Honeyland Backgrounds

“One of the most beautiful colored cartoons I have ever exhibited. Pleased adults as much as kiddies. Advertise this one big,” said one small town theatre owner writing in the Motion Picture Herald about the Harman-Ising MGM cartoon Honeyland.

The colour apparently masked the fact this was more of the same old stuff from Hugh and Rudy. Cute child-like insects frolicking while a female chorus chirped a song in the first half, bad old meany kidnapping the girl and getting beaten up by the good guy and his friends (butt puncturing a must) in the second half. It’s the same story they’d been doing since 1930, just with better production values (including filling scenes with characters for the sake of filling scenes with characters). The cartoon drags on for ten minutes.

Here’s a frame grab from the opening scene. You can get a good idea why the colour was praised.



The backgrounds are very well rendered. Here are some, though a few of them are chopped off at the sides because you can’t get a clear look at them.

The barrel and objects in front of it are on cels on top of the background.



None of the artists are credited, including the one responsible for these backgrounds.