User Reviews

I have been pleasantly surprised at a number of these early 1930s Van Buren cartoons, but this one left me pretty cold. There really wasn't much to it and where was the humor?

All it is, basically, is a musical. Some old-man elves sing, and toy soldiers, the three blind mice and Humpty Dumpty, Mary and her little lamb all dance in various way. We also see spoons and a cow jump over the moon. You know all the stories.

As for the main story here, Mother Goose and a scarecrow are seen wooing each other and dancing a b it. "Oh, dear, I'm not myself tonight," says Mother Goose, who apparently ha s the hots for the scarecrow. A nearby duck gives her the raspberry. The two ignore it and start hugging romantically. A crow, standing next to the duck, asks "How long has this been going on?" That's the "scandal," apparently.

It w as okay, not terrible, but not really a cartoon I would watch a second time .

As quickly as we may dismiss some of these shorts out of hand, we cannot overlook the fact that the major animators of the day and those yet to become major animators were watching...because the craft of animation is the province of the animator. I see elements in this one that could have inspired Disney with his seven dwarfs some years down the road. The main fault in this one is the lack of a clear story line that would keep the viewer interested, and very poor character development. Cartoons of this period appear to have an assembly-line construction..."just crank out this or that and keep in step with the competition"...or "keep our contract fulfilled"...not the best way to perform with quality in mind, as we have dis-covered in ensuing years. But as theatres were the main medium during this period, and TV was yet a glimmer on the vast horizon, the "gold in them thar hills" was in releasing product as quickly as possible for most production houses. Van Bueren was only starting to produce shorts of a true quality when Van Beuren died, and the production and music crews were scattered to the wind. No doubt it could have become a significant if not a major player in the game with the talent it had begun to attract by the mid 1930s. But we can never know now... This effort with Mother Goose carrying on with a corn-field scare-crow is a swipe at an old biddy who is past her prime and so desperate for a love life that even the animals and the children as well as the other characters from Mother Goose-land are taken aback and somewhat appalled. The absurdity of it is so obvious, it is a wonder that it would attract anyone's attention for a protracted period of time. It was a difficult watch in some ways, but I kept in mind the period of its release and the tone and timbre of the times, as well as the mind-set and expectations of the audiences. This one has a pre-code look to it, and anything goes there...but it could have been made more interesting by better story development, and certainly by focusing on characters as opposed to just having animated forms appear on the screen for reasons that are not clearly defined...and which remain undefined throughout the duration of the entire short. I give this short a 4 rating, and I feel I am being overly generous at that. One watching is sufficient...you may not want to sit through this one a second time, unless you are punishing yourself for something you did...or didn't do.

"Nursery Scandal" is a cartoon short from Van Buren Studios, a second (or perhaps third) tier anmation studio. While the artwork isn't horrible, it is definitely inferior to the more prestigious studios of the day, such as Disney or the Fleischer Brothers.

This one features a romance between a scarecrow and Mother Goose. Unfortunately, everyone (including the main characters) spend most of the cartoon dancing about...something that no double would NOT please most audiences. It makes it seem as if there isn't a lot of plot...just padding.

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.

While there are definitely worse Aesop's Fables/Van Beuren cartoons, overall and even from that year, 'Nursery Scandal' is hardly a great, or even good, cartoon. There was an interesting idea here that was underwhelming execution-wise. There are nursery rhyme-based cartoons that have done this concept or cartoons with stories revolving around the nursery rhyme theme much better, Disney and Fleischer for examples. Cartoons that are funnier, have more imagination, charm, coherence and with a high standard of visuals.

None of which 'Nursery Scandal' had. Its main plus point is the music score. It is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action.

Of the nursery rhyme antics, the three blind mice segment fares best. That was pretty amusing and generally it was fun to see and recognise the different nursery rhyme characters. The cartoon is another example of the studio getting more inventive and ambitious with their backgrounds.

However, a lot works against 'Nursery Scandal'. Basically it's one long extended song and dance number with one amusing sequence and then everything else being a mixture of hectic pacing, personality deprived and charmless characters and far too few gags that go well overboard on the bizarre-ness and sugar. Furthermore, the animation is really not great, aside from the backgrounds, with everything about the character designs epitomising pure erratic sloppiness.

There is a very random feeling to how what little there is of the story, the only signs of one being with Mother Goose which had little charm and tried too hard to be cute. The gags are also disorganised and almost disconnected from each other, meaning the cartoon constantly feels choppy and lacking in coherence. While there is a hectic feel to the way the cartoon is paced and animated the timing of the few gags is pretty perfunctory.

All in all, strange and unfortunately not in a good way. 4/10 Bethany Cox

"Nursery Scandal" is a mostly nondescript cartoon fairly typical of that era of animation. There isn't much of a plot to speak of.

But that doesn't make the cartoon bad. In fact, this cartoon has a very impressive soundtrack, which keeps it engaging and is basically the main selling point here.