Foreverisacastironmess123 Review of Balloon Land

Balloon Land (1935)

I suddenly feel so guilty about popping balloons!

[8/10 · 17 July 2013]

I just love the good cartoons of this classic era that feature characters and settings that are totally unique to them, and they surely don't come much more different than this one! It sort of has the weird streak of a Fleischer short, but was also extremely delightful, I loved the bizarre globular proportions of all the rubbery buildings in the hazy backgrounds of Balloon Land, as well as its residents. What an uncanny, cool idea-an entire little floating kingdom of rubber! All the bright cheerful colours were just beautiful, and set a fun carnival tone and atmosphere-I want a balloon duck! The most fun that I got out of this was simply appreciating all those wonderful colours and designs. ::: The peculiar-looking cackling pointy villain, and the whole idea behind him was so interesting and sinister! Now what could a world of cuddly-wuddly balloon people ever have to fear, if not to be popped? The simplicity and effectiveness of that little plot-device was such a little stroke of genius because it's so obvious you'd probably never think of it! He sounded a lot like the wolf from "The Three Little Pigs" Silly Symphony. With all the pins I assume being outlawed, it was the one outlaw who eventually ended up with all the pins...ha! I love the funny villainous song he sings in which he proudly boasts of how much all the balloon folks fear and despise him so! He never once actually pokes anyone with his pins, he throws them all like darts to pop his victims. It's funny, if those were 'people', instead of squishy-squashy balloon people, then this would basically be a little slasher horror cartoon wouldn't it? I don't get why some see this as being all dark and scary. Yeah it does have a certain antiquated edginess to it, the spindly walking pincushion is an impressive menace, but I wouldn't exactly call him nightmarish unless you're a little kid. And yes he does 'kill' a few balloon citizens-I don't really think the goofball they had guarding the door counts, as he was kinda too dumb to live! I also thought the inventive sequence where he's overwhelmed by the soldiers was surprisingly violent as he was first trapped in the ball of tree sap and then sent rolling over a cliff to his doom, screaming all the way! But I still found the overall show a little on the tame side... A short that I would definitely describe as daring is the 1932 Silly Symphony "King Neptune". ::: So many of these really old cartoons are so much better than all the soulless crud they churn out today. They don't rely on 'hip', crude humour to win over their audience, and I just plain like the older animation style better because you can occasionally see how much more care and time has gone into it to make it so special and memorable. Now it's all become so much loathsome unworthy computer-generated garbage-who'd have ever thought that the hand-drawn animation would have one day become effectively rendered extinct!? Bah!!! ::: Let your lighter side out and enjoy this little curio! If you enjoy the slightly unusual or bizarre it's guaranteed to not turn out to be a great big letdown! See ya.