User Reviews

. . . pass away "playing with matches." You might wonder WHERE they get the idea to do such a thing, and HOW LONG has this carnage been going on. The USA's "flaming baby" rate skyrocketed as soon as LULLABY LAND was released. Many if not most young tykes delight in doing anything that's forbidden, so LULLABY LAND's Cave of Death can be seen not only as a promo for young arsonists, but also as a "reverse psychology" advocate for running with scissors, ice-picking eyes and slicing open veins--all advised against here with a series of catchy tunes. To paraphrase Mr. Scrooge, thanks to LULLABY LAND our U. S. Homeland has avoided tons and tons of "excess population."

Today was my first time seeing this beautiful Technicolor Silly Symphony. A baby is being rocked to sleep by their mother with her stuffed toy who looks suspiciously like Pluto! We get a very interesting animation of the "Rock-a-bye Baby" lullaby, then the baby and their dog find themselves in Lullaby Land. I think the most interesting part of this cartoon was the Forbidden Garden, which we are introduced to by a wonderful theme song and animation. It really seemed unusual for a Disney cartoon, and really reminded me much more of a Fleischer cartoon, specifically the recurrent Nightmare Cave! (lol). Drawings overall still have the distinctively rounder and cuter / more wholesome look of Disney cartoons however.

I have to recommend this one for the great music, interesting character designs, and interesting Forbidden Garden sequence.

This is an early color short in the Silly Symphonies series produced by the Disney studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

The animation in this cartoon is beautifully done, but there isn't very much beyond that to the short. A baby is sung to sleep and winds up visiting Lullaby Land, which looks pretty much as you might expect-trees with pacifiers and powder puffs, animated potty chairs with a chamber pot joke (which happened fairly often in 1930s Disney shorts) and diapers with safety pins on parade and so on.

The short veers off into the "Forbidden Garden" and, briefly, the short looks like it might just turn interesting, but it's just more of the same types of gags, only with things which "will hurt baby that he mustn't touch". Baby starts a FIRE! by playing with matches and one of the better bits arises from three smoke-inspired demons which are the most interesting part of the short.

The Sandman finally puts baby to sleep and the dream mercifully ends, to be followed shortly by the end of the cartoon.

This short is available on the Disney Treasures Silly Symphonies DVD set and the set itself is worth getting.

At the beginning of this minor classic by Walt Disney, we see a child with a freakishly large skull being lulled to sleep by its mother singing "Rockabye Baby". We are then drawn into the bizarre dreamworld of the hydroencephelitic little tyke. It begins with a parade of baby bottles, "potties", and pacifiers which, while they are unbelievably Freudian, still provide the viewer with an excellent idea of child rearing in the thirties.

The dream then takes a nasty turn as the child wanders into "Nasty Sharp Object Land" (I cannot recall what it was called in the film). There, scissors live in nests, hammers grow in bushes, watches hang from trees, and fountain pens form (and I hate to carp on this) an INCREDIBLY Freudian ink fountain.

Big head baby ignore the warning of the cheerful, 1930's chorus of women not to touch anything in Nasty Sharp Object Land and begins breaking watches with a hammer.

This causes the boogeymen to come and torment the baby in a sequence I can only describe as terrifying. However, it does seem to emphasize the Disney Corporation's motto "Do as we say, or the consequences will be severe."

Finally, the kindly old Sandman comes out of a bush and gives the baby some powder (let's call it sand) that makes him go to sleep. OK, let's ignore the metaphysical question of whether someone can go to sleep inside a dream. I think its interesting though how times have changes to such a degree, that in the 30s this scene seemed not only palatable but wholesome.

At any rate, this short subject was profoundly disturbing, and I'd be very interested to find out how many toddlers who saw it are now in therapy. The animation, however, was gorgeous, which made it worse, somehow.

I am apparently a tough judge of cartoons. While I noticed one reviewer gave EVERY Disney short from the 30s a 10, I am much harder to please. Sure, I've awarded some 10s and quite a few 9s--but also a few 2s and 3s, as some of these early cartoons are just dreadful despite the fine standard of animation they have achieved under Walt Disney's guidance. That's because through the 1930s, cartoons were nothing like they were in the 40s and 50s. They were rarely edgy and the emphasis in many of the toons was on cuteness--something many today would find hard to take. Disney actually avoided this more than many of the companies of the era, as the Harmon-Ising singing cartoons were REALLY cutesy and saccharine compared to Disney's. However, sometimes Disney released one that borders today on torture to have to watch--and I would sure like to see cartoons like "Lullaby Land" used to interrogate prisoners--though I am sure that Amnesty International and other human rights groups would complain about this being inhuman torture!!!

This cartoon finds an especially cute little toddler in some sort of dream world where again and again, he nearly kills himself playing with matches and doing other things kids are NOT supposed to do. I really think the cartoon was intended as some sort of indoctrination for the young ones--to tell them what not to do in a very heavy-handed sort of manner. To make it worse, there is a hellishly saccharine chorus that sings about safety!! Ugghhh!!! Make it stop!!! When the green Boogeymen appear, I assumed it would get better--but then they began singing and dancing, too!! Ultimately, some creepy wizard appears and rescues the tyke. It's the Sandman--no, not of the Neil Gaiman variety, but the type that sings the little kid to sleep (though I thought this was all already a dream?!). Ultimately, it ends on a note so sickeningly sweet that I am about to go into a diabetic coma. Please...do not watch this unless you are a masochist!