Robert Reynolds This is an early color short in the Silly Symphonies series produced by the Disney studio. There will be spoilers ahead:The animation in this cartoon is beautifully done, but there isn't very much beyond that to the short. A baby is sung to sleep and winds up visiting Lullaby Land, which looks pretty much as you might expect-trees with pacifiers and powder puffs, animated potty chairs with a chamber pot joke (which happened fairly often in 1930s Disney shorts) and diapers with safety pins on parade and so on.The short veers off into the "Forbidden Garden" and, briefly, the short looks like it might just turn interesting, but it's just more of the same types of gags, only with things which "will hurt baby that he mustn't touch". Baby starts a FIRE! by playing with matches and one of the better bits arises from three smoke-inspired demons which are the most interesting part of the short.The Sandman finally puts baby to sleep and the dream mercifully ends, to be followed shortly by the end of the cartoon.This short is available on the Disney Treasures Silly Symphonies DVD set and the set itself is worth getting.

Shawn Watson A hideous ginger baby is sung to sleep by his mother and imagines a surreal dreamland. The dream gradually changes from restful, to dangerous, to scary, and then back to peaceful. It's hardly a classic, and it features that hideous old Disney animation that is vivid yet aesthetically displeasing, but if you were to watch this late at night it would make you feel sleepy, so I guess it works in some weird way. There are no voices other than the disembodied singing and no recognizable Disney characters. It's directed by an uncredited Wilfred Jackson, who went on to direct Peter Pan, Cinderella, and Alice in Wonderland.Does anyone else think that the little baby looks likes 1980s Commodore 64 character Jack the Nipper?

MartinHafer I am apparently a tough judge of cartoons. While I noticed one reviewer gave EVERY Disney short from the 30s a 10, I am much harder to please. Sure, I've awarded some 10s and quite a few 9s--but also a few 2s and 3s, as some of these early cartoons are just dreadful despite the fine standard of animation they have achieved under Walt Disney's guidance. That's because through the 1930s, cartoons were nothing like they were in the 40s and 50s. They were rarely edgy and the emphasis in many of the toons was on cuteness--something many today would find hard to take. Disney actually avoided this more than many of the companies of the era, as the Harmon-Ising singing cartoons were REALLY cutesy and saccharine compared to Disney's. However, sometimes Disney released one that borders today on torture to have to watch--and I would sure like to see cartoons like "Lullaby Land" used to interrogate prisoners--though I am sure that Amnesty International and other human rights groups would complain about this being inhuman torture!!! This cartoon finds an especially cute little toddler in some sort of dream world where again and again, he nearly kills himself playing with matches and doing other things kids are NOT supposed to do. I really think the cartoon was intended as some sort of indoctrination for the young ones--to tell them what not to do in a very heavy-handed sort of manner. To make it worse, there is a hellishly saccharine chorus that sings about safety!! Ugghhh!!! Make it stop!!! When the green Boogeymen appear, I assumed it would get better--but then they began singing and dancing, too!! Ultimately, some creepy wizard appears and rescues the tyke. It's the Sandman--no, not of the Neil Gaiman variety, but the type that sings the little kid to sleep (though I thought this was all already a dream?!). Ultimately, it ends on a note so sickeningly sweet that I am about to go into a diabetic coma. Please...do not watch this unless you are a masochist!

Ron Oliver A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.A tiny dreaming tot finds he & his toy dog in LULLABY LAND, where powder puffs & rattles grow on the vegetation and potty seats march over the quilted hills. Then there's the small matter of the bogeymen...This is an utterly charming little film, which entices the eye of the viewer to pick out all the baby motifs.The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. 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.