El Viejo Rey Cole

The nursery rhyme monarch summons all the nursery rhyme characters to his castle where they act out their stories. "Old King Cole" is a weird short. I understand that it's a semi-remake of an early Silly Symphony. Either way, it's the sort of situation where they thought that they were making something cute but it turned out kind of disturbing (with some politically incorrect content, natch). There's a reason why I've always preferred the Warner Bros. Cartoons to the Disney ones; let's just say that only one of the groups allowed vaudeville-style humor.

Basically, this is the sort of cartoon that you might show to keep the tykes entertained, but for nothing else.

As I have said many times, I have a lot of fondness for the Disney Silly Symphonies. Old King Cole I'm afraid doesn't really do all that much for me. It is more tolerable than El Terrible Toreador, The Merry Dwarfs and Cannibal Capers, but if I want a masterpiece status Silly Symphonies I prefer The Old Mill, The Ugly Duckling(1939), The Skeleton Dance, Flowers and Trees, The Goddess of Spring and The Band Concert. I do like the vivid colours and colourful backgrounds, the music although simpler than most cartoons is still full of energy, the nursery rhymes are nice to hear and the dancing is niftily choreographed. And there are some nice parts to the cartoon such as Peter the Pumpkin Eater and his wife and Hickory, Dick and Dock jumping out of Pandora's Box to sound the midnight bells. However, while spotting the characters are a delight most of them are not very appealing to me. They are of the cute but bland kind. And I didn't care for some of the character designs, Old King Cole's features are very over-exaggerated and some of the side characters like the mice and the Pied Piper look like stick figures. There isn't much story to speak of either, it is over-simplistic and is more an excuse for short snippets of nursery rhymes to come to life and in a less charming way than it had potential to. All in all, not much memorable apart from the spotting of the nursery characters and rhymes. 6/10 Bethany Cox

While I am a huge fan of the early Disney cartoons, it's hard to like "Old King Cole". It has practically nothing going for it. For example, although the cartoon is in color (as were all the Silly Symphony shorts at this time), the colors are VERY splashy and not at all pleasing to the eye. And, oddly, the characters' faces are all white and washed out--making the cartoon appear to have been hastily made. Additionally, there really is no story--just lots of annoying characters popping out of a storybook. They sing and dance, but none of it is appealing--it's all like a steady diet of saccharine! Some other cartoon producers specialized in making annoying cartoons like this (such as the dreadful Harmon-Ising shorts), but this is very atypical of Disney. Sure, their Silly Symphonies were known for singing and dancing, but usually the songs are good and there is some plot--here in "Old King Cole" the songs are bad, the animation is bad and the overall product will have you wondering why in heaven you watched it in the first place! Pretty terrible.

1933 really marked the beginning of Walt Disney's cartoon kingdom and a ten-year period during which all of the elements that went into the making of his great feature-length cartoons could be seen in transition as the artists developed their talent for bringing instantly recognizable characters to life, with music and art.

OLD KING COLE is a merry old start for Disney. A storybook opens as trumpeters announce the arrival of The Pied Piper, Little Boy Blue, Mother Hubbard, The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe, all on their way to King Cole's Happy New Year celebration at the castle. The figures all appear as pop-ups in a storybook, a device used so many other times by Disney and other cartoon makers.

Jack Pratt, Peter Peter, Pumpkin Eater, Humpty Dumpty, Three Blind Mice, Ten Little Indians, all are part of the party celebrations, dancing in style to some nimble tunes and all sorts of party celebrants. The frenzied finale has the merry Cole joining The Ten Little Indians in a wild dance and then joining the other revelers for more of the same.

Enjoyable look at how the early animators began their training ground and what the Silly Symphonies were all about.

Disney Silly Symphonies cartoon with Old King Cole and a bunch of nursery rhyme characters springing forth from the pages of their books at night. It's a concept Disney had done before in black & white and one that would be used to great effect in many other cartoons in the years following this. A fun idea, especially for little kids who (back then) would've known Mother Goose like kids today know Pokemon or whatever else is rotting their brains. It's a good short, despite not having much in the way of a plot. The animation is excellent. The colors are just drop-dead gorgeous! There's a lot of music and singing and I know from reading so many IMDb reviews over the years that inevitably someone will hate it for that and call it corny or dated. Nuts to them! I happen to like the music and found the songs charming. Anyway it's not one of the best Silly Symphonies but it is upbeat and colorful. Try to enjoy it in the spirit it was meant to be viewed in. It's simple kid-friendly entertainment. No fart jokes or double entendres needed.