AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Foreverisacastironmess It may have a whole lot of babies in it..sort of, but this isn't a short cartoon that I'd label as babyish, it's very sweet and fun and it's finely animated. I enjoy this a bit more than the Silly Symphony "Water Babies" of a few years earlier, it feels like a case of less being a little more to me and it just seems to be a little more relaxed about its tone. There's no real story, the focus is only on the beautiful fantasy of cherubic little angels under the sea who make their own underwater circus. And that was something really clever and interesting about this short, I love how inventive they were at making the sea creatures clearly represent various classic circus animals. I love how there's always little precursors to the feature length movies to spot in the Symphonies, like that whale is definitely a pre-Monstro right down to the sneeze, and that adorable baby octopus-elephant is so Dumbo! As is a lot of that parade of 'animals' come to think about it.. The lush artwork that's put into the coral backgrounds is amazing, it's just like a real painting you'd hang on your wall. I always generally notice the little details over the bigger stuff, like I enjoy the texture of the water as it swirls and bubbles as the Merbabies swim through it. And I love the magnificent richness of the closing sunset over the water. It looks so fantastic that to look at it I find it hard to tell whether it's real or not. It really is one of the most astonishingly beautiful scenes I've ever seen in animated shorts like this. Animating surface water movements must have been one of the hardest things to do and make look fluid and realistic by hand. I love how they appear out of bubbles and disappear the same way at the end as they break the surface of the ocean, no more than mere sea foam or so it would seem... As in Anderson's fairytale. I don't find it sad how it ends, it feels poetic and fitting to me. It's like they were a little touch of unseen magic beneath the waves. They can't die if they're not real, more like fleeting joyful dreams of the eternal crashing sea... I like it a lot, but I don't love it like I do some of the other Symphonies. Nothing spectacular about it I'd say, but it's simply precious nonetheless. One of many short animated works of, at their most basic level, pure joy put out by the vintage Disney studio of a very long time ago indeed for a world that needs it. If Warner Bros was good at making us laugh then Disney excelled at making us feel warm inside. Swim on forever Merbabies!

Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de) "Merbabies" is an 8-minute short film from 1938, in color and with sound and just like its prequel "Seababies", this one is by Disney too. This prequel had a major problem in the lack of a story really and this is here also the case. Still I believe this one here is superior because it actually has some funny moments, mostly involving the animals (posing as other animals) unlike the earlier film. The music is good and the animation is truly outstanding taking into account that this one here is almost 80 years old. The ending was quite brutal to be honest, even if I must say I cared more for the animals than the babies in this little film, so maybe that's why I wasn't that touched by the last scene. All in all, certainly worth a watch. Here is one example why the 1930s and 1940s are called the Golden Age of Animation.

Michael_Elliott Merbabies (1938) *** (out of 4) This animated short was actually released by Disney but it was produced by Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising. Both men had previously worked at Disney but when Walt needed help finishing SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS this film was bought from them and released. The plot, well, there really isn't much plot but it deals with the title characters, baby mermaids, and their underwater adventures. The "adventures" aren't much either but what makes this film work isn't the plot but instead it's the wonderful and very well-detailed animation. There are some terrific footage underwater and I must admit that the look at the merbabies were rather cute and adorable.

Neil Doyle Disney was busy trying to lift the art of animation to new heights by having his artists do an "under the sea" type of thing, long before anyone would be seeing films like PINOCCHIO or THE LITTLE MERMAID.MERBABIES is thin on plot but the art work is gorgeous and the visual elements are what make it worth watching. A dazzling array of sea creatures are having a circus-like parade that includes a number of sight gags with the creatures taking on the looks of elephants, donkeys, horses and other animals. Finally, just when the atmosphere couldn't be any cheerier, everyone scatters at the approach of a hard breathing whale (as in PINOCCHIO).The merbabies ride to the surface surrounded by a sea of bubbles and emerge atop the water, safe from the monstrous whale.Easy to see that Disney was doing experimental procedures for PINOCCHIO before its release two years later.Visually stunning, if a bit too cute for some tastes. All of the art work is first rate and much more impressive than in the earlier Disney shorts from '33 and onward.