I wanted to but couldn't!

Fantastic!

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives" is a 7-minute black-and-white sound cartoon from almost 85 years ago. It is a collaboration between Schlesinger Studios and Warner Bros and can be categorized under Merrie Melodies. The topic here is Christmas, not only because Santa makes an appearance, but because several Christmas tunes are included. The music is one of the film's strengths and same goes for the animation which is really clean and with more love to detail than most films from that era. Unfortunately, the story here is fairly uninteresting, almost non-existent, basically a collection of scenes with no real plot. This is also why I give this one a thumbs-down. Not even Harman and Ising can make this one work. I do not recommend it or really only during the holidays. Oh yeah, and it is not racist, do not be fooled by the politically correct plebs.

This is an early Warner Brothers black and white, more charming than funny. It more or less did what the studio wanted-it showcased a song from their music library. Not much was expected from the early shorts. Because I want to talk a little about the short, this is a spoiler warning: A little orphan trudges "home" to a beaten up shack, hoping to find something from "Santy Claus", only to be disappointed at finding nothing. But all is not lost, for who should come up to the door and burst into the title song? That's right-"Santy Clause", who, after doing most of the song, invites the orphan back to the North Pole for Christmas.There, we see the standard "toys come to life", with at least one caricature, of Kate Smith. There are one or two scenes featuring ethnic humor. The close of the short has the orphan saving the day by putting out a Christmas tree fire. During the Depression, there were quite a few such orphans and such an ending would have been enjoyed by audiences of the day.This short is well worth seeing at least once. Recommended.

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.

The animation is adorable and nicely done for how early this cartoon is. And the songs are catchy and fun. But there's just nothing very original or remarkable about "Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives." The plot-line is incredibly straight-forward and obvious, and even the toys are fairly predictable and behave relatively normally. A much better cartoon featuring Depression-era pathetic orphans who get a surprise visit from Santa is the 1936 "Christmas Comes But Once a Year."