Little Lambkins (Little Lambkins) (1940) - Color Classics Theatrical Cartoon Series

Lamkin is a curly haired little boy who prefers his friends the squirrel and raccoon to his playpen. This morning, his mother tells him that they are leaving the suburbs and moving to a new modern apartment in the city. Lamkins hates to leave his animal friends, and once in the the new place hates it. His father shouts at him, "Sut up! This is where we're gonna live!" To this, Lamkin plots to turn the tables. He goes into the kitchen and tries all of the buttons on the wall control to see what all they do. One button causes an ironing board to open out and the irons work automatically. Another button sends a washing machine up from the floor. Lamkin finds the power connections under the sink and switches the plugs to all of the appliances. He is in the process of rearrangings the plumbing when he hears his mother's voice. Quickly, he takes his place in his little stroler seat and waving his baby bottle, fains being hungry. When mother opens the refrigerator door, she goes into shock seeing a turkey roasting inside. She goes to the sink to draw a pail of wanter, and ice cubes drop. She slips on a ice cube, and lands neatly on a geiser head of water shooting up from the burner of the stove. The father comes in wondering what is happening and slips on the ice, throwing him up to a ceiling light fixture, which shocks him, making him resemble a large light bulb. The mother tries to telephone the landlord only to be sprayed in the face with water. Having been energized by the electricity, the father goes into spinning whirl wind which picks up Lamkin, mother and luggage, and exits out the door. Once in the car, the father exclaims, "This is a crazy house, we'll go back home!" Once back at the old place, Lamkin rejoins his friends he left behind, and the pick up where they left off, eating a watermellon. This is another of the 1940s entries in this series that has an already dated feel to it for the level of animation techinques of other studios of the time. Although the animation is interesting, with excellent special effects animation, the content is rather thin and formulaic. Lamkin as a character is something of a destructive monster in the way that he torments his parents in order to get his way. This short may bring a smile, but it's not very memorable.