The Sunshine Makers (1935)

Just perfect...

Good movie but grossly overrated

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

I'm happy when I'm sad. No you're not! Eat molten bombs of sweet purification comrade!!! Ah the glorious cosmic incubator that is the mighty Sun, bringer of light, giver of life to all! Ahem, so..okay, there are such beautiful colours in this strange and wonderful short. I love the really old cartoons that feature merry gnome-like sprites, and I especially love the great animation gems of the 1930's, they're so unique in style and are so carefully and artistically constructed, there's a certain aesthetic to them that you just don't get from any other animations. And this one in particular has some very striking imagery and animated effects regarding the two polar opposite factions of gnome folk. I love all the crazy details in the machinery of the Smurf-like residents of..let's call it Sunnyville, as they harness and prepare the rays of the sun into an elixir to be delivered like so many bottles of milk! And all the richly Gothic gloom of the decrepit hamlet of the dark gnomes is just as well done and appealing in its own very different way. The shadows are terrifically done and are paid great attention to in the story. And I love the beautiful effect of the sunshine arrows that make sunlight appear wherever they hit, I think it looks downright amazing to say that this short is so very old! This really is one of the special old cartoons, I think it's all beautiful. I love the sky, the lighting, everything, this is just wonderful to look at. "Sunshine, sushiiine!" Oh, that song will stick in your ears for hours! But on the other hand the scene is so hilarious where the bad gnomes are singing(?) about how happy they are being sad! Apparently they were just begging for a hostile together and thorough brainwashing by the clan of the sun worshippers! There's something a little whoa and off about about the whole militarisation of sunlight in the story, the way the gnomes launch the sunshine artillery and drop the sunlight bombs, smiling all the while, and completely disregarding the choices of their grumpy downbeat cousins until they're completely *forced* to convert! That was so unfair! True they did attack first, but the majority of them appeared to be minding their own business, and I do think the happy-go-lucky guys went a little too far, I mean it was only one person who attacked, and they went all word war three and bombed them with sunshine till their grim landscape was absolutely no more and they were all happy-happy-happy!!! What a lesson to teach little kids - if someone disagrees with you, hurt them until they do! Positivety cannot be force-fed, and can a person be too happy? I would freaking-well say so! It's a little sickly-sweet in places, but what a great show, I loved it. I thought it had some pretty cool and scary ideas! It's a beautiful day as I write this, everything's so much nicer when the sun's out. Hey sun, you should come out more often, things are so much better when you're around!

Having read about this cartoon short from the Van Beuren Studios for several years, I finally got to see this when I randomly picked animated shorts on YouTube. What a wonderfully strange and musically humorous cartoon this was! Seeing all those happy little elves singing of glad times while making milk in contrast to all those sad ones warbling of how they're "happy when they're sad" and then turn into the opposite due to the milk being forced into their mouths with the sunshine brightening their bodies is nothing short of psychedelic three decades before that became fashionable! This, along with Disney's Fantasia, might have been a "hit" with the hippie crowd during the late '60s! And dig the fact that it's sponsored by Borden! I'm surprised someone didn't try to add Borden's mascot Elsie the Cow! So on that note, I highly recommend The Sunshine Makers.

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?

In my humble opinion the old animated cartoons from the 1930's were some of the best that were ever made, and were more strange, imaginative, and charming than much of what followed.This has got to be one of the weirdest cartoons I have ever seen. Would that it were as simple as that to bring someone out of their depressive state. What is in that milk? Zoloft? The Sunshine makers were much happier and had far better weaponry, which did not kill but made the enemy happy even as it caused their tissues to become transparent and even glow.One wonders what influence the historical context may have had on this film. A pacifist dream? The onset of the "Great Depression" was certainly depressing. People were probably wondering aloud "If only there were more confidence, monetary and emotional." Perhaps the swamp men were investors? Or maybe the swamp men did not get enough calcium in their diet? And internationally the situation was bad too, with bad, depressing regimes in Germany and Russia, who were probably stockpiling poison gas.It is a shame you couldn't just bomb the currently worrisome miscreants in the Middle East with happy milk. Nobody would have to die, very little would be destroyed, and everyone would feel better after it was over. Now go pick up all that broken glass before someone cuts themselves.