Merbabies (1938) was a
Silly Symphonies Technicolor short made as a co-production of the Walt Disney Studios and Harman-Ising Pictures, and distributed through RKO Radio Pictures. It was one of the few Disney theatrical shorts to be farmed out to another studio. Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman had previously worked for Disney in the 1920s, and had gone on to make cartoons at their own studio for MGM. When their contracts were not renewed, they found themselves out of work. At the same time, Disney, who was wrapping up
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), needed help to finish his film. Harman and Ising let Disney use their ink and paint department in exchange for producing
Merbabies, which Ising and Vernon Stallings directed without credit. The story was written by Pinto Colvig, Jonathan Caldwell, and Maurice Day, and the animators included Tom McKimson (who would later work at Warner Bros.), Lee Blair, and Rollin "Ham" Hamilton.
The "Merbabies" of the title were redheaded mermaid babies (with bottoms almost totally exposed) who resembled the "Kewpie Dolls" so popular in the 1930s. The short opens with the babies lounging in a bubbly pool and playing in the waves, then going underneath the sea to have a circus, complete with seahorses and octopi that pretend to be elephants. The fun (and the film) ends when a whale's sneeze blows them back up to the surface.
Merbabies was released to theaters on December 9, 1938.
SOURCES:
"Merbabies"
The Big Cartoon Database
"Merbabies: A Silly Symphony"
The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
The Internet Movie Database
