A poor urchin boy makes his way through the blizzarding snow to the run-down old cabin he calls home, where he prepares to spend a cold hungry Christmas all alone...until he is unexpectedly visited by jolly old Saint Nick himself who bursts right through his rickety front door and whisks the little tyke away to his toy workshop where the toys are the all-singing all-dancing kind, and he finally gets to have the kind of magical happy Christmas he never dreamed he would! So I have seen far better animated vintage cartoons about Christmas over the years, including some real gems produced by the Fleischer Studios. This is nice enough though for what it is, it has some lovely rich touches to the animation here and there, like the shadows the church casts over the snow, and all the snow-covered rooftops as well as some of the backgrounds. Even in the earlier Fleischer shorts, snow in particular and backgrounds seemed to be something they were always good at, all of their snowy scenes always have the same warm dreamlike quality to me, and is always quite beautiful to look at. Some of the other designs I do not like as much though, like the button-eyed face of the boy, he looks like a white Bosko. And some of the casually racial stereotypes that seem to pop up in just about every cartoon from the 30s probably won't sit well with the more conscientious of viewers - watch out for the naughty jazz band! I really don't like when the fat lady starts to sing, as it's really bizarre and off-putting and really brings the pace of the short to a grinding halt. If there's one thing I don't care for at all with the old-time cartoons it's all the obnoxious celebrity(of the time) cameos! Overall though the style of the Fleischer animation is one that never fails to at least put a smile on my face. I love their trademark inventiveness with the kinds of sight gags that you'd only ever get in one of their cartoons, like with the makeshift multi-firehose that's hastily made out of the bagpipes! This wasn't anyway near perfect but I could appreciate what it was going for and it's enjoyable enough. It's clear they were still learning the ropes at this point. As a short, it is a shanty for sure, but it's a fun sweet one! Happy hols X

. . . Warner Bros.' warning division of Animated Shorts Seers (aka, their Looney Tunes prognosticators) were WITTING prophets of the upcoming Calamities, Catastrophes, Cataclysms, and Apocalypti facing We Americans of (the then) Far Future, or rather were receiving their Cassandra-like Revelations in a trance-like state of Mass Psychosis. When one examines THE SHANTY WHERE SANTA CLAUS LIVES for clues to answering this burning question, it's best to view SHANTY with its live-action prologue in the 8 minute, 53 second version. There we see a family of four (plus a mutt) gathered under the family Christmas Tree as Proud Pops screens SHANTY in lieu of any other Christmas presents. About six minutes later, the Yule Tree in Santa's SHANTY catches fire! It's hard to imagine a more ominous set of circumstances, especially in the midst of Holiday Season. No one in their right mind would INTENTIONALLY create such Dark Art. But think about it. The recent fire sale of America to our new American Czar the Red Commie KGB Monster Vlad "Mad Dog" Putin and his Puppet Rump occurred during the middle of a snowy Holiday Season, just as pictured by the Looney Tuners here. The orphan boy bamboozled into a Death Ride on Santa's Sleigh to a Siberian Gulag Fire Trap obviously symbolizes Czar Putin's deluded Red State Enablers, those folks guilty of conspiring to commit High Treason against America's Hallowed Constitution by activating its Racist "Electoral College" self-destruct clause for the fifth and final time (ALL FIVE crimes against Democracy perpetrated by what's now been co-opted as Putin's Deplorable Party; though America suffered mightily in the previous four instances of Racist Electoral College Meddling, this fifth outrage threatens to end us!). Certainly the weight of the evidence is that the Looney Tuners are America's Leading Oracles through Divine Intervention, rather than being conscious Futurists.

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (1933) *** (out of 4)Good short from Merrie Melodies has an orphan stumbling through the snow on Christmas Eve when she eventually bumps into Santa Claus. The jolly fat man takes the child for a ride and they land at a house where all the toys are being made. With a good song and dance sequence, we see the toys come to life and perform for the child. THE SHANTY WHERE SANTY CLAUS LIVES runs just around 7-minutes and it's pretty delightful from start to finish. Even though the film is in B&W I think a lot of kids today would still enjoy it because the visuals are terrific, the song is nice and there's no question that there's just something unique about seeing Santa in B&W. That big red outfit is just so familiar that I always enjoy seeing these shorts where Santa is shown in B&W. Perhaps this is just a strange thing of mine but I think the vintage image that comes with B&W just really adds an extra layer to the Santa myth. I was also very impressed with the images and especially the winder wonderland and the stuff dealing with Santa flying through the air.

This Hugh Harmon-Rudy Ising Merrie Melodies cartoon short produced by Leon Schlesinger for Warner Bros. tells the story of a poor boy who gets invited by Santa to go with him to his shanty to watch all the toys come to life. That's basically the plot of the story with some unfortunate blackface stereotypes in some scenes. Still mostly enjoyable with some entertaining musical sequences like the title song and a Kate Smith doll singing, "Shine on Harvest Moon". It was during this period that the Merrie Melodies shorts' purpose was to showcase a song that was published by the Warner Bros. publisher in each short with the showcased song's title the name of the film. That's the case here. Recommended for anyone who are Warner cartoon completists.