Balloon Land

Ub Iwerks, the man who helped create Mickey Mouse, was not a success as owner of his own studio, although his output was of a consistently high quality. This is one of his better cartoons from that period which provides a fine example of his lively imagination. The film opens with a deceptively light-hearted sequence in which we are treated to balloon versions of comic icons Laurel & Hardy and Chaplin and also see balloon children being born in Balloon Land. Things turn much darker, however, when two of the kids venture out into the forest, disregarding their elder's advise to stay away from the pin cushion man, a truly frightening creation.

The juxtaposition of gaily coloured, cheerfully drawn balloon characters being popped to death at the hands of the devilish pin cushion man is certainly incongruous, but adds an edge to a cartoon that could so easily have gone the way of Walt Disney's far more soppy Silly Symphonies. It's a shame Iwerks didn't succeed as an independent - you can't help feeling that his imagination was never really given free rein once he returned to the Disney Studios following the collapse of his own studio.

Balloon Land (1935)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

The title refers to a land where everything from the houses to the people are made out of balloons. The people are trained to fear the Pincushion Man because he can obviously kill them. Two newly formed kids decide to test that theory by going into the woods where the Pincushion Man follows them home and starts to terrorize the community. This two-strip Technicolor short from U.B. Iwerks is actually an incredibly dark little picture considering that the entire subject deals with the possible death of these people and there's a sequence where the Pincushion Man goes on a murdering rampage through the city. This was certainly a highly entertaining film thanks in large part to the characters who were either lovable (the balloon people) or downright hated (Pincushion Man). Another very big positive was the wonderful colors used for everyone. I watched this with my son and he said they looked like ICEE colors and he was pretty much correct.

Ub Iwerks is a highly under appreciated legend in animation, for he was the real artist behind Mickey Mouse and most of Disney's biggest technical innovations. For a brief period of time however, he owned his own studio after falling out with Walt over the famed mouse's ownership, creating obscure forgotten characters like Flip the Frog and Wille Whopper. While his studio's filmography tended to come out hit or miss, perhaps one of his better triumphs would be the 1935 Technicolor surreal-scape, Balloon Land. In addition to a surreal concept utilized through a straightforward plot, it's a remarkably frightening short.

Set in a world where everything is formed from balloons, the village of Balloon Land lives in peace & harmony until the nasty pincushion man wreaks havoc among the town. As a short fairy tale, it works well enough to its advantage, though that could only be because the plot doesn't waste much time getting to the point. While the lead characters have no real development and are mainly excuses just to trigger the pincushion man to attack their land, they're not that different from the remaining cast that range from victims of the needles or defenders against the antagonist. Fortunately enough, the pincushion man himself does save the short from being ultimately forgettable thanks to Billy Bletcher's terrifying demeanor and the overall design of said character. Being an anthropomorphized pincushion with a collection of needles just waiting to strike the next victim, his presence alone makes him frightening just from whoever he'll attack without warning. Even his downfall is quite shocking as far as villains deaths go, giving the short a dreamlike aesthetic beyond anyone's mere perception.

In addition to all that, the music score by Carl Stalling helps establish the upbeat environments all around Balloon Land in contrast to the more intense tempo once the pincushion man arrives. Although more known for his famous work at Warner Bros, Stalling always knew how to raise the stakes in dramatized fairy tales whenever needed. The art direction of Balloon Land is perhaps the true visual highlight of all, next to the comical character animation and pristine Cinecolor palettes. Since the village is entirely composed of balloons, not only do the characters move around as if they were lifelike inflatable objects, but the backgrounds present the world with a lot of homemade imagination to the point of feeling like heaven. It also helps that a good chunk of the set pieces such as trees and buildings are composed in a flatter almost paper cutout manner to make the characters pop out in the foreground. Outside of a lot of conservative staging, there are several heightened shots aided with close ups and perspective tricks, not unlike many other Iwerks studio shorts.

So despite its storyline and characters feeling fairly routine, Balloon Land still remains a fascinating nightmare experiment thanks to an intimidating villain, imaginative production design, memorable music and many surreal outcomes. For its creative imagination alone, the short is worth viewing at least once both to get into Ub Iwerks' filmography and to see what originated in the minds of cartoonists from long ago. Perhaps some day, this short could potentially be revitalized into a children's book or TV series, because as an unintentional pilot, there could be more to Balloon Land than meets the eye.

This is a visually impressive cartoon, which should be expected from an Iwerks cartoon. As plots go, this was actually a pretty intricate one for the Iwerks studio, with a great villain voiced by a Disney regular, Billy Bletcher, who did Pegleg Pete, among others. The funniest bit for me was the town's "alarm" system. The Pincushion Man is really the most interesting character in the short, but it does offer some entertaining moments and is genuinely tense and frightening in spots. Iwerks deserves more notice and credit for what he had a responsibility for at Disney. His stint running his own studio wasn't as successful as he would have hoped, but he did produce (with an incredibly talented team, as a glance at the names of his employees will attest) some very good shorts. Balloon Land is one of the best that the Iwerks Studio created. Well worth watching. Recommended.

When people are balloons, those who control the pins will rule. Balloon land isn't just characters; it's structures and clouds and trees. But, of course, there is a villain: Pin Cushion Man. He has no motivation but to make life miserable for the balloon people. This is very colorful and quite well done in 1935.