The Little House (1952) User Reviews

Home is where the Little House is!

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 8/10 · 24 June 2012]

What a sweet, beautifully animated and poignant little gem! I especially love the animation of the early scenes where the house is all lonely at night, and the snowy scene on New Year's Eve. When I first watched this and saw the house with a face I thought it was just going to be some silly throwaway short. I couldn't have been more wrong! They do a great job of making you care(and fear!) for the house, and you go on quite the emotional journey for a mere eight minutes. Normally I'd have zero qualms about divulging the plot of something, but this one, I decided is just too precious to spoil, you've really got to see it for yourself. Aw, it almost brought tears to my eyes when the poor dishevelled house was crying and lamenting its sad lonely end... It seemed very much like an elderly person than a house that was being taken away. Simply heartbreaking. I just love how they could make you cry over a cartoon house! I don't mean to demean things by calling the house a cartoon, but this is some really stirring and powerful emotional stuff here! ::: I thought some things about this tale's message could be misconstrued as naive nowadays. Not by me. It's not saying all big cities and human progress is bad, just that some people prefer a more quiet and peaceful life. It's basically trying to say that we can get so caught up in "bigger and better" things, that sometimes we can forget along the way the things which matter the most. Make a Little House in your soul.

Of little houses, "progress" and life over time

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 20 April 2015]

This is a one shot cartoon produced by the Disney Animation studio. There will be spoilers ahead:

This short is based on a children's book by Virginia Lee Burton. It concerns a charming little house. The house has facial features, as does virtually every object in the short-eyes, a mouth, facial expressions which give them personalities.

Narrated by Sterling Holloway, it follows the little house's "life" from the first married couple to live there, through the expansion of town out to where the house is located, the march of time, events and progress, the survival of the house amidst all the changing landscape and the various things great and small the house witnesses over the years.

It shows the house in a rundown, decrepit state and a crew coming to the house. The house figures this is it and closes its eyes. The short ends charmingly, coming full circle with a sweet, if implausible, ending.

This short is available on the Disney Treasures Rarities DVD set and is well worth seeing. Recommended.

It Goes Round and Round

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 14 January 2019]

This is a simple tale of a kind of endurance, a commitment to simplicity. A little house in the country has all that stereotypical charm. Newlyweds move in, raise a herd of brats (sorry, that's how they are portrayed), and then the house waits for new clients. In time, the march of time brings progress and urban sprawl, and soon this house is beset by monstrous building and people with little sensitivity. This a story that's been done lots of times, but it works quite well and makes one feel good.

A masterpiece short.

[TOMNEL · 10/10 · 5 March 2007]

Narrated by Sterling Holloway.

This is my personal favorite Disney short. It's a wonderfully animated story about a small white house who was happy, until her residents moved out. The city got bigger, the house got more and more roughed up. It has a surprising amount of character development and sympathy from the audience despite it's short length. The animation is brilliant and colorful. The narration by original voice of Winnie the Pooh, Sterling Holloway was really great. If you are a fan of good Disney produced cartoons, this is my favorite and if not the best, one of the best.

My rating: ****/****. 10 mins.

Disney Version Of Classic Children's Book

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 1 October 2000]

THE LITTLE HOUSE sits on a little hill, way out in the country. Even though filled with a loving family, she can't help but notice the relentless approach of the big city coming ever closer to her...

This cartoon is a charming adaptation of Virginia Lee Burton's 1942 Caldecott Medal winner. For the few minutes of its duration, the viewer feels deep interest in, and sympathy for, the little house - a tribute to the skill of the Disney artists in giving life to an inanimate object. The film benefits greatly from the expressive narration of Sterling Holloway.

Very sentimental....though not all that fun to watch.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 13 August 2012]

This is a little story about a house. It's very small and is made fun of by the fancier and larger houses. However, as the years pass, times change and homes come and go. What will happen with the little house? And, more importantly, does anyone care?

Sterling Holloway narrates this extremely sentimental cartoon. It's the sort of thing adults would probably enjoy and kids would find very tedious. While I am an adult, I also found this one a bit too sentimental and lacked the fun I expect in a cartoon. You see it and be the judge. It's well made....but not fun to me and my taste. If you want to see it, it's available on the "Disney Rarities" DVD collection.

Quite possibly one of my favourite Disney shorts of the 50s

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 11 July 2014]

There is so much to love about The Little House, though it might be a touch over-sentimental for some. There is no denying how wonderful the animation is, the backgrounds look so smooth and flow equally so and the colours are very rich. The animation on the house and the increase in size is very inventively done. Also great is the music, not surprising considering that if there is a component that is consistently good in the Disney shorts it is the music. It is beautifully orchestrated while not being syrupy, which it could easily have been, and it is certainly not without energy or driven rhythms either. The Little House's story is very simple but is an involving one and also one of Disney's most emotionally charged. Disney shorts have been known to make me cry, like with Mickey's Good Deed, The Old Mill and The Ugly Duckling and The Little House does that as well. Sterling Holloway's narration is remarkably sensitive and doesn't fall into the trap of explaining too much or being annoying, after hearing narrations in animation that start saying things that we can easily see on screen or are better off shown. The titular character is a sweet one and one that we do feel genuine sympathy for, it is always great to have a lead character to root for all the way and The Little House definitely has that. In conclusion, beautifully drawn, emotionally charged and sweet, one of my favourite Disney shorts of the 50s. 10/10 Bethany Cox

I'm not sure how many cartoon versions of this story . . .

[cricket30 · 8/10 · 31 October 2021]

. . . there actually are. I seem to remember that it was on the Captain Kangaroo VHS tapes at Grandma's house, along with Mulligan's Steam Shovel. The cartoon I remember seemed to have a more gradual build-up to the city encroaching upon the title domicile, including the steam rollers slowly advancing an asphalt roadway through the hill on which the small home sits. It also seemed less "jazzy," with more rounded images. This Dizzy version appears to be more jarring and jagged than the old Kangaroo tape rendition stuck in my memory. But Wikipedia does not recognize what I recall.

There's always room somewhere for a simple life.

[Animany94 · 10/10 · 23 March 2020]

This was a sweet little tale of sticking to what you believe in despite expiriencing setbacks. An ode to simplicity when some people hail progress for progress' sake told with the usual colourful Disney animation and the animators' admirable artistic skills bringing the little house to life and making the city seem massive and dangerous in contrast to the countryside being calm and peaceful.

The Little House That Could

[Rainey-Dawn · 8/10 · 10 May 2021]

Sterling Holloway, the original voice of Winne the Pooh, narrates this nice little tale. It's a story of a little house who was happy in the country but got lonely at nights. The house wondered what it would be like to have neighbors around her - she soon finds out when the city grew around her. The little house then misses her solitary country life and wonders if she will ever find that peace again.

Ultimately it's a film about the problems that comes with progress/industrialization.

8/10.