"Parrotville Old Folks" is a cartoon from Van Beuren Studios--a cartoon producer for less than a decade during the late 1920s and into the 30s. While their cartoons were of decent quality compared to most companies of the time, the quality of their work never came close to rivaling Disney. Part of this was due to the deficiencies of the art and writing of the cartoons but part wasn't really Van Beuren's fault. Disney had an exclusive contract with Technicolor for full-color film stock for several years. Tinier studios like Van Beuren either had to make black & white cartoons of use the less advanced (and uglier) two- color film-- such as with the Cinecolor you see in this particular short. Because it was not true color, the film is made up mostly of oranges and blues and comes off as a bit garish.
About the only thing "Parrotville Old Folks" has going for it is some decent animation. Otherwise, the plot is a cutesy mess. The Captain receives a phone call from the old folks home asking him and his son (I guess this is his son or lover or nephew...I dunno) to come over and entertain the residents with music. Most of the rest consists of unfunny jokes and lots and lots of insipid singing and dancing. This sort of thing is why so many 1930s cartoons sucked--they often lacked an edge and had that god-awful singing! Yuck!