The Little Goldfish

A little goldfish wishes to get out of its little fish bowl. That's exactly what happens one day but the big wide ocean is full of scary creatures. Sometimes, a dream is not really a dream.

It's a MGM Rudolf Ising production. William Hanna is the supposed writer. It's a pretty simple story. The animation is old school. It's a nice simple cartoon short. The crab has interesting claws and is a little bit comical. This is solid.

A bowl-bound goldfish accidentally gets washed to sea, where he has many cute adventures.

Which I don't like. Another reviewer admits this is one of the cute cartoons, not a funny one, and I am one of those people who don't care for them. True, director Rudolf Ising has put a bunch of visual puns into this one, including catfish who meow and seahorses who whinny, but I'm a slapstick-and-wisecrack sort of guy.

As usual, the art and animation is topnotch, but even so.....

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, Studio Ghibli and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. With significantly broader knowledge of different directors, animation styles and studios, actually appreciate and love it even more now.

'The Little Goldfish' is fairly typical of Rudolf Ising, leaning towards the cute kind of cartoon with a lot of sentiment in alternative to the laugh a minute and hilarious kind, the latter being the one that a lot seem to prefer (understandably, though am hardly biased against the former). This approach has varied with Ising. In some instances it has been very sweet and charming, in others it can be cloying and too cutesy. Generally 'The Little Goldfish' belongs in the former category, despite the danger of falling into the latter with the premise.

'The Little Goldfish' has a lot to like and deserving of more attention.

Yes it gets a bit too saccharine in places, and it is best perhaps to not talk about the story because there really isn't much of one.

What 'The Little Goldfish' does so well however eclipses these problems. The animation is especially brilliant, it is rich in detail for design and backgrounds, vibrant in colour and crisp. Composer for the prime-era 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons and regular Tex Avery composer Scott Bradley provides a lush and atmospheric music score.

It is hard not to fall in love with the goldfish, who has charm, spunk and cuteness in bucket-loads, and it has enough likeability and personality to not be dull. 'The Little Goldfish' is rich in natural sweet charm and some very imaginative ideas and visuals, the underwater world so richly rendered. There is not much hilarious and the cartoon's hardly laugh a minute, but a good deal of it does raise a smile and the conflict has the right amount of tension and urgency without being over the top. The predatory characters add a lot to the cartoon, with colourful personalities. The pace avoids being draggy.

Overall, lovely cartoon. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Delightful MGM cartoon directed by Rudolf Ising tells the tale of a goldfish inadvertently washed down the drain by a careless woman changing the water in his fishbowl.

The fanciful tale is beautifully animated with lush backgrounds that become especially innovative and attractive once the fish has his underwater adventures in the ocean. All sorts of dangers lurk everywhere as every kind of predator fish tries to ensnare the little goldfish with absolutely no luck.

The colors are dazzling, the array of fish is worthy of something Disney did with the underwater world in "Pinocchio", and the little goldfish himself is creatively animated and given the Disneyesque treatment wrapped up in spunk and sympathy. And that ending is something you'd never suspect unless you're a real movie buff.

Well worth watching, especially if you liked the early animated art of Disney that's captured in this non-Disney MGM cartoon.