Elmer l'éléphant

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

Little ELMER ELEPHANT has a crush on Tillie Tiger & his affection is reciprocated (don't try to figure it out). Trouble is, the pint-sized pachyderm is beset by bullies who ridicule his trunk and make his life miserable. Then a conflagration breaks out at Tillie's tree house...

A very cute little film, very nicely drawn, with a sound moral message. It could have been the start of a series of Elmer Elephant shorts, but, alas, that was not to be and Elmer & his friends went into almost immediate cartoon oblivion.

The pelicans, for those too young to know, are spoofs of Jimmy Durante.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.

Elmer Elephant is a great Silly Symphony and a wonderful childhood gem. It does have a beautiful story, and very heartfelt and well meaning, though out of the Silly Symphonies Ugly Duckling gets my vote as the most heart-rending. You do genuinely feel for Elmer, who gets bullied for his unusually long trunk,then ends up saving the day in one of my favourite Silly Symphony moments, and although the other characters aren't as significant, other than Tillie, they do serve purpose to the well thought out story that doesn't preach in any way.

The animation is lovely, and so is the music, especially when the theme tune goes into a minor key to portray Elmer's sadness. All in all, if you come across this Silly Symphony, watch it-you won't be sorry! 10/10 Bethany Cox

Elmer Elephant (1936)

*** (out of 4)

A cute little tiger is having a birthday party and everyone is having a blast. A sweet elephant shows up and gives her flowers, which steals her heart but the rest of the kids there plan on picking on the elephant due to his large nose. This is another good Disney short that falls just short of being a classic but it's still worth watching. There are quite a few good things here with the highlight certainly being the characters who are just downright adorable. Both the tiger and elephant make for a cute couple and there's no question that the ending is extremely sweet. I thought the bullies were all done well and especially the hippo and that wonderful voice. The animation is quite good as you'd expect and overall it's a pretty good movie even if its story isn't all that great.

Both cute and clever -- a good combination in a Disney animated Silly Symphony. We see a lot of comedy bits in this cartoon that are similar to gags in later animated stories, but they're somewhat different here. Sure, we've seen the whole anthropomorphic-fire thing, but a lot of the elements are pretty unique. I personally enjoyed way Elmer has all sorts of tricks up his, well, nose when it comes to hitting his targets with good ol' H2O. For the Looney Tunes fans out there, you may the voice of Tillie Tiger as the same voice as Petunia Pig.

Nice little Silly Symphony about Elmer, the kid elephant, who was making fun of because of his trunk by the other animals during their friend's birthday party. However, they soon had to have a new viewpoint of the elephant because of his courageous acts during a fire.

A pretty exciting plot and a good lesson to be learned here about appreciating what you have been given in life and about treating everyone with kindness.

Grade B