"To Spring" - Happy Harmonies (1936)

This winter has seemed to drag on forever, so I thought I’d repost this cartoon from last year. It seems to fit the yo-yo like weather which we have been experiencing here for the past month or so. Hopefully we have seen the last of the bad weather until next year…

The MGM series of Happy Harmonies cartoons were really not preserved as well as many of the other cartoons of the era. However, there are still some real gems out there. Like this one, “To Spring”, in which the elves are awakened from their winter’s nap by the dripping of the melting ice which slowly sets off the alarm clock to awaken them to their annual task. It is a very important one, too.

You see, these elves are in charge of putting color back into the world after the bleak period of winter has passed. They seem to be enjoying themselves until Old Man Winter makes one final push to regain control over the elements, keeping things cold and bleak. But the elves are up to the challenge, restoring the world to its colorful array of beauty and its natural cycle of life.

"Jack Frost" - A UB Iwerks Cartoon (1934)

It’s the dead of winter and everyone is hibernating except for the baby bear. When he runs away from home he finds that Old Man Winter has some wicked things in store for him. But, by chance; or maybe something more; Jack Frost comes to his rescue, saving the little bear from the ravages of the cold.

Cartoons like these were a mainstay when I was a kid. You actually learned something from them. In this one the lesson is clear; don’t bite off more than you can chew. But if you do, it’s okay; there is someone who cares enough to help you.

Is that unrealistic? I don’t know; perhaps in some ways it is. But the greater good is in the hope that these cartoons engendered in the hearts and minds of those who watched them, heeding their siren like call. And these lessons, once learned, never leave the mind, holding one in good stead during the darkest of times.

How do I know this for a certainty? Easy; when I was a kid my Mom was very ill; frequently in the hospital for months at time. There was never a year in which this did not occur. That was my “Old Man Winter." Cartoons, books, movies and music; these things all became my own personal “Jack Frosts’.” That’s why these cartoons were so special to me then, and continue to be so now.

"To Spring" - Happy Harmonies (1936)

The MGM series of Happy Harmonies cartoons were really not preserved as well as many of the other cartoons of the era. However, there are still some real gems out there. Like this one, “To Spring”, in which the elves are awakened from their winter’s nap by the dripping of the melting ice which slowly sets off the alarm clock to awaken them to their annual task. It is a very important one, too.

You see, these elves are in charge of putting color back into the world after the bleak period of winter has passed. They seem to be enjoying themselves until Old Man Winter makes one final push to regain control over the elements, keeping things cold and bleak. But the elves are up to the challenge, restoring the world to its colorful array of beauty and its natural cycle of life.