User Reviews

This is actually a pretty fair short, for all that it's all but inescapable to compare and contrast with Disney's The Wise Little Hen, given that they have the same fable as a starting point. The Iwerks version is actually as good or better in some respects, but Iwerks was really better off avoiding direct comparison to his once and future employer. They weren't the only studio to make this mistake, as Fleischer Studios also tried to out-Disney Disney, with less than successful results. Still, this is a charming little cartoon with a rather cute little song. Most definitely worth seeing. Recommended.

While not one of my favourites, Ub Iwerks was responsible for a lot of interesting work. Especially when working with Walt Disney, his oldest friend and one of his best, and co-creating one of animation's most famous characters in Mickey Mouse. His career since opening his own studio had interest value but the quality was variable, often being successful in the animation and music but wanting in the story and variable in gags, lead characters and tone.

1933 to 1936 saw twenty five cartoons, mostly based on famous fairytales and familiar stories, as part of Iwerks's "ComiColor" series. The "ComiColor" series is very much worth watching and interesting, as is the case with many series some cartoons are better than others but there are no real animation nadirs. 1934's 'The Little Red Hen' is a pretty good pleasant watch, with a few issues but a lot of big strengths.

'The Little Red Hen', while faithfully adhering to the basic details of the story while putting its own spin, is slight and is at times a little too cutesy and lays on its admittedly important and still relevant moral a bit too thick.

However, 'The Little Red Hen' in no way disgraces the story and has enough freshness to stop it from being stale. It avoids the over sentimental factor and is never dull.

There are amusing gags, that aren't too corny and never repetitive, it's very charming, endearingly wild at times and there is a genuine likeability and cuteness. The characters drive 'The Little Red Hen' well, with a very likeable titular character whose antics can be surprisingly inventive.

Furthermore, the animation is great. Meticulously detailed, fluid in drawing, vibrant in colour and often rich in imagination and visual wit. The music is cleverly and lushly orchestrated, is infectiously catchy and adds a lot to the cartoon. The song is very memorable and clever.

Overall, pretty good. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The Little Red Hen (1934)

*** (out of 4)

This Ub Iwerks animated short features the same good and same not- so- good elements that most of his films from this era had. This is based on the classic fairy tale of a hard working hen who constantly asks for help on the farm but gets rejected. That is, the hen gets rejected until the lazy animals need something. This is actually a fairy entertaining short thanks in large part to the Technicolor and the animation itself. Iwerks was a genius when it came to animation but sadly he often times found himself working with smaller budgets and not the best of stories. He made several fairy tale movies during this era and this here ranks among the best thanks in large part to the before mentioned animation but I also thought the story itself was quite good. It also didn't hurt that the hen character was so likable as well as the song being sung.

The quality of the animation and color from this Ub Iwerks cartoon is splendid...about as good as any of his contemporaries. This was a huge improvement over many of Iwerks' earlier solo cartoons and this alone make it worth seeing. Unfortunately, apart from this, the cartoon is horrible...the sort of thing that made most of the 1930s cartoons incredibly tough to watch once good cartoons became the rage with MGM and Warner Brothers in the 40s and 50s. What do I mean by this? Instead of filling many of these cartoons with jokes, the cartoons consist of cutesy songs and very ham-fisted moral lessons...and "The Little Red Hen" is clearly one of these type of cartoons. Instead of simply telling the age old story, it sings it and manages to nauseate most viewers today. It's the sort of stuff that may have played reasonably well in the day but which are incredibly dated today...and are the main reason Ub Iwerks' solo career soon would come to a halt. There was simply no edge, no humor to these insipid cartoons.

This turned out to be better than I thought at first. It looked very dated and boring but it wound up interesting and clever in its own right. It's a "tale" of the "Little Red Hen" and her quest to feed her little chicks. Most of this - but not all - is done in song, either by the hen or by some singing the introductions to the three parts of the tale.

The hen asks her buddies: a pig, a duck and a mouse to help her make a patch to grow a wheat, then seed it, harvest it, bake it and eat it. They decline on every count but the last. The pig says he's too fat to work; the duck says his feet are too flat, and the mouse says, "ask the cat."

The song, sung in three stanzas, is catchy and the inventiveness of the hen is entertaining to watch.