Director: Chuck Jones
Release Date: June 8, 1940
Rating: ★★½
Review:
Many of Chuck Jones’s early cartoons of 1938-1941 have a Disney-like character, but ‘Tom Thumb in Trouble’ arguably tops them all in Disney overtones.
The short stars a particularly small Tom Thumb, being indeed the size of his father’s thumb. When the father goes to work and leaves Tom alone to do the dishes, Tom Thumb almost drowns, but he is rescued by a little yellow bird. Unfortunately, his father blames the bird, and Tom Thumb walks away into the woods because of that. In the end all are reunited.
There’s absolutely nothing funny about this sentimental and cloying tale, and one wonders what Jones was thinking. This cartoon would have fit the years 1934-1936, not 1940. The animation, however, is stunning, with the very realistic father being an animation highlight within Warner Bros.’ 1940 output, topping even the realistic humans in ‘Old Glory‘, as he appears to have been animated with more confidence and ease. The staging, too, is nothing but impressive, with its strikingly original and dramatic angles, often turning the father into a towering figure.
But the short owes nothing to the output of Jones’s colleagues, and the only aspect that makes it typically Warner Bros. is Carl Stalling’s music, which makes clever use of classical music, with Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries during Tom Thumb’s flight into the winter woods as a particular highlight.
Watch ‘Tom Thumb in Trouble’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Tom Thumb in Trouble’ is available on the DVD set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 5’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 
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April 5, 2020 at 01:35
Hans Christian Brando
This actually is a very underrated cartoon. I doubt it was meant to be “funny” in the yuk-yuk sense. Its dreaded cuteness is a moot point; what makes it remarkable is that it may be the first rounded male human animated character at a time when they were either boys, clowns, villains, grandpas, or faintly effeminate Prince Charmings. Tom Thumb’s father is undoubtedly masculine but also gentle and sensitive–even capable of shedding a tear. It’s debatable whether Disney ever achieved that in one of his characters; Brom Bones is popularly believed to be his first wholly successful male character, but even he’s a villain of sorts. (The Fleischers came close with Gulliver, but in the end he’s too stolid. Still, it’s hard to beat Popeye and Bluto for virility.)