AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

TheLittleSongbird Van Beuren cartoons are extremely variable, especially in the number of gags and whether the absurdist humour shines through enough (sometimes it does, other times it doesn't), but are strangely interesting. Although they are often poorly animated with barely existent stories and less than compelling lead characters, they are also often outstandingly scored, there can be some fun support characters and some are well-timed and amusing.The "Rainbow Parade" cartoons are a fairly good example of this. The series is a very mixed bag, with some good cartoons and not so good ones, though none of the series' worst are as bad as the worst of the studio's Tom and Jerry and Cubby the Bear cartoons for examples. 'The Sunshine Makers' is one of the series' best, it's one of the good ones and one is surprised it comes from Van Beuren, with it being in a different league to most of their efforts. A classic 'The Sunshine Makers' isn't quite. The story is slight, with the conflict fairly predictable. Plus anybody wanting a funny cartoon with gags coming thick and fast and laugh a minute is best watching something else, 'The Sunshine Makers' isn't that kind of cartoon with it having a serious subject and message. If one knows what to expect, it won't be a problem. Really liked the animation here though, generally Van Beuren came on a long way when they went to colour technically even though simple in colour scheme and not exactly advanced. 'The Sunshine Makers' is one of the best looking of the "Rainbow Parade" cartoons, and adopts a wider range of colour in accord to the sunshine-filled good and gloomy evil sides, it is lusciously coloured, there is more refinement in the drawing than one would expect from the studio and the backgrounds meticulous in detail.Even better is the music score, it is so beautifully and cleverly orchestrated, is great fun to listen to and full of lively energy, doing so well with enhancing the action. Particularly in the war scenes and climax, which is a quite powerful one. The title song is unforgettably catchy. While not a "funny" cartoon, the good versus evil concept while predictable provides a good deal of emotional power and the message conveyed is potent and relevant still today without preaching. 'The Sunshine Makers' is cute (mostly in the characters) without being too sugary or saccharine, suitably strange without being incoherent or muddled and dark without being too frightening, a lot of it is charming and makes one happy. Characters are not too bland.Overall, enjoyable and one of the better cartoons in the series. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Michael_Elliott The Sunshine Makers (1935)*** (out of 4) Catchy animated short has a bunch of gnomes gathering up sunshine, turning it into milk and then passing it around to people so that they can be happy. One gnome ends up running across an unhappy man who lives in the dark forest with many other unhappy people. Soon the gnomes are trying to pour milk on them so that they too will be happy.I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed this film and I was even more shocked to see that it was rather catchy. This really comes across as a dark fairy tell where the happy people must venture into a dark area and try to make the bad people see why they should be good. Of course, the selling point here is that milk makes people happy. I thought the animation itself was quite good and I really liked the simple story and the song itself was very good and catchy.

oldmanforest As now, I had a voracious appetite for movies and television and a memory that doesn't quit even after 61 years. As a kid growing up in northern NJ, I had access to the NY/NJ television broadcast market from my youngest years. The first time I saw The Sunshine Makers it made a deep impression on a 3 to 4 year old that I carried through the years. It was broadcast on Newark's Channel 13 and was shown as a "cartoon" along with "Farmer Gray" and the mostly middling fare of which I discerned even then. I had even visited the NJ studio and sat in what is now considered the "peanut gallery" of the old Uncle Fred's Junior Frolics several times. Unfortunately, The Sunshine Makers weren't shown during my presence or I would have had my Aunt and cousin to remember or discuss it with. Now I glad I hadn't seen it in person and hadn't discussed it with them because their opinions, in hindsight, may have dismissed it.It was like no other cartoon that I saw in those early days of television. While I couldn't express terms like theme, plot, character, etc., I tried to convey to my parents and friends what I saw and the impression it made on me. To this day I had never encountered another person who had seen it until I read the comments on this media. The movie was only 15-16 years old when I saw it! While I won't describe what I saw (mainly because it would be repetitive to Raymond's, cc...'s, & HippieRockChick's description) the good vs evil theme affected me in a primitive way. But the biggest impression was the song/refrain "I'm only happy when I'm sad" in the bass tones came back to me more than a few times during my disaffected 'yute' (as Vinny Gambini might say) or when I had the blues.Where can I get a copy of it?

ccthemovieman-1 I agree with the other reviewer here that this primitive-looking 70-year-old cartoon is more than what first meets the eye. I'm not saying it's any award- winner but it was intriguing. It would be easy to dismiss at first because of the unimpressive graphics and fairly poor quality print. It's probably very difficult to get a good print of this but I'm sure it would enhance the story.That story is a simple one of Hobbit-like creatures who seem to worship the sun and they bottle it in the form of milk, which they deliver around town. The scenes in them are in reddish-orange and white. The "bad guys" are in the woods nearby and they sing "We're only happy when we're sad." Their scenes are all in blue-and-white. Like Dracula figures, if sunlight hits them, it's not good for them. (Actually, it is because it changes them into laughing, happy people.)They try to sabotage of positive-thinking, cheery people. The second half of the story is the war between the two groups. One is flinging milk bottle and the other a poisonous gas.This is a fantasy story, pure-and-simple, not a comedy. It's not going to provoke many laughs, if any, but it different enough to be an interesting seven-and-a-half minutes. It also has an excellent message. Some people may say, act or think "I don't want to be happy," but deep inside nobody wants that. I believe that was the message here in this battle between "positive" and "negative" people.The cartoon was "brought to you" by the Borden Milk Company. Hmmm, that explains why milk was the "good" product.