OllieSuave-007
Not a bad Silly Symphony featuring characters from Mother Goose poems, including Old King Cole, the Three Blind Mice, Little Miss Muffett, Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty, Little Jack Horner, Little Bo Peep, Little Boy Blue, and Hey Diddle Diddle.Some nice animation and musical notes. There were whimsical characters and carefree moments - perfect entertainment for kids.Grade B
MissSimonetta
Not a terrible short by any means and certainly as another reviewer put it "no classic", but I wouldn't call this an awful "relic". It's just uninspired. The animation, the concept, and the gags are all weak. In fact, many of the visuals and jokes are reused from earlier Silly Symphonies without any upping of the ante or reworking.It was not uncommon for Disney to reuse material from past work, as many of the Mickey Mouse shorts were essentially remakes of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons from the silent era (Building a Building (1933) is a remake of Sky Scrappers (1928), Ye Olden Days (1933) a reworking of the concept of Oh What a Knight (1928)), but at least they added new material to shake things up and improve upon past work most of the time. Mother Goose Melodies (1931) is just plain dull, even for those not familiar with silent Disney or other Silly Symphonies.
rob little
Just a quick word of warning - I watched this excellent cartoon with my 2 year old daughter and she was terrified by the spider that approaches the screen a couple of times. It gave her nightmares for a couple of days. Despite this, this is one of my favourite Disney B&W shorts right up there with The Skeleton Dance and The Mad Doctor (she hasn't seen this one yet. I think I'll wait until she's a bit older!)
spunky-22
Did you know that Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall because a goose hit him with Jack's and Jill's pail? This is one of the many interesting takes this Silly Symphony has on the nursery rhymes many of us have heard countless times. As in most Silly Symphonies, many of the jokes are dated, and it is all too obvious that this work comes from a time when simply cartoons put to music itself was cool and funny. However, there is still plenty left for modern audiences to enjoy. Additionally, the music is quite fun and takes you immediately to a childlike mind-set. As in many early Disney cartoons, half of the laughs come from noticing the absurdities and oddities. Before Monty Python put King Arthur on an imaginary horse and gave the king a servant with the job of clicking together coconuts, Disney put Old King Cole's trumpeters on children's stick horses and gave the king a servant with the job of holding up the king's enormous stomach. This animated piece is an excellent example of where a great amount of our humor comes from; and it's still pretty dang funny.
AD
