. . . of the genuine article that MGM producers Harman and Ising were starting to churn out in their earlier Warner Bros. days. BOTTLES never misses an opportunity to pull a punch, especially with its "This was all a dream" hackneyed closing. These bloated BOTTLES drag on for at least 25% longer than a comparable Warner Bros. Looney Tune, while encompassing well under half the action. None of the many "Things in a store come to life after hours"-themed Looney Tunes feel the need to include the trite and unnecessary framing device found here. The sight gags and puns in a Looney Tune of this nature are twice as clever, and come three times as fast. The "Ammonia Spirits" chase scene in BOTTLES is totally Lame & Tame compared to those packed into the final half of even a sub-par Looney Tune. The latter's cutting-edge ethnic humor with Pancake Mixes, Tamales, and the Gold Dust Twins also is MIA in these pathetic BOTTLES. In summary, BOTTLES are for babies!!

Working late one night an elderly chemist appears to be attacked in his sleep and shrunken down to bottle size by a wicked bottle of poison with a skull for a top and discovers that after dark all of the bottles in his store come to life to cavort and sing, while a couple of more sinisterly-designed containers plot something nasty for him in a more traditionally eerie dark corner of the dwelling... The idea of this short is pretty neat, although humble bottles by their very mundane nature sure ain't the most inspired of things with which to base a short cartoon around. But it's surprising just how creative they managed to be with such a different strange premise, and there's a good amount of striking and delightful sight gags involving the anthropomorphic bottles playing up to their namesakes, like the cold cream bottles have colds and are warming themselves by a little fire, annoying baby bottles wail in unison, ammonia spirits are literally spirits, and so forth.. Some of the gags are obvious and some not so, I love the red water bottle singing in a fine deep baritone out of its floppy mouth, and also the Indian ink charming a coil of toothpaste like a snake! The witch-hazel witch, poison skeleton and trio of ammonia spirits are some genuinely spooky creations I must say, great well placed touch of the macabre they made. The cackling skeleton is way scarier than the teeth chattering terrors from Disney's The Skeleton Dance! The short really kicks it up a notch when the skeleton seizes the poor old man and distils him through twisting tubes until he pops out the other end as tiny versions of himself which the fiend then sucks up with a syringe and injects into a bottle which he then attacks with scissors! And at the end, although what's revealed is an often-used plot device it's a good use of it. It does beg the question though, to have experienced such a bizarre and startling dream, did the old man inhale the vapours of some of his wares without realising it? It has an admirable amount of creativity put into it, and to say it was made in 1936 the animation is beautifully coloured and amazingly fluid. It's very old but nonetheless is a pretty cool and impressive short, it does command a certain unique niche amongst the legions of vintage animations. Good show!

It seems that one major theology of animation concerns the animating (meaning coming to life) of normally inanimate objects. Its one strain worth tracing, because with today's film technologies, animals can easily be seen to talk and even wear clothes and such. Its the power to make objects and environments have agency that gives great animation its power. And if you trace the evolution of the idea, you'll come through this. Its an unimaginative idea: a chemist/druggist mixes a poison, then dreams that it comes alive and evilly threatens him, together with all the other objects in the lab.As with all early attempts with object life, some of the objects must be juvenile, and the centerpiece here are three baby bottle who whine because their diapers are dirty.This was made toward the end of prohibition when use of opiates and marijuana became its great rise in popularity in the US, and that's the not so subtle subtext here.Unfortunately the animation itself isn't any great advance.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

1936 was the year Harman and Ising began to create good cartoons, but they remained wedded to a sentimental childishness that stopped them from achieving great cartoons. Ising would eventually overcome that, but Harman never quite did. Here, the problem is that we know the main character is sleeping, so his dreaming peril is not as frightening as it might be.The best thing about their cartoons from this period is their lush use of Technicolor. While this is not so over the top as TO SPRING, it shows some excellent visual glosses.The middle of this cartoon is a common one for Harman-Ising and for Schlesinger in this period: the contents of a bookstore, row of billboards or, in this case, the various brands in a drugstore. Some of them are still current. Enjoy spotting the ones you know.