"The Sunshine Makers" was sponsored by Borden and it's the sort of film that just screams out 'THIS IS JUST A GIANT ADVERTISEMENT' to the audience. I noticed one reviewer loved it--I just thought it was a blatant attempt by Borden to brain-wash audiences.The film consists of happy gnomes (which I think are supposed to represent Borden) and nasty creatures in black who LIKE gloom and depression. However, the happy gnomes squirt milk (huh?!) on the gloomy guys and it makes their black clothes spread sunshine!! Naturally, the gloomy guys don't like this and do on the attack. But, with the power of milk (one of Borden's biggest selling products), the cute gnomes vanquish the dark jerks and spread color (or at least Cinecolor with its rather limited color spectrum) all about. Three cheers for the gnomes...those corporate shills! Preachy and dumb but at least the animation is reasonably good for 1935.

As now, I had a voracious appetite for movies and television and a memory that doesn't quit even after 61 years. As a kid growing up in northern NJ, I had access to the NY/NJ television broadcast market from my youngest years. The first time I saw The Sunshine Makers it made a deep impression on a 3 to 4 year old that I carried through the years. It was broadcast on Newark's Channel 13 and was shown as a "cartoon" along with "Farmer Gray" and the mostly middling fare of which I discerned even then. I had even visited the NJ studio and sat in what is now considered the "peanut gallery" of the old Uncle Fred's Junior Frolics several times. Unfortunately, The Sunshine Makers weren't shown during my presence or I would have had my Aunt and cousin to remember or discuss it with. Now I glad I hadn't seen it in person and hadn't discussed it with them because their opinions, in hindsight, may have dismissed it.It was like no other cartoon that I saw in those early days of television. While I couldn't express terms like theme, plot, character, etc., I tried to convey to my parents and friends what I saw and the impression it made on me. To this day I had never encountered another person who had seen it until I read the comments on this media. The movie was only 15-16 years old when I saw it! While I won't describe what I saw (mainly because it would be repetitive to Raymond's, cc...'s, & HippieRockChick's description) the good vs evil theme affected me in a primitive way. But the biggest impression was the song/refrain "I'm only happy when I'm sad" in the bass tones came back to me more than a few times during my disaffected 'yute' (as Vinny Gambini might say) or when I had the blues.Where can I get a copy of it?

I remember seeing this cartoon on TV (Channel 13, an early 50's incarnation of PBS) here in NYC. I was four or five years old, and I thought it was totally cool.That channel also deserves the glory of running the Farmer Gray cartoons, my first exposure to classical music)---I heard a song that stayed in my head for twenty years, until I finally heard someone playing it and found out its name (the old English country dance tune known as "Sellenger's Round" or "The Beginning of the World").Anyway, I saw "The Sunshine Makers" there, and then promptly forgot about it until I saw it on the light show screen at the Fillmore East, many years and some illicit substances later. Stoned, we loved it...I still do. SO extremely weird. There were other cartoons the Fillmore East ran, including one with Tommy Popski that was all about immigrants and their "funny" names. Hey, social conscience! Rocks.

(SPOILER although it isn't much.) In its eight years of existence from 1928 to 1936, the Van Beuren animation studio never achieved the illustriousness of other studios like those of Walt Disney and Max Flesicher. They never developed a star like Mickey Mouse or Betty Boop and their cartoons, on a whole, did not create a lasting impression. However, the studio did produce a few authentic gems. THE SUNSHINE MAKERS is one of these gems.The story isn't much. Cheerful gnomes spread happiness through bottled sunshine milk. Miserable goblins decide to spoil the fun with gloom-inducing gas. A battle erupts and the gnomes bombard the goblins with sunshine milk, turning them into happy, lovable creatures.What makes the cartoon memorable is the way the story is presented. First of all, the animation crew under the direction of Ted Eshbuagh and Burt Gillette devise a picturesque fantasy world. Even in the faded print I saw, the contrast between the gnomes' rosy world and the goblins' grim milieu is well established. The gnomes are depicted in bright hued in sunny, pastoral surroundings. On the other hand, the goblins are drably hued in a bleak, Gothic environment. Winston Sharples's music enhances the atmosphere, buoyant for the gnomes and sombre for the goblins.Then there's the climactic battle. The animation stuff imaginatively illustrates the effects of sunshine milk on the goblins and their environment. Particularly memorable is a scene where two goblins undergo the effects of sunshine milk. Their skin brightens, they begin to smile, and they start to sing and dance. Meanwhile flowers sprout in the background, brightening their milieu. Sharples' score enhances the war scenes, building to a lively crescendo.One cannot fully appreciate THE SUNSHINE MAKERS from reading this review. It's one of these pictures that seem trite on paper but are remarkable on the screen. One cannot articulate WHY it's so remarkable-one can only feel exhilarated from watching it. If all of Van Beuren's cartoons were so memorable, the studio might have dominated the animation field rather than dwindled into oblivion.