These 7.5 minutes we have here are a Disney color cartoon from 1933, so the very early days of the Golden Age of Animation. It was directed by Wilfred Jackson, one of the company's finest. Well what can you say here. The looks of characters and landscapes are really amazing visually and this film is so far ahead of its time it isn't even funny. The music is also on a very high level and this one is evidence that Disney really is not relying on their trademark characters (Mickey, Donald) when it comes to making quality films. I am amazed and not surprised that this one really made it as a cartoon of under 10 minutes into the list of NBR's top10 films back then from that year. The story is good too and has a nice moral. Also this is really one movie where ecerybody has shades and you don't always see that in (old) animation. The rats early on, the piper and the townsfolk. Everybody is somehow bad in its own right, but you can make an argument for everybody too why they do what they do, even if it is certainly quite a challenge for the townsfolk. At the end, Disney keeps it light and charming with the kids arriving in Toyland and that boy even losing his crutches hides the fact very well that the parents all lost their children, even the innocents who maybe wanted to pay the piper for what he did with the rats. The stork scene was a nice addition and overall with this ending Disney definitely keeps it family friendly. I was tempted at times to give this one an even higher rating, it is definitely among the very best 1933 has to offer in terms of film, not just short film. I especially liked the piper's looks. So yeah, no hesitation here, I think you really wanna check this one out. Big thumbs-up.

Another reviewer cites this story as a morality tale with a happy ending. Well I don't know about that, I saw all those kids sealed off from the rest of the world behind that mountain entrance into an unknown place. The Piper called it Joyland, but how would we ever know?So there's a bit of a creepy factor in all this that most viewers won't take the time to recognize or acknowledge. On the flip side though, I can't disagree with the Pied Piper's getting his revenge on the citizens and Mayor who promised a bag of gold to get rid of the town's rodent problem, and then reneged on the deal. They had it coming to them by and large, but it seemed a heavy price to pay.I'm probably putting too much thought into this story, after all it was a Silly Symphony and I guess the objective was to be light hearted and silly. It worked for the most part, but maybe the Piper could have simply banished the Mayor to a life of servitude.

This is a color Silly Symphony produced by the Disney studio. There will be spoilers ahead:If you know the basic plot of the poem upon which this is based, then you know the bulk of the story here. But since this was done by Disney, there have been changes to make it less dark in tone in some ways and to make the Pied Piper seem more kindly than simply a disgruntled contractor getting even with someone who cheated him.This is essentially a mini-opera, with everything sung. The rats display more defined character than the humans typically do here and the scenes with the rats are better animated and more interesting.The piper is hired to rid the town of rats, which he does slightly more humanely than the original does (they vanish in a block of cheese instead of drowning) and the piper is cheated by the mayor and the townspeople. He threatens to pipe the children away and the adults mock and deride him. The children are shown as being the only ones who do any work, so being taken is more a liberation than a kidnapping. One change made corrects what I see as an injustice (though I'm biased) and thus I like the ending. The colors are a bit off, but it's technically well done.This short is available on the Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies DVD set. It's worth getting.

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.Hamelin Town is beset with an infestation of rats and the harried Mayor is only too glad to offer THE PIED PIPER a bag of gold to rid them of the plague. But once the rodents are removed, the Mayor reneges on his promise, leaving the Piper to take a most effective revenge...This cartoon offers a good interpretation of the story from the famous Robert Browning poem. Notice how some of the elements of the original have been altered by Disney: the rats no longer drown, they are simply made to vanish into thin air; and the Hamelin children are shown to be used almost as slave labor by their parents, making their removal by the Piper more like a rescue.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.