Good Little Monkeys (1935) User Reviews

Stupid Monkeys

[boblipton · 5/10 · 11 December 2021]

In a home library, the Devil emerges from a copy of Dante's INFERNO and tries to capture the "Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil" monkeys.

It's an example of a popular genre of cartoons in the 1930s and 1940s, in which books in a shop, brands in a drug store, or trademark characters on signs came alive. It combined cuteness with a structure that allowed visual puns, and although Hugh Harman's puerile sense of cuteness overwhelms the fun, it's watchable.

This was done in two-strip Technicolor -- Disney still holding exclusive rights for cartoon production -- and the care with which the color palette is used is interesting.

Annoying little monkeys

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 8 February 2023]

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons. Have for a long time loved animation with an edge, a bit of darkness and not sounding too cutesy. Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising tackled ahead of the time themes more than once, including bold depictions of smoking and drugs, and both were responsible for plenty of good and more cartoons despite both varying (especially Ising when it came to the latter).

1935's 'Good Little Monkeys', directed by Harmon just to say, could have been a lot better. Actually don't think it's an awful cartoon and it did have quite an interesting premise, it just doesn't do anywhere near enough with it. There are certainly good things that make it a one time watch for anybody interested in lesser known animation, but there are also a lot of faults and when it comes to edgy, darker cartoons there were certainly better ones (including from Harman himself) from this period.

'Good Little Monkeys' does have good things. It is very well made visually, with it being beautifully detailed and a mix of vibrant and unsettling. It doesn't try to do too much while not being simplistic at the same time, the hallucinatory visuals being wonderfully surreal in a way seldom seen in other Harmon cartoons. The music is outstanding, lush, characterful with the odd haunting moment.

The best character by far is Satan, who is genuinely scary and imaginatively designed but also actually the most rootable character.

Some of Satan's actions are eye popping to watch and have genuine creepiness, and 'Good Little Monkeys' could have just stuck with that tone.

A lot is wrong with 'Good Little Monkeys'. Really liked the concept, but other than the startling beginning nothing new is done with it. Characters from books and such is a premise seen a lot by me in animation well before seeing this, one of the best examples being 'Have You Got Any Castles', and there is very little that is funny or creative. Instead the too few attempts at humour feel stale and could have been a lot sharper, also sounding very juvenile. The monkeys agreed are incredibly annoying and their antics come over as really idiotic and repetitive. The conflict lacks tension.

Furthermore, the story is best forgotten as there isn't one really and the pacing is pretty dull from the cartoon struggling with finding enough content to fill the already short length. Tonally, 'Good Little Monkeys' is pretty all over the place, very inconsistent and muddled with the shifts between eeriness, excessive cutesiness and childish humour never feeling seamless and coming over as abrupt and disjointed. Indicative of it trying too hard to appeal to a wider audience, laudable but doesn't quite succeed. The cuteness for my tastes did go overboard and 'Good Little Monkeys' in all honesty would have worked better if either cute or eerie rather than trying to do both, with the latter being better as it would gel better with what goes on in the visuals.

In conclusion, nothing special here. 5/10.

A Neat Musical Short Teaching A Good Moral

[jeremycrimsonfox · 7/10 · 17 June 2022]

In a house, the devil comes out of the book of Dante's Inferno and looking for a victim, he sees three good monkeys (who symbolize the Three Wise Monkeys from Japanese maxim), he starts a party where all characters from the books start to party the night away as a plot to get the three to join in, as he plans to trap them in the Dante's Inferno book.

This is a neat short cartoon. While it does contain some scene with characters that I would call "offensive to certain people", they do prove this cartoon was a product of a time when America was in the wrong. This is a neat short, as the monkeys we can relate to, as they fall into temptation, teaching a good moral and having great voiceacting and music.

Exceptional and a bit creepy cartoon short

[gortx · 11 December 2021]

Pretty heady stuff for a 'kid's cartoon'. A quite creepy Devil pops out of an edition of Dante's Inferno and brings terror to a bookshop populated by a menangerie of characters from other books including the title simians.

Very good animation from Harmon and Ising's team.

The monkeys were so annoying, I found myself rooting for Satan.

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 13 May 2021]

"Good Little Monkeys" is typical of much of the work of the production team of Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising. Their cartoons generally were filled with annoying singing and dancing...and even when the cartoon is edgy, like this one, it destroys the film. After all, most folks want to see funny stuff in cartoon shorts....and funny and fun are no where to be seen in this short.

The setting is a very common one for the 1930s. In a home, various books have characters come to life and leave the pages. In this case, it begins with Satan leaving "The Inferno" and various other characters leave their books to battle him. While this does NOT sound boring or childish, it clearly is! This is because throughout the short, three $*%! Monkeys (the See No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do No Evil ones) keep entering the cartoon to sing a saccharine song....and it's the accursed song each time! It gets old VERY quickly, believe me! And, it's the sort of stuff that made me change the channel when the Harmon-Ising cartoons came on TV! Dreadful despite some nice animation.