Darin
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
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.There are certainly worse Van Beuren cartoons overall than 'Barnyard Melody'. There are also worse Aesop's Fables cartoons from 1929 and overall. To me actually, 'Barnyard Melody' is one of the more watchable 1929 Aesop's Fables cartoon. Not great, or even good, with it containing some of the typical flaws for a Van Beuren cartoon. There are far worse ways to spend your time though.Although used fairly sparingly, the music is lushly orchestrated and characterful. There is some quite well done synchronisation that fits well with the amusing sound effects. 'Barnyard Melody' has a higher gag count and is more amusing and better timed than most 1929 Aesop's Fables cartoons. The pacing is very lively. However, the animation is not good, in fact it is downright bad most of the time with erratically sloppy character designs in particular while the simplistic background detail and lack of fluidity and crispness are just as difficult to ignore. Often you can't actually tell what the animals are actually meant to be.With a couple of exceptions (the old man), too many of the characters are easily forgettable and fairly thin in personality. The story is practically non-existent and is pretty random and disjointed, sense was rarely a strong suit for Van Beuren even in their best work, it's far from a strong suit here. Parts of the action is confused and sometimes too hasty, the character designs particularly betray this. In summary, not a bad watch but not one of those timeless see-it-over-and-over-again cartoons. More a one-time watch for interest/curiosity sake. 5/10 Bethany Cox
