Lambert le lion bêlant

One of the award-winning shorts produced by Disney in the studio's heyday, this charming cartoon is the tale of a lion who is accidentally placed by the stork (shades of Mr Stork from 'Dumbo' here) with a flock of sheep along with the new lambs. He grows up to be a figure of fun for his sheep cousins who tease him for being unable to baa like them and for not being either a lamb or a lion.

Of course, Lambert saves the day by being a real lion when he has to be and becomes the hero of his flock. The baby Lambert is a little cute thing who grows up to be a slightly dumb looking lion, always hiding behind his 'mother'. The piece is narrated by Sterling Holloway, who had the perfect voice for this kind of thing, and has a catchy little title tune which recurs throughout.

This short is one of the more successful Disney produced in the 1950s. Nominated for an Oscar in 1951, it has one of the more memorable one-shot characters Disney created in Lambert. Some of the visual gags, particularly toward the end of the cartoon are hilarious! Toward the end of the 1940s, Disney slipped behind UPA and MGM and even Warner Brothers in terms of shorts. The quality was still there, but the energy seemed to fade a bit. Cartoons like Lambert show that Disney could still more than hold its own. Highly recommended

I loved this when I was a kid, and as you have already guessed, I adore Disney and all the Silly Symphonies and shorts they did. Lambert the Sheepish Lion is narrated excellently by Sterling Holloway who also narrated the 1946 classic Peter and the Wolf. The short features an amusing title song, has beautiful animation and tells an Ugly Duckling-like story of a lion who can't fit in with his sheep family, as they tease him for being different. The short also has a wolf, who is very similarly designed to the wolf in Peter and the Wolf, and while not as terrifying, has a roar that made my hair stand up. Thank goodness Lambert saves the day and finally gets accepted. Overall, a wonderful jewel, that deserves a 10/10. Bethany Cox.

In Australia (probably elsewhere, too) this short cartoon was screened just before "The Lion King". For a brief moment I sensed a new golden age, with hand-animated features basking in critical praise and paying their way at the box office, and classic short cartoons once again seeing the light of day (that is to say, the darkness of cinemas). The dream didn't last long, did it? "Lambert" turned out to be the last hand-animated short I ever saw in a cinema; today, Disney doesn't even bother to re-release its old FEATURES any more, and its animation department, which has maintained continuous production for something like seventy-five years and still has the best animators in the world, is fighting for its life in the face of general indifference. We are living in evil times.

I was particularly glad to see this cartoon in the dark, just before "The Lion King": it always brought tears to my eyes, which I managed to keep secret. I gather it was based on a children's book, or was at one point going to be a children's book, or some such, but unless the prose was as perfectly crafted as Hans Christian Andersen's, this is surely the better form. It's a departure for Jack Hannah, who doesn't try to be funny; he just tells a sweet, warm-hearted story as clearly as possible. How can you not love it?

The stork from Dumbo delivers a flock of baby lambs to some sheep on a quiet grass plain (as this is how you explain procreation to children), only a lion cub has gotten mixed in with the rest of them. The cub immediately cuddles up to a lonely ewe and grows up believing that it is a sheep, but finally becoming a lion when the flock is threatened by wolf.

As most of the short is set at night there is a lot of nice, dark animation and background which are quite atmospheric, especially with the glowing full moon beaming down. This short was edited together with The Old Mill (1937) to create a Blueberry Hill music video for the Disney Channel back in the 90s, which is where I was first introduced to it.

Definitely one of my fave Disney toons.