The Sunshine Makers (1935)

It is a performances centric movie

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Fresh and Exciting

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.The "Rainbow Parade" cartoons are a fairly good example of this. The series is a very mixed bag, with some good cartoons and not so good ones, though none of the series' worst are as bad as the worst of the studio's Tom and Jerry and Cubby the Bear cartoons for examples. 'The Sunshine Makers' is one of the series' best, it's one of the good ones and one is surprised it comes from Van Beuren, with it being in a different league to most of their efforts. A classic 'The Sunshine Makers' isn't quite. The story is slight, with the conflict fairly predictable. Plus anybody wanting a funny cartoon with gags coming thick and fast and laugh a minute is best watching something else, 'The Sunshine Makers' isn't that kind of cartoon with it having a serious subject and message. If one knows what to expect, it won't be a problem. Really liked the animation here though, generally Van Beuren came on a long way when they went to colour technically even though simple in colour scheme and not exactly advanced. 'The Sunshine Makers' is one of the best looking of the "Rainbow Parade" cartoons, and adopts a wider range of colour in accord to the sunshine-filled good and gloomy evil sides, it is lusciously coloured, there is more refinement in the drawing than one would expect from the studio and the backgrounds meticulous in detail.Even better is the music score, it is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. Particularly in the war scenes and climax, which is a quite powerful one. The title song is unforgettably catchy. While not a "funny" cartoon, the good versus evil concept while predictable provides a good deal of emotional power and the message conveyed is potent and relevant still today without preaching. 'The Sunshine Makers' is cute (mostly in the characters) without being too sugary or saccharine, suitably strange without being incoherent or muddled and dark without being too frightening, a lot of it is charming and makes one happy. Characters are not too bland.Overall, enjoyable and one of the better cartoons in the series. 8/10 Bethany Cox

The Sunshine Makers (1935)*** (out of 4) Catchy animated short has a bunch of gnomes gathering up sunshine, turning it into milk and then passing it around to people so that they can be happy. One gnome ends up running across an unhappy man who lives in the dark forest with many other unhappy people. Soon the gnomes are trying to pour milk on them so that they too will be happy.I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed this film and I was even more shocked to see that it was rather catchy. This really comes across as a dark fairy tell where the happy people must venture into a dark area and try to make the bad people see why they should be good. Of course, the selling point here is that milk makes people happy. I thought the animation itself was quite good and I really liked the simple story and the song itself was very good and catchy.

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.

In my humble opinion the old animated cartoons from the 1930's were some of the best that were ever made, and were more strange, imaginative, and charming than much of what followed.This has got to be one of the weirdest cartoons I have ever seen. Would that it were as simple as that to bring someone out of their depressive state. What is in that milk? Zoloft? The Sunshine makers were much happier and had far better weaponry, which did not kill but made the enemy happy even as it caused their tissues to become transparent and even glow.One wonders what influence the historical context may have had on this film. A pacifist dream? The onset of the "Great Depression" was certainly depressing. People were probably wondering aloud "If only there were more confidence, monetary and emotional." Perhaps the swamp men were investors? Or maybe the swamp men did not get enough calcium in their diet? And internationally the situation was bad too, with bad, depressing regimes in Germany and Russia, who were probably stockpiling poison gas.It is a shame you couldn't just bomb the currently worrisome miscreants in the Middle East with happy milk. Nobody would have to die, very little would be destroyed, and everyone would feel better after it was over. Now go pick up all that broken glass before someone cuts themselves.