This is probably one of the inspirations for Toy Story - toys coming to life in a toy shop, instigated by a spider who slipped into the shop during a snowstorm. Not much of story here - just a bunch of toys going and moving about. No humor, not much entertainment - just a lot of noise.Grade D

Oh I just love the animation of the opening scene with the blizzard of snow at night, it's so beautiful and emotive and it's an image that you see time and again throughout the Silly Symphonies and early animated shorts in general. But I always love it, it's always so well done and immediately sets such a tone. Being the time that it was made I know it couldn't be helped, but a little colour really wouldn't have gone amiss here, a monochromatic toyshop doesn't exactly convey a whole lot of wonder and I think this would have been a much better short if it had been colourized. And it feels odd having a spider as the protagonist instead of just having it be about a shopful of toys that come to life at night, and the toys in this don't really come alive, it's so vague that you can't be sure. Except for the dancing dolls which I found slightly creepy especially the stereotypical black one that croaks out "Mammie!" Anyway spiders never make for lovable characters, even ones as annoying as this one! This Symphony is enjoyable but I find it a little on the plain side, it's very bare bones. The animators were still figuring out and honing their craft at this point. It's all just about animating things around the music as the spider goes into the toyshop to escape the cold and gets into so much trouble scaring himself with the toys and eventually some firecrackers that he decides he'd rather stay outside! I enjoy the Silly Symphonies better that have a little arc to them, like "The Cookie Carnival." But something that I love about all of these shorts is that you can often see very early signs of their later full length movie works, like for instance I find some of the interior of the toyshop similar to Gepetto's workshop in Pinocchio. This is good but there is far better that this series of classic cartoons has to offer. Very vintage, very cute.

Before you can get to see "Cannibal Capers" and a few other 'special' cartoons on the "Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies" DVD set, you are forced to watch an introduction by Leonard Maltin. He talks about the times in which they were made and how politically incorrect the films are. I am not against this, but hate how once you view it, you must ALWAYS view Maltin's speech again if you come back to any of the offensive cartoons. The same thing happens in some of the other Treasures DVDS--such as the second Donald Duck set.This short has the innocuous title "Midnight in a Toy Shop" and so I was anxious to know what was politically incorrect about it. It begins with a HUGE spider sneaking into the toy shop--and I assume it's because it's snowing. Once inside, the spider bumbles into various toys, plays a piano and dances. And I continue waiting to see what's so offensive. Then, out of the blue, a black doll starts dancing and saying 'Mammy'. Well, it looks like I found the problematic scene after all! Unlike most Silly Symphony shorts, this one is practically plot less. While this is not unheard of, it keeps it from being a very good cartoon--as does the Mammy doll. It's not a terrible cartoon, but it has issues!

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon.Driven by a storm, a large six-legged spider finds itself at MIDNITE IN A TOYSHOP. The nasty creature gets to witness what happens when the toys come to life and begin to frolic about.With almost an invisible plot, this black & white cartoon was an exercise in form & movement, action & reaction. The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.