Ub Iwerks (1935)
Balloon Land is a 1935 animated short cartoon film produced and directed by Ub Iwerks as part of the ComiColor Cartoons series. The cartoon is about a place called Balloon Land, whose residents are made entirely out of balloons. The villain in the cartoon is the Pincushion Man, a character who walks around Balloon Land popping the inhabitants with pins.
Starring Billy Bletcher as the Pincushion Man and Leone LeDoux as the Balloon Alarm Babies.
Ub Iwerks was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician, who designed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit and Mickey Mouse. Iwerks produced alongside Walt Disney and won numerous awards, including multiple Academy Awards.
The ComiColor Cartoon series is a series of 25 animated short subjects produced by Ub Iwerks from 1933 to 1936. The series was the last produced by Iwerks Studio; after losing distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1934, the Iwerks studio’s senior company Celebrity Pictures had to distribute the films itself. The series was shot exclusively in Cinecolor, a two-color process.
Most of the ComiColor entries were based upon popular fairy tales and other familiar stories, including Jack and the Beanstalk, Old Mother Hubbard, The Bremen Town Musicians, and The Headless Horseman.
Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it and that I helped close the Iwerks circle for you. I hadn’t seen it before either. Thanks for watching.
You found one I haven’t seen! I did two documentaries on Iwerks in the ‘80’s. Interesting man, bad studio head 🙂