Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

OVERLOOKED CARTOON: THE OLD MILL POND

Happy Harmonies was MGM's response to Disney's Silly Symphonies cartoon series and was the studios first major attempt to dip their toes into the animation field.  Rather than create an animation department out of whole cloth, the studio hired out the Harman-Ising Studios which produced 36 animated shorts from 1934 to 1938.

The Old Mill Pond features frogs who happened to bear some resemblance to Cab Calloway, Bessie Smith, Fats Waller, Bill Robinson, and Louis Armstrong.  Sadly, the cartoon emphasizes some unfortunate stereotypes, but the music is great.

https://archive.org/details/OldMillPond

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