Frolicking Fish

One day under the briny deep many playing and prancing fish buddies find themselves beset by the pitiless slimy menace of the dreaded local mean octopus, who just can't bear to see them having a good time until he is rather gruesomely squished by an anchor and is totally dead, the end! Well there sure isn't much to this one, just pretty unappealingly designed fish and a few other sea creatures just dancing and doing their actions in time to the cute old timey music, which was what most of these earliest Symphonies were really, they were just interested in playing it safe and weren't quite ready to try out making short animations that were a touch more substantial. The grungy old look of this, to me instantly feels way more Max Fleischer than Walt Disney, and the sound was really grating and horrid to me. The most enjoyment I got out of it were some of the lovely details of the sea floor environment and the 'murky' shimmer effect which constantly drifts across the screen, I thought that was some sharp stuff for the time. I think the most impressive animation was done on the swirling tentacles of the octopus, they're all in motion at once and it was very well done and meticulously detailed. Sight gag wise it was pretty thin but I did like when the fish were rising on the bubbles that the much larger fish was burping out, that was something inventive. So this short is nothing particularly special, it's of interest mainly to fans and completionists of the early Disney cartoons. It's cute, but toss this old guppy back! X

I do enjoy, and in most cases, love the Silly Symphonies. Frollicking Fish is better than El Terrible Toreador, The Merry Dwarfs and Cannibal Capers, but it is not one of my favourites like Father Noah's Ark, Skeleton Dance, The Band Concert, The Old Mill and Flowers and Trees. The animation is suitably dynamic and smooth, the music is lovely and energetic and the dancing is niftily choreographed. But at the end of the day, it is a virtually plot less cartoon, with nothing that comes across as funny, a lack of crispness in the pacing and apart from the octopus who is a remarkable creation there are no characters that are properly engaging. Overall, nice but nothing special. 6/10 Bethany Cox

In the late 1920s, Walt Disney started a series of cartoons labeled "Silly Symphonies". These shorts did not feature the usual Disney characters but consisted of various animals or bugs (in most cases) moving about to the music. While the style is pretty antiquated compared to later cartoons, they're pleasant and a lot better than the competition--who started copying Disney with similarly named shorts (such as Merry Melodies and Happy Harmonies).

"Frolicking Fish" is pretty typical of these films in many ways. While it is odd that it features fish, the rest is pure Silly Symphonies. Cutesy creatures dance about and frolic. However, the fun is cut short when an evil creature (in this case an octopus, but in others it's a cat or bear or bird or some other nasty) appears and wants to do harm to the super-cute folks of the sea. Fortunately, the fish it pursues is pretty handy and the day is saved....huzzah! Overall, while not terribly original, it's pleasant and easy to watch.

'Frolicking Fish (1930)' certainly isn't 'Finding Nemo (2003),' but it's likely that Pixar received at least some inspiration from this early Silly Symphony. When it came to Disney's basic musical cartoons, which sacrificed story for anthropomorphised movement, few directors were more adept than director Burt Gillett, whose finest effort is 'Flowers and Trees (1932).' Here, he takes us beneath the ocean, where life is great. Fish and crustaceans coexist harmoniously, dancing and playing musical instruments; that is, until the evil black octopus arrives to spoil everybody's fun – never trust a mollusc! The Disney animators were fond, where exotic creatures were concerned, of zooming in on their gaping mouths, perhaps to create the sensation that the cinema audience is being swallowed up by those massive jaws. Here, it happens with a fish; in ' Hell's Bells (1929)' it was a demon of some sort, and a lion in 'Cannibal Capers (1930).' This was Disney exploring the unique artistic possibilities afforded by the animation medium, since such shots would have been virtually impossible to replicate in live-action. The cartoon finds some semblance of narrative in its final minute, when the octopus tries to hunt down and eat a terrified fish, which wriggles out from between the octopus' big white teeth (no horny beak on this one) and drops a hefty-looking ship anchor onto his attacker. It's a bloody – or that should be inky – end to one of the most sinister Silly Symphony villains.

Another Silly Symphony where all you see is a bunch of animals, in this case sea creatures, frolicking around to background music.

The sound and visual effects were cleverly don and the music was catchy and serene. Not much in a plot, though, but this cartoon could be a precursor to the "Under the Sea" sequence of "The Little Mermaid."

Grade B-