

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 8/10 · 10 September 2013]

For a start, I loved all the rich amber tones in the woodland backgrounds, and even more so later on with the the frozen scenery, all exceedingly beautiful to look at. Also the music was very nice and kept things moving at a good pace. The family of bears that is featured look a lot like the ones from the 1935 Iwerks short "The Three Bears." The momma bear sounds like a black women did the voicing. She may give Billy-Bear a spankin', but it probably hurts her more than it does him! For some strange reason a really crummy-looking picture that hangs above the little bear's bed made me laugh! I don't get the strange moment where there's an apparition hovering saw cutting a log above the sleeping bear parents... Maybe a visual pun on the saying "slept like a log"? The only thing I didn't like too much was the annoying little song the bear kid seemed to sing about every two minutes, I think it sounds a bit too childish and brings down the tone somewhat. I liked the slightly creepy character of the trickster sprite Jack Frost, who deems to teach young bratty-bear a lesson the hard way about respecting the cold. This short boasts several very impressive and spooky sight gags, like a hopping quartet of pumpkins whose collective "Whooo!" sound is genuinely eerie to listen to! And then there is my absolute favourite part of the whole short, an awesome scatting scarecrow whose wild movements and bluesy freewheeling sounds still sound extremely catchy and cool today! That scene felt to me very similar to the trio of Betty Boop Fleisher shorts to feature a dancing rotoscoped Cab Calloway! I loved the design and animation of the cackling wicked Old Man Winter who was quite scary as a monster once a vintage animation could only be. During the chase through the icy woods I love the snow-covered objects in the background that look very much like human figures frozen in agonised poses. Quite a dark and Gothic touch, I thought. I think Jack Frost was Old Man Winter, their faces and noses looked alike, and Jack's enigmatic wink to the audience at the "Finis" confirmed it for me. What a great little peril in winter wonderland animation this is, it's well worth anyone's time, and makes for an especially pleasant watch come Christmas time. Overall quite a charming rare old vintage show with an edge! X

Entertaining Short

[Michael_Elliott · 30 November 2012]

Jack Frost (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Ub Iwerks' directed this animated short about a young grizzly bear who decides to go outside even though his mother warned him that a cold winter was about to hit. I always enjoy watching the work of Iwerks because even today his images are quite striking and they're certainly unlike anything else that was out at the time or even today. This film isn't among his greatest works but I think there are enough unique touches that make the thing worth watching. I really liked the images but this here should go without being said. I especially liked the winter landscape as the bear wonders out of his house thinking that his fur is going to protect him. The scene showing the snowman being created was terrific and the imagination in it was excellent. Earlier there's a very good sequence with some dancing trees and the scenes with the pumpkins was also very good. The bear cub himself was a good and memorable character and his little journey has many cute moments as well as some darker ones.