A less than rudimental short that goes through its running without actually doing much of any importance, like say being actually entertaining. Indeed outside of it being the debut short of an iconic character it really has little to perk anyone’s interest. Personally I find it so dull that I don’t think I’ll be watching it much anymore after writing this review.
The animation is, well, Disney quality and ran rings round everyone else’s work at the time. Well timed and crisp and colourful without being anything approaching garish; something helped by Disney’s monopoly on the Technicolor process at the time and the ink ‘n paint and background artists expertise with it. That said, like many Silly Symphonies of the time, animation does repeat itself and the whole feels unsatisfying and shallow.
The story and the script is pulled straight from the fable, the dialogue of the characters is fun to listen too, at least a few times (after that it becomes tedious). The voice-artists play on animal characteristics so that the wise hen clucks some of her lines while Peter Pig grunts all of his. Donald sounds like Donald. The music is forgettable and uninspired, which is a problem for a series which is primarily music centric.
In the end however, it is just a dull, mediocre short that is only worth noting because of whom it stars. The importance of Donald to Disney’s history cannot be disputed, but the duck we see here has little to do with the rambunctious tyke who would go on to eclipse Mickey in popularity. In fact here, Donald is nothing but a shade of Peter Pig, a one-shot character whom Donald basically copies throughout the whole short. Donald would have to wait until his next cartoon to develop a sense of individuality, in the black and white Mickey Mouse cartoon Orphan’s Benefit.
So while this may be a short that may be of historic interest to those who want to see a famous character before they hit their mark, those interested in seeing an entertaining cartoon featuring the antagonistic mallard should look elsewhere, quite a long way elsewhere.
/ 2 reviews)
Reviews for The Wise Little Hen
