The Pied Piper

With a few new twists on the classic poem, this is an interesting and charming Silly Symphony. What I loved most was the beautiful animation and the sweet, charming music that is playful, whimsical and simple. I found myself chanting along the townspeople in the chorus "Rats!Rats!We Gotta Get Rid of the Rats!" The characters aren't too bad either, the pied Piper of the title is very likable, the children are cute and the Mayor is seen as quite greedy and manipulative.

The pacing is a little uneven here, but compared to how much I enjoyed The Pied Piper it is a minor criticism. Overall, this is very enjoyable and charming with a few new and nice twists on the poem. 9/10 Bethany Cox

This Silly Symphonies cartoon begins with a graphic example of how rats are overpowering Hamelin Town, all to the tune of a spirited song about the little creatures. The mayor of the city offers a bag of gold to anyone who will help the townspeople get rid of all the rats. The Pied Piper turns up, announcing he'll reduce the overrun rat population and accept the bag of gold for reward.

Next thing you know, the little critters are all following him down a country road far away from town and he's ready to return for his gold.

"I've done my work as I was told and now I'll take my bag of gold."

The Mayor refuses to carry out the bargain and the townspeople say all he did was play a tune, so the Piper declares he'll remove all the children of the town from their influence. And so, he woos them off to a childhood paradise where they can sing and play rather than be used as little more than hard-worked servants by their parents.

Charming animation helps make it a morality tale with a happy ending.

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

Hamelin Town is beset with an infestation of rats and the harried Mayor is only too glad to offer THE PIED PIPER a bag of gold to rid them of the plague. But once the rodents are removed, the Mayor reneges on his promise, leaving the Piper to take a most effective revenge...

This cartoon offers a good interpretation of the story from the famous Robert Browning poem. Notice how some of the elements of the original have been altered by Disney: the rats no longer drown, they are simply made to vanish into thin air; and the Hamelin children are shown to be used almost as slave labor by their parents, making their removal by the Piper more like a rescue.

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.

A Silly Symphony where a piper saves a town from rat infestation. However, he gets mad and takes revenge when the King refuses to pay him.

Lots of singing and sappy songs, with weird-acting characters and over-imaginative scenes. Definitely one of the more whimsical cartoons from Disney.

Grade C+

We all know the story of the evil mayor of Hamelin who promises the Pied Piper a great reward for ridding the city of rats. But, of course, he decides not to pay up and the children of the city pay the price. The problem is that there is no repentance. The townspeople are just ignored at the end. Too saccharine.