This cartoon consists of a Snidely Whiplash/Simon Legree type of evil egg (called 'The Bad Egg') stealing the nice lady Easter Egg. So Humpty Dumpty Jr. comes to her rescue.
While the animation quality of Ub Iwerks color films of the mid- 1930s is very nice, I am definitely NOT a fan. Instead of humor his cartoons consistently went for overly cute...with lots of singing and they were about as edgy as bowling balls. "Humpty Dumpty" is clearly an example of this sort of cartoon--with lovely animation but also a story and singing that make it second-rate. Now I cannot just attack Iwerks...many 1930s cartoons were sappy like this and the wonderful cartoons from MGM (Iwerks' parent company) and Warner Brothers weren't to come until the 1940s. This is why when they show old cartoons on TV today, they almost never show shorts from the 1930s. With the exception of Disney and the Fleischer Brothers, the rest were a sorry lot by later standards.
While the animation quality of Ub Iwerks color films of the mid- 1930s is very nice, I am definitely NOT a fan. Instead of humor his cartoons consistently went for overly cute...with lots of singing and they were about as edgy as bowling balls. "Humpty Dumpty" is clearly an example of this sort of cartoon--with lovely animation but also a story and singing that make it second-rate. Now I cannot just attack Iwerks...many 1930s cartoons were sappy like this and the wonderful cartoons from MGM (Iwerks' parent company) and Warner Brothers weren't to come until the 1940s. This is why when they show old cartoons on TV today, they almost never show shorts from the 1930s. With the exception of Disney and the Fleischer Brothers, the rest were a sorry lot by later standards.