"The Wise Little Hen" is a Technicolor 7-minute cartoon from Disney that was made over 80 years ago. And it is interesting to see how Donald is still everybody's favorite dog today while Peter Pig, his co-star in here, has been forgotten completely. The 2 fake tummy aches when the wise little hen asks them to help with planting and cropping corn because they are 2 very lazy fellas. Unfortunately for them, fortunately for us, she finds out about their charade and in the end they get disgusting medicine instead of tasty corn. Bad luck for the 2. There's always next year though. Maybe they'll learn something from it. Wilfred Jackson, Pinto Colvig and Clarence Nash worked on this little movie and the three of them are really known for their work on many other cartoons. This one here is not among my favorites from its era, but it's still a decent little Silly Symphony with a nice message (very unusual for a Donald Duck cartoon), solid music and also hilarious voice acting by Florence Gill. I recommend the watch.

If you are looking for this short, try the "Disney Timeless Treasures: Volume 3". It's there along with several other seldom-seen cartoon shorts.

This Silly Symphony cartoon is, like the rest of the series, wonderfully animated--as Disney was the producer of the best looking cartoons of the 1930s...period. However, like many of the films in the series, the story itself wasn't always so hot. Because of that, I can't recommend it to the casual viewer. HOWEVER, to the cinemaniac or Disney-phile it is STILL a must-see for two reasons. The first is that the animation is terrific--just like all the Disney shorts of the 1930s. But a much more important reason is that this film marks the first appearance by Donald Duck--and that is something to celebrate. To those unaware of his evolution, he does look quite different--as he did until the very late 30s.

As far as the story goes, it's the familiar tale of the Little Red Hen--and the lazy farm animals who refuse to help her plant and then harvest her grain. No major surprises here--just some nice animation and Donald.

Donald Duck and Peter Pig are a couple of lazy guys who just want to sing and dance, but do nothing productive. When the Little Hen needs someone to help her plant corn, they make excuses, claiming to have tummy aches. During harvest time, they don't help. But when it comes time to eat the corn, they drool and accept. But they are in for a surprise. There is a little bit of grasshopper/ant in this one. Some of the were quite moralistic. This is really early Donald.