Monday Morning Blow-Up
Talk about your fragile ecosystem! “Balloonland” imagines a weird community of inflated balloon people, who happily bounce off each other all day, until a mass murderer called the Pincushion Man crashes town and starts randomly popping off much of the population! There’s a little balloon boy and a little balloon girl for romantic interest, but I doubt if their relationship will lead to anything very steamy — Balloonland reproduction is achieved via some gooey rubber trees, a waffle iron and lots of Rube Goldbergian machinery.
Man! Even by the very elastic standards of Ub Iwerks cartoons, this one is just plain nuts! The floating, bulbous cast of good citizens is a kick, but the ingenious and somewhat demented character design of the Pincushion Guy gave me nightmares as a kid. And he eliminates half the cast just for the hell of it!
We’re starting a “Nice Place to Visit” week here at ReFrederator — five films all about localities you’re only likely to run into in old time cartoons. How are we doin’?
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On June 12th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Nice place to visit if you’re not an INFLATABLE BALLOON PERSON, I’m guessing. Sheesh! I seem to remember this one from childhood, too. Gotta go back and check it out.
On June 12th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Delightfully surreal. It almost plays like a horror movie, in that he actually manages to kill several of the balloons off before they finally band together and defeat him.
I also like cartoons to occasionally be devoid of well-known characters; I think they stimulate the imagination in a way that the “staples” can’t.
On June 12th, 2006 at 12:00 am
hey! you haven’t really stapled until you’ve stapled a ballon.
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and then they take the stapler away from you.
On June 13th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I have heard tell of barking spiders…seen a barking frog with mine own eyes…..but now we got a barking Duck here…..and I am just barking beside myself.
On June 22nd, 2006 at 12:00 am
This was shown as part of the Ub Iwerks program (including his work at Disney at Columbia as well as his own studio) in the fantastic Cartoon Musicals series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center last year.
Some of the music (when the balloon soldiers are attacking, and again at the end) is the same theme as a Betty Boop cartoon, “Parade of the Wooden Soldiers”:
http://www.archive.org/details/bb_parade_of_the_wooden_soldiers