Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Feeling a bit festive lately so this is one of old short animations that I thought I'd check out again after a long while. Um, it's adequate. I've seen way better Christmas-themed vintage cartoons though. The mass of Christ used to be my favourite of all the traditional holidays, before it was usurped by the darker and more fun magic of Halloween! When it starts though, oh my what a lovely enchanting opening scene of the busy workshop with the snow and sun around it in the North Pole, so exactly what generations of kids would picture in their heads when reminded of Santa's workplace. This short sees a most classic version of jolly Saint Nick reading off a long list of good and bad little children as his many elf helpers go about constructing the gifts that he will be delivering for Christmas Day. Like in all short animations now that I think about it, I love the smaller things in the animation like all the colourful wrapping paper and baubles in the backgrounds, and the machinery that helps build the rocking horses and when they're painting the blocks and the adorable little parade of wooden clockwork animals which was my favourite part of the short. Like with many of the Silly Symphonies in one way or another, there's a definite emphasis on the industry of what's going on, with the many working together to create some greater goal, and I always love to see that kind of imaginative animation on display. I do wish however, that the animators had opted to give Santa a nice rosy pink face, because I don't know if it was just the print that I watched, but he looks white as a dang ghost.. When Santa's teaching the dolls to say mama I just knew they couldn't resist having a black doll leap out and yell "Mammy!" Well I thought it was funny, and hey at least Santa appreciated her sass and didn't throw her back! It's a cute enough short with a bit of Christmas spirit behind it, but nothing about it leaps out at me that much at all. I liked the sequel Symphony "The Night Before Christmas" better. I mean it is over 84 fricking years old and is bound to be rough around the edges, but it's never the age or state of the animation that bothers me, only when a short is bland and fails to hit me! But regardless of my view of this particular short, I still love that good old-fashioned sweet heartwarming image of Christmas and I sincerely hope that young families of today still celebrate the season in that way with their kids because there's priceless emotional worth attached to those traditions that you don't fully appreciate until you're a little older. So give and love and feel that spirit of festivity and don't forget to be good, you know why! X

This is the sort of Disney film that played very, very well back in the day but today it would certainly not be received so warmly. This short is a snippet of the North Pole and Santa's workshop. It has little in the way of actual plot and mostly consists of singing and cuteness. Today, it would probably be seen as very saccharine and bland. Additionally, there are some unnecessary but typical racial stereotypes that will offend today but were considered perfectly normal back in the day. So, with all this going against it, why do I give this a 9? Well, the animation is simply gorgeous and it's in full Technicolor-- and nothing from any of the rival studios of the day came close when it came to quality. It simply looks great. Worth seeing even today but not up to the standards of many of the other Disney shorts of the day in regard to story.

Just watched this, a Walt Disney Silly Symphony, on YouTube. It's the first of two Disney cartoons that star Santa Claus (the other one was The Night Before Christmas). He checks his list which one of his elves monitor in a book that reveals each child's behavior. When one of the children is revealed to not have "washed behind the ears for seven years", Santa decides to add soap to this boy's long list of presents. Highly musically entertaining with some amusing gags like someone using a spider to scare some of the dolls' hair in an upright position and someone else painting exact checker squares in one fell swoop on a board. There's also one politically incorrect blackface doll that says, "Mammy!" to Claus that may be considered offensive today but was considered a highly amusing reference to then-star Al Jolson. Since it only lasts a few seconds, I don't think any harm is done. This was quite an entertaining animated short that I highly recommend to any animation fan especially Walt Disney completists. Children should enjoy this too.

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.As Christmas approaches, SANTA'S WORKSHOP becomes a beehive of activity, producing & quality testing a myriad of new toys, with the jolly old elf himself checking his list & filling his big bag.This is a very colorful & entertaining film, with lots for the eye to look at. The march of the toys - including a Charlie Chaplin doll - into the bag is lots of fun. Quibble: some of the toys, in the unedited version, are a bit racist and it was a real lapse of taste to group the Hassidic doll with the toy pigs.The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. 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.