Summer

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

SUMMER has come to the marsh, and a large variety of insects are frolicking about the water, happily making meals out of one other...

This black & white cartoon is another exercise in action/ reaction animation, with the lively soundtrack setting the pace. Incidentally, this may be the only cartoon in Hollywood history to feature a pair of musical dung beetles.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, 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 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.

I don't get the 6.0 rating, this Silly Symphony is great, being one of four to pay tribute to the four seasons. It is sweet, lively and often adorable. The animation in black and white form holds up amazingly well after all this time, and looks stunning. The characters are wonderful, forget the plot, and watch it for the fun and completely likable characters. Especially the musical dung beetles. Things are further advantaged by a very lively music score, that really does help with the Silly Symphony's appeal. The pace is fast, it is fun to watch, and it is sweet and adorable at the same time. To cut a long story short, I loved it! 10/10 Bethany Cox

This is a film with very basic animation. It focuses entirely on the world of various bugs. As we are introduced to each of the species, they perform sophisticated dances. We have dung beetles and dragonflies and houseflies and a big black spider. They cavort and enjoy the world, even though danger lurks around every corner. There really is little plot and the repetition isn't that spellbinding, but this was the infancy of the art.

There is really not too much to see here, just a bunch of bugs moving to music as Summer approaches. But, there is plenty of clever sound and visual effects and catchy music, just not much in a plot. But, if you're into just music and animation itself, then this cartoon is for you.

Grade B

This is yet another of Disney's so-called 'Silly Symphonies'--a cartoon short devoted to music and dancing and without the usual Disney characters, like Mickey. Oddly, there is no opening music as the credits and title screen roll but the rest is pretty much what you'd expect--a nice orchestra piece that is illustrated with cutesy characters. In this case, bugs dance about and enjoy the summer. This apparently is part of an overall theme, as the studio also did "Springtime", "Autumn" and "Winter" around the same time period. It's all quite nice and the animation is fortunately better than "Autumn" and "Springtime" (which I just saw a few minutes ago)--I have yet to see Winter (the last one made in the series). However, the seasons series aren't so far among the better examples of the Silly Symphonies and perhaps that is why they are included in the second volume of the DVD sets. Not bad--but not great either.