Im Land der Kuscheltiere

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.

So, my appreciation and enjoyment of this lovely short animation is mainly due to the ingenious quilt-world design that is featured throughout, I found it so different and cute and charming. I mostly found the beginning part of it with the weird doll-faced girl reading just a little on the dull side, but things definitely perk up toward the ending as the cuddliest dragon ever shows up, I found him very interesting to look at and way too cuddly to be scary! The form of the dragon reminded me a little of that old stop-motion animated show Bagpuss, and that thing the dragon did with its tongue was so startling with the creepy noise of one of those funny paper birthday party whistle thingies! That foul lil' noise actually gave me a tiny chill and I'm supposed to be a grownup! Something that I found pretty amazing and enchanting about the ending was how the landscape and everything subtly changed back into the little girl's bed covers and toys, revealing everything to be the classic "just a dream" twist in the tale, I actually thought it was remarkably similar to what it's really like when you awaken from a dream as a child. I have never really come across another animation quite like this. Many of the best cartoons I've ever seen were made in the 1930s, and while I grant you that a lot of them weren't perfect, but the ones that really counted were pure animated magic! True animation art, and they are still 😊

A little girl reads the fairy tale story, The Princess and the Dragon, to her dolls. She falls asleep. In her dream, her dolls come alive. A doll rides a horse to battle the dragon with a little dog in tow.

It's Happy Harmonies from MGM. It's a Hugh Harman - Rudolf Ising cartoon. It's an old-style animated cartoon. It's colorful but dull looking. It's the age of the animation. It's not one that I particularly like. The little girl is a bit problematic. She has the fake doll look. I do like the concept of these stuffed animals coming alive. It's a good short. They just need to make a better girl.

A little girl -- I should write "widdle gir-rl" because that's how she would say it -- reads the end of a story, then goes to sleep. Whereupon all toys come to life and do cute things while singers sing cute songs.

Whoopee. Clearly this was the effect that Harman and Ising were trying for -- cuteness, I mean. They certainly do a fine job of color design with their two-strip Technicolor effects, where everything looks like calico, cheap decorated cotton fabric. It got that name because it used to be imported for Calcutta in Indian.

Anyway, if you have a taste for this sort of thing, or need a good purgative, this is a cartoon for you.

THE CALICO DRAGON is truly a beautiful, enjoyable cartoon tale about a little girls stuffed animals coming to life in her dreams and looking for adventure. The calico dragons and their song are engrained in mine and my friends minds and having seen "Calico" on CartoonNetwork last year, it still holds up. I only wish it was available on video along with some of the other MGM classic cartoons, or that CN would have a regular MGM Classic hour!