The concept sounded quite sweet and charming, and could have been both those things if done correctly. Famous Studios have always varied on that front with these types of premises and that was clear in the worst of their very variable Screen Song cartoons. The studio made their fair share of decent to great cartoons, as well as their fair share of misfires or below average cartoons in all the decades it was active and in all their various theatrical series.
1949's 'Spring Song' is one of the misses, and sadly it is a pretty drastic miss. That is being said with sincere regret as a fan of animation and who has, as said, liked to loved quite a good deal of the studio's output. One of the worst Screen Song cartoons, and it is a shame speaking as somebody who loves spring (being somebody who was born in the spring) and likes song based cartoons a lot better than most. The concept for 'Spring Song' was nice enough, if unoriginal, but went way too far on the extreme of over cutesiness and sugar overload.
'Spring Song' does have sporadic good things, that are fortunately major. The best things are the animation and music, two common strengths in this series. Especially the latter, which was consistently of a high standard throughout the studio's run even in lesser efforts. The orchestration has a lot of energy and there are some truly luscious sounds throughout. The animation was not as consistent for the studio overall, with the quality declining when the studio did but throughout the 40s to mid-50s it was a strength. As one can tell, to me it was one of the compensations here, nice colours and the attention to detail in the backgrounds was admirable (also fitting the material and the song arrangements beautifully). The titular song is just lovely and is one of the better ones in the series.
Did think too that it started off quite well and charmingly.
It did however fall drastically downhill too early and never recovers. 'Spring Song' does suffer from a story that is incredibly weak and completely lacking in any kind of creativity agreed, even though one doesn't expect a story that blows the mind not people would expect to find some so non-existent and little more than a stringing along of excessively sugary sweet scenes and predictable material. The gags are barely there and nowhere near enough and the few that were pretty much were stale, not funny and old well before this was produced.
Found the cartoon quite repetitive as well and none of the characters are interesting or appealing. Instead very bland and like the cartoon was trying too hard to make them cute. It is very low on energy, especially in the second half where 'Spring Song' is especially dull, and if one likes to have two sugars in their tea watching 'Spring Song' was like having ten times that much, that's how over sweet it was to the point of being sickly.
As much as it pains me to say it, this was a pretty sorry misfire apart from the animation and music. 3/10.
1949's 'Spring Song' is one of the misses, and sadly it is a pretty drastic miss. That is being said with sincere regret as a fan of animation and who has, as said, liked to loved quite a good deal of the studio's output. One of the worst Screen Song cartoons, and it is a shame speaking as somebody who loves spring (being somebody who was born in the spring) and likes song based cartoons a lot better than most. The concept for 'Spring Song' was nice enough, if unoriginal, but went way too far on the extreme of over cutesiness and sugar overload.
'Spring Song' does have sporadic good things, that are fortunately major. The best things are the animation and music, two common strengths in this series. Especially the latter, which was consistently of a high standard throughout the studio's run even in lesser efforts. The orchestration has a lot of energy and there are some truly luscious sounds throughout. The animation was not as consistent for the studio overall, with the quality declining when the studio did but throughout the 40s to mid-50s it was a strength. As one can tell, to me it was one of the compensations here, nice colours and the attention to detail in the backgrounds was admirable (also fitting the material and the song arrangements beautifully). The titular song is just lovely and is one of the better ones in the series.
Did think too that it started off quite well and charmingly.
It did however fall drastically downhill too early and never recovers. 'Spring Song' does suffer from a story that is incredibly weak and completely lacking in any kind of creativity agreed, even though one doesn't expect a story that blows the mind not people would expect to find some so non-existent and little more than a stringing along of excessively sugary sweet scenes and predictable material. The gags are barely there and nowhere near enough and the few that were pretty much were stale, not funny and old well before this was produced.
Found the cartoon quite repetitive as well and none of the characters are interesting or appealing. Instead very bland and like the cartoon was trying too hard to make them cute. It is very low on energy, especially in the second half where 'Spring Song' is especially dull, and if one likes to have two sugars in their tea watching 'Spring Song' was like having ten times that much, that's how over sweet it was to the point of being sickly.
As much as it pains me to say it, this was a pretty sorry misfire apart from the animation and music. 3/10.
