Bottles

Agree with previous poster, this cartoon is fantastic on so many levels.

I find it very warming, a treat for the eyes and ears, the only shame is it's over so soon.

Remember watching this over 30 years ago when I was a kid, that skeleton-bottle, it scared the life out of me but I loved those singing baby-bottles. Watching it again is a real trip.

I also agree, it's long time overdue for a DVD release of these gems. Those geniuses who created these deserve no less.

Brilliant.

1936 was the year Harman and Ising began to create good cartoons, but they remained wedded to a sentimental childishness that stopped them from achieving great cartoons. Ising would eventually overcome that, but Harman never quite did. Here, the problem is that we know the main character is sleeping, so his dreaming peril is not as frightening as it might be.

The best thing about their cartoons from this period is their lush use of Technicolor. While this is not so over the top as TO SPRING, it shows some excellent visual glosses.

The middle of this cartoon is a common one for Harman-Ising and for Schlesinger in this period: the contents of a bookstore, row of billboards or, in this case, the various brands in a drugstore. Some of them are still current. Enjoy spotting the ones you know.

"We don't feel like safe and tidy/No one here will change our di-di/That's the reason why/All we do is cry...." These 1930's MGM Harman-Ising cartoons, with their lush Technicolor hues, are still waiting to be discovered by cartoon fans. Many have but the thinnest of story lines to hang onto, but the musical numbers in this one--to say nothing of the innumerable puns (the "baby bottles," the "shaving mug," the "smelling salts," etc.) take the prize for sheer invention. (Or, perhaps, sheer audacity.) Genuine suspense, too, in the climax. So when's Time/Warner going to put out the "Happy Harmonies" shorts into a complete DVD collection??

In a stormy night, a pharmacist in a drug store mixes a concoction and falls asleep. Various inanimate objects come alive while he is miniaturized.

This MGM Happy Harmonies cartoon is created by Hugh Harman. It's 10 minute. It's fun but it's always going to be a dream. It's really an exercise in having fun with the variety of bottles. As in most cartoons of that era, there are some old fashion racial insensitivity which is par for the course. If Aunt Jemima is only changing now, one can't expect better from this 85 years old cartoon. The bigger issue is that it's never not a dream. The ending is inevitable.

I saw this when I was about 10 years old, but it has only seemed to be available on laser disc up until its recent release as one of the extras on the DVD release of 'San Francisco'. It's exactly as surreal and fun as I remember! With the 'death walks tonight!' croaks of the animated poison bottle, it seems to convey a sense of foreboding, as if people at the time could sense the war that was coming only three years later. Some fantastic ideas, like the Spirits Of Ammonia, the Baby Bottles and the Cuban rum bottles. Some nice rotoscoping as well, in the Cuban sequence. They really did make them better back then. Contrast this or Max Fleischer's Superman series with the half-hour toy ads like He-Man that were cranked out in the 80's. My 3-year old gets to watch as many of these, and Betty Boop and old Popeye as he likes, so that he knows the good stuff!