Story? We don't need no stinkin' story.
1930 was a transition year, no doubt, for the Disney Studios. Losing Ub Iwerks and Carl Stalling was a big blow, and required a change to the production schedule. In rushing to fulfill their contract, the Disney animators put out some subpar work, although they managed to squeeze in some gems in the first few months of 1930. Eventually, though, they got their sea legs, and were cranking out very solid films towards the end of the year. Shorts like The Picnic, Midnite in a Toy Shop and more gave us some memorable moments.
But so far in 1931, the shorts have had a rather disjointed feel. Busy Beavers continues that. While Mother Goose Melodies and Traffic Troubles are standouts in early 1931, the rest of the 1931 shorts are nowhere near as good. This inconsistency is strange, and it continues in Busy Beavers.
This is a classic Silly Symphony, in that it features a lot of silly gags of the beavers building their dams, set to a lively tune, without much of a plot. To the extent that there is a plot, it centers on a small beaver that manages to save the valley from a large flood. His heroics are the real fun part of the short.
However, the overall feel of Busy Beavers is a loose collection of characters that all look the same. For me, the design of the beavers was not good. That’s just my opinion, but they are not appealing, and they don’t have any idiosyncrasies that make them stand out. If you’re going to have a short with such a lack of recognizable or individual characters, you need the gags to really stand out, and they do not do so here.
The best animation in the short is really the flooding scene, where a cloud opens up and dumps rain into the valley where the beavers have built their dam. The animation of the water rushing through, coming straight at the camera, is quite good.
Mostly, though, we just get scene after scene of the beavers doing work, building their dam. Sure, there are some inventive ways that they do so, like loading up their tails with lumber, skiing downhill on a tree, or sharpening logs into spikes that they pound into the riverbed. But there’s no character here for the audience to take up with or follow, so it makes the short less than it could be.
I just find it massively the entertaining – the almost relentless musical action and constantly clever, fast-paced synchronization as the beavers tirelessly work, dance and bark. For me, it just fits together perfectly. Of the 1931 shorts we've watched so far, I agree that Traffic Troubles and Mother Goose Melodies are excellent, but I hold The China Plate and The Busy Beavers in the same high regard.
However, Busy Beavers to me is just not as clever or well done. I was called out on this in the Mickey Steps Out thread, but not being a "animation historian," I don't recognize the genius in how things are drawn, etc. I judge a lot of it on simply the entertainment I get from it upon viewing.
I do wonder, though, if these shorts bear repeated viewings. I usually watch them two times before posting. If I watch them on a day when I'm having a bad day, does that affect the review? I'm not really sure, but I may go back to some of these and try to see if there's a difference.
I do think it is quite an impressive short. There's a lot of detail with sometimes dozens of characters on screen at one time. Also it's beautifully worked out with ingenious synchronization. The tunes are fast and yet every beat perfectly fits a bark, a dance or industrial action as the beavers build their dam. For me it's enormously catchy and I just can't help bouncing along!
One other note about this cartoon is the scene where the little beaver is hit by the falling tree. The cartoon doesn't treat it seriously, but for a brief moment the music goes a bit sad, as the fate of the animal is unclear. Although not treated seriously here, a sad moment, where a character may be dead, is a device that will be used again (over-used in fact) in Disney films.
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