Wynken, Blynken & Nod (1938) User Reviews

Multiplane camera gives depth to gorgeous background art...

[Doylenf · 7/10 · 30 March 2008]

WYNKEN, BLYNKEN AND NOD has the three sleepy boys sailing off in a wooden shoe into a blue sky floating on crystals while some background music gives some exposition with some vocalizing. It's the start of one of Disney's most appealing cartoons from the late '30s at a time when the studio was really getting a good grip on how to create cartoons that had depth, beauty and finely crafted animation. The multiplane camera, which would be used in most of their feature-length films over the next several years, gives fuller dimension to the lush art work.

Pulling Nod from stumbling through a cloud is reminiscent of the stork doing the same to retrieve the sack holding DUMBO from sinking below the clouds. Most of the sight gags involve watching the boys attempt to fish while getting tangled up in their lines and getting resistance from the starfish surrounding their wooden boat. Finally, a friendly storm cloud huffs and puffs to send the wooden ship sailing to earth, whereby we see it returning safely home.

Again, there are elements that were used in later Disney films--especially PETER PAN (with the boys flying home and overhead shots of the land below), and the animation for Wynken, Blynken and Nod will remind viewers of "the lost boys" from that Disney epic.

An enjoyable treat for any Disney fan.

Fine animation

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 7/10 · 1 September 2013]

You'd be surprised at the quality of animation in this 75-year-old short. The ugly, cherub-like, children aside, the detail featured in this adaptation of Eugene Field's poem is of the sort usually seen in bigger budget features.

Three kids fly though space in their giant wooden shoe while fishing for stars (or fish-stars, rather). They eventually hook a comet and are dragged into a storm cloud and fall back down to Earth where it revealed to be all just a dream.

It didn't work for Boxing Helena or Dallas, but I'll accept it here. It's not a particularly famous cartoon, though it still holds up in many aspects today.

Visually beautiful adaptation of the Eugene Field poem

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 6 May 2015]

This is one of the Silly Symphonies series of shorts produced by Disney. There will be spoilers ahead:

This is going to be somewhat familiar to anyone who knows the poem by the same title by Eugene Field. There isn't much of a plot per se, which makes it perfect for a seven minute cartoon. The gags are basic and somewhat repetitive, but the purpose of the Disney shorts in general and the Silly Symphonies series in particular was to stretch the animators' skills and abilities and work out the kinks, rather than flying blind when working on features. Some of what they did on shorts like this one stood them in good stead on Dumbo, Pinocchio and other features. Disney trained a whole host of animators, in-betweeners and others in the best "class" they could get, namely, actually working on the shorts to learn their craft.

The three boys are seen in a wooden shoe, trying to fish for stars. The one in the pink sleeper keeps getting into trouble, falling overboard more than once. As fishermen, the boys have a lot to learn. they wind up getting tangled up in all sorts of ways, hooking themselves and each other. Having the hooks be candy canes is a cute touch.

They wind up "catching" a comet in their net and getting hauled around until they bump into a rather jovial sleeping cloud, which blows them into another, less pleased sleeping cloud. The resulting windstorm sends them tumbling down into the ending of the short, which is cute, though predictable if you know the poem. I won't spoil it here if you don't. The short punctuates a running gag with the ending.

This short is available on the Disney Treasures Silly Symphonies DVD set and is well worth having. Recommended.

A cutesy cartoon.

[OllieSuave-007 · 6/10 · 28 July 2018]

A cutesy cartoon featuring three sleepy children having misadventures on their shoe-boat in the sky, fishing for starfishes, catching comets, and trying to withstand the wind. Again, as with most of these Silly Symphonies, mot much of a plot - just musical scenes that is supposed to be charming to kids mostly. Adults generally would get some good laughs out of cartoons, but this one is strictly for the kids - nothing very entertaining about it.

Grade C

Based on the classic poem, this brings back fond memories...

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 15 September 2009]

Wynken, Blynken and Nod based on the classic poem, is a very relaxing and charming Silly Symphony. Forget the fact that it is a tad thin in terms of story, because everything else is so good.

The animation is beautiful, the galactic background was truly stunning. Wynken, Blynken and Nod were absolutely adorable, forgive me for being a bit of a sentimentalist, but I wanted to reach into the television and give them a big hug. The beautiful title song brought some poignancy to the proceedings, and the incidental music throughout the entire short was just outstanding, with a real touch of classic romanticism. Overall, just beautiful. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Classic Poem Comes Alive - Disney Style

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 24 August 2000]

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

Three tiny boys, WYNKEN, BLYNKEN & NOD, set sail in a wooden shoe, off on a river of crystal light, into a sea of dew. They attempt to catch the little star fish swarming in the sky and encounter both a comet & a blustery storm before returning home.

This cartoon, based on the classic Eugene Field poem, is a real dazzler. Disney made lavish use of its new multi-plane camera, which gave scenes of astonishing depth & beauty - most particularly to the opening sequence. Extremely expensive & complicated to use, Disney would subsequently use the camera primarily for the animation features. Notice also the colorful effects of the comet's passage.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. 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.

This brief cartoon's greatest flaw is that nothing . . .

[pixrox1 · 5/10 · 18 September 2021]

. . . happens. It is sort of like the Clint Eastwood vehicle (CRY MACHO) I saw earlier today, where almost all of the elements that make good Westerns enjoyable are missing. Similarly, animation that wastes more than half its time with candy cane fish hooks being employed to snare celestial "star fish" as the fisher babies mostly snag each other with their diapers constantly falling off is NOT the sort of thing that will give most responsible parents a chuckle.