User Reviews

As stated in one of my previous reviews, being Bunny Mooning, I first stumbled upon this short in a dirt cheap VHS tape my dad bought at Walmart. I enjoyed the tape quite a bit as I LOVED old cartoons even at a young age. I found them comforting and I still do to this day. But like I mentioned in my Bunny Mooning review, Fleischer Studios' Color Classics aren't quite the classics that Disney and Warner Bros are today. But can still be taken for the pure joyful nothing that they are. But for Hawaiian Birds, perhaps there's just a bit more.

Hawaiian Birds revolves around a bird couple in Hawaii who are in love and find a place to build their nest. While the male bird is busy building the nest, a performing troupe of bird singers flies over to a tree nearby and performs, which catches the girl bird's attention. She then flies over and dances for them which impresses them, their leader asks her if she would join them. She writes her mate a note goodbye and flies away with them. The boy bird finishes building their nest and goes to look for her. He finds her note and is saddened by it, but is determined to win her back. He flies to where I presume is New York City and starts looking for her but struggles with the cold(accurate). Meanwhile, at a nightclub, the leader of the performers seemingly having enough of the girl bird kicks her out. She pleads to be let back in but is constantly pushed away and told to get out. The cold gets to her and the height of the buildings scares her. She pulls out a picture of the male bird, kisses it, and hugs it, regretting having left him. She then takes a few pieces of her straw hula skirt ties up her arms and prepares to walk off the building but backs up from fear each time. Back below the male bird flies to a cigarette to warm up. The girl bird then forces her to fall off the building and she does and lands right on top of the male bird. She is overjoyed to see him and showers with kisses. They fly back to Hawaii and he shows her the house he made for them and she loves it, they go inside and pull down the shutters and their silhouette shows them kissing.

So quite a bit happens in this short, compared to other Color Classics that I reviewed Bunny Mooning and Dancing on the Moon which had very little happening. This seems to have a plot. Which is nice, it's not a bad premise but it does leave a bit to be desired. I know it's a cartoon but it feels that being short and having the main characters mainly tweet and not talk kind of bites this short in the tail feathers.

When the girl just up and leaves with the performing troupe, why exactly? I can understand the allure of fame and fortune is very tempting for someone who's young and may be from a more humble background, but still, it feels kind of selfish on her part to just leave her man like that easily. Also, this shows how our culture has changed since 1936, as nowadays, if someone were to just up and leave you like that, you forget about them and leave them to the streets. But in this short, the male bird flies to win her back. I understand that this is a common trope in stories, and perhaps I'm just bitter from real life, but it feels like a fool's pursuit for the male bird to get his girl back who may not even want to go back with him. If she is willing to up and leave him just like that, then she'll do that with every relationship she's in. Again I know it's a cartoon, but that's just what was going through my mind in regards to the characters' characterization.

And another thing, why exactly did the performing leader kick the girl bird out? We don't see what happened in the nightclub they were in. Like what did she do that caused him to kick her out? Was he just using her? What happened? This is where I feel this being a short harms the story as we the audience don't know what caused the sudden heel-face turn of the performing leader to leave the girl bird out in the snow all of a sudden. It could've used a bit more fleshing out.

But I will give the part where she kisses the picture and seems to regret her actions and the reunion and ending with the male bird being sweet. But again I still feel that the male bird should've just told the girl bird to beat it and have that nice nest all to himself.

So overall it's a nice little short. Certain aspects of the short's plot could've had more development, the characterization is certainly dated in this day in age, but I still found it charming. The music in the short is solid, with Hawaiian music at the beginning being very relaxing and dreamlike, and the music perfectly captures the drama of the two birds when they're in New York trying to find each other. The animation is solid with charming character designs and fluid motions, with the girl bird clearly taking inspiration from Betty Boop who is also a Fleischer Studios creation, and what little voice work is in the short is done well. And while the story is again kind of bland it at least has a clear 3 act structure and I guess some character development since we see that the girl bird learned her lesson and goes back to live a nice life with her love in the paradise of Hawaii.

It could use more development in the plot department and perhaps a bit longer run time to flesh out the story a bit more. But overall compared to the other Color Classics I saw this one feels a bit more complete and fulfilling.

Worth a watch for old-school animation fans, just don't expect Disney or Warner Bros level storytelling.