I am a huge fan of Hollywood films from the 1930s. I simply adore the movies and shorts and can't get enough of them. There is, however, an exception--most cartoons of the 30s were pretty insipid. Sure, there are some notable exceptions (such as SNOW WHITE), but Disney, Warner Brothers and MGM (among others) insisted on cranking out a huge number of terrible musical films that were just awful. Please understand I am NOT knocking Mickey Mouse or Donald--but the musicals referred to as "Silly Symphonies" (Disney), "Merry Melodies" (Warner) or "Happy Harmonies" (MGM). These cutesy films were pure drivel with practically no humor and no edge--just lots of awful singing and characters so treacly sweet that they are just about unwatchable. The edgy Bugs Bunny or Tex Avery cartoons we know and love today were produced in the following decades. You know it was a bad decade for toons when Popeye and Betty Boop were among the BETTER toons of the age!!! Despite these films being so bad, I recently forced myself to watch a trio of Happy Harmonies shorts. Part of this must be because I am a masochist, but part of it is because I love reviewing the more obscure films--as there is a real scarcity of reviews for older and seldom-seen movies and shorts.
This was the third Happy Harmony short shown on TCM. And, while not a particularly good cartoon, it was light-years better than the two other offerings that day! That's because although it's filled with terrible music, it is creative and the calico dragon and the other characters who look like homemade stuffed animals are pretty creative and it was a clever idea rather reminiscent of Raggedy Ann. Decent animation make this worth seeing if there's really nothing better on TV.