La via lattea

I had not seen this short before, and it is an overlooked gem. The short is based on the nursery rhyme about the three little kittens who lost their mittens. Their mother sends them to their rooms without dinner. From there, they sail on to the milky way for plenty of milk and other dairy products. Unlike some of cartoons of the era, it is easy to understand the voices of the "characters" and the technicolor hues are still vivid. Walt Disney won the Oscar for Short Subject (Cartoon) for the first eight years it was awarded (1932-39); this cartoon broke his streak and is clearly one of the best cartoons of the era. I saw it on Turner Classic Movies during the annual "31 Days of Oscar" broadcast. Hopefully, it will be distributed on DVD in the near future.

This cartoon is done reasonably well, is enjoyable enough and worth seeing, but, although I can understand why it won (monumentally cute with well-drawn backgrounds and the closest thing to a Disney style short that was nominated), I don't think it should have. It's competition included the very first Tom and Jerry and a Bugs Bunny directed by Tex Avery. The Tom and Jerry should have won hands down. The Milky Way has some nice touches, but the other two were more interesting and more novel for the time. Oh, well. The Academy has got more right than wrong in Animated Short over the years. This one shows on The Cartoon Network from time to time.

This cartoon was notable as the first not from the Disney studio to win the Academy Award. It depicts three kittens who are sent to bed without supper because they lost their mittens. One of them sees the Milky Way up in the stars and decides to go up there to get some milk with the other two coming along. I'll just now say this was quite charming and imaginative and if you were a child who loved cartoons, this one was probably one of the cutest shown on afternoon TV during the '70s when one came home from elementary school. Rudolf Ising was the producer/director of this one and it doesn't look that much different from what his former employer Walt Disney was still making along this time. So on that note, I recommend The Milky Way for any animation buff out there.

OK, so I didn't love the squeaking singing as we meet the three little kittens who've lost their mittens - and it's freezing out there! Mama isn't impressed, so it's no milk and off to bed. These critters aren't happy that they've got no supper but are soon distracted by the Milky Way in the sky. How can they get there? There'll be loads of milk there, surely? Balloons might help, and a basket? There's the green cheese moon, the comet train, Martian shooting stars, and then they navigate the Dippers before arriving in a lactose Eutopia where there's loads of song-free fun to be had. Thing is, the moral of the story has yet to arrive! This is good fun with plenty of childish fun as the mice mess about in just about every milky substance know to man - or mice.

Three little kittens lose their mittens. Their mom punishes them to go to bed without any milk. They tie balloons to a basket and ride up to The Milky Way where milk is everywhere. This is adorable. This is directed by Rudolf Ising. It reminds me of when I was a kid, I didn't understand the phrase, "raining cats and dogs". So I wrote a story for school assignment. The teacher thought that I was imaginative when in reality, I was just dumb.