Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Have seen a lot of work over the past few years from Hugh Harman and have liked enough of them, though the recently seen efforts have been a bit of a mixed bag (nothing terrible, few great). His visual style wasn't as polished perhaps as frequent and maybe better known collaborator Rudolf Ising, but to me he was the better storyteller with fewer cartoons to have a too cutesy approach and a few of his cartoons were ahead of their time in dealing with already bold themes.

One of his best for me is 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', a great cartoon worthy of more credit. It may not be one of my favourite cartoons or innovative, but it is enormously entertaining, spirited and well made and shows that Harman does have a comic touch and a good one. When it comes to his cartoons, 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' is one of his funniest, most energetic and also one of his cutest and a welcome break from all the too cutesy and tired cartoons seen recently.

Did think that it is a little too long by about 3 minutes, which did affect some of the pace a little early on.

'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' is excellent otherwise. The animation 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 that is beautifully orchestrated and full of lively character. The voice work is stellar, and it was a great surprise to hearing none other than Ising himself voice Papa Bear.

It is a very funny cartoon as well and at its funniest hilarious. Absolutely loved the zany antics of the bears and the action excites and has imagination visually. The story sticks closely to the original story and packs a lot in without over-stuffing, so there is a lot of infectious energy throughout. Goldilocks is cute as a button and pretty, while also not being bland, and even better are the endearingly and amusingly goofy bears. Really liked how they were given individual distinct personalities and ones that were strong and not exaggerated, Papa Bear particularly.

To conclude, great. 9/10.

I love this cartoon. Goldilocks looks like a mix between Shirley Temple and an adorable Kewpie Doll! She is very Disney-esque in her appearance and mannerisms. It sticks very closely to the actual fairy tale, but it definitely gives the bears very distinct and funny personalities. Luckily, Cartoon Network played it during their ACME HOUR.

After Harman and Ising lost their contract with MGM, their former colleague/competitor Walt Disney gave them some work to do. He subcontacted a few cartoons that had been in production for a few years, but had not yielded a satisfactory storyline. Merbabies was one of these.

Disney had produced many adaptations of fairy tales for the Silly Symphonies and was underway on translating these for features. One of the stories was Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Disney had been developing the story as a Silly Symphony for most of the 1930s.

Although Harman was not the adept storyteller that Walt was, this short could very well have passed as a Disney cartoon had RKO not intervened with their agreement. The characters do not recite the dialogue from the story word for word. Instead it carries out in a natural flow. The characters are more fleshed out and have unique personalities. The Papa bear is the most entertaining of the four characters. (I wonder who voiced him).

The length however is over ten minutes. Walt would have probably condensed some of the action if his involvement lasted through production. I imagine the Disney personnel had a lot to do with how the picture turned out though, just considering how effective they were with adapting existing stories to screen.

A very engaging and entertaining mood piece.