Birds in the Spring

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

The BIRDS IN THE SPRING are kept busy building nests & hatching their eggs. One particularly adventurous young fledging wanders from home, tangles with a frightful serpent and brings back a swarm of angry bees. Papa Bird has a forceful way of showing his displeasure...

Not much plot in this little film, but it did give the Disney animators an exercise in animating comic birds.

The SILLY SYMPHONYS, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonys the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonys, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonys 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 SYMPHONYS; they had run their course & served their purpose.

This is a very nice cartoon featuring two birds rejoicing over the birth of their three hatchlings. They are taught to sing and fly, yielding some funny reactions from the father bird. One hatchling wanders away from the nest and gets into some misadventures with grasshoppers, a rattlesnake, and a swarm of bees.

The animation and music in this short were just great, and the voice-overs of the birds by actors Marion Darlington and Purv Pullen were just brilliant.

A wonderful story about the birth of spring, free-spirit of nature, and the serenity of the day.

Grade A

Disney released a two-DVD set entitled "Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies, Vol. 2". The first DVD consists of black & white cartoons and the second are color ones (which begin in 1933). The first of these color ones is "Birds in the Spring"--and boy did it shock me when it started! The colors were incredibly intense--VERY intense. The colors tended towards lots of pastels as well as some almost neon colors--especially reds and yellows. It almost made my eyes bleed--but it sure got your attention! Realism, however, is not important to this film. I guess I can forgive this a bit, as Disney was obviously experimenting with color.

The cartoon is a very simple story. There are three little birds in a nest. When they try to take their first flight, they fall. The mother and father bird come to the rescue but one of them is lost and has some adventures--some of which are adorable (such as with the grasshopper) and some terrifying (the oddly drawn snake and the bees). It's all pretty cute and the sort of stuff they made a lot of in the 1930s--and very antiquated compared to later films which had a lot more edge and humor to them. Worth seeing--especially if you love early cartoons.

This Disney Silly Symphony follows the adventures of some newborn baby birds. The animation and color is beautiful, but the soundtrack is almost all chirping, which became annoying very quickly. It's a nice piece, but it changes direction quickly toward the end when it goes from a very cutesy style to an almost slapstick style.

This is very sweet and memorable. The animation is stunning and the music is lovely, though the chirping can give you a headache. The title character is adorable, so sweet and likable. The other characters, including the very scary serpent, are all well done.

Birds In the Spring is very thin in plot, however the animation and most of the music compensates, as well as the title character.

It really has this sentimental value to it, and very sweet and nostalgic. While not my favourite silly symphony ever, and it does have its flaws, it is definitely memorable, and worth the look. 8/10 Bethany Cox