YMMV / Happy Harmonies

• Accidental Aesop: "Bottles" possibly gives the moral that when mixing dangerous ingredients or chemicals to always use proper protection. Hence the old man's bizarre dream from letting poisonous foam get on his hands or breathing in the fumes.
• Award Snub: "The Calico Dragon" and "Old Mill Pond" were nominated for the Academy Award, but both predictably lost to Disney shorts of the time.
• Awesome Music: "Tales of the Vienna Woods" uses the classic Johann Strauss waltz of the same name, and to memorable effect.
• Cult Classic: Due to the cartoons often airing on Cartoon Network in its heyday, the series has something of a small fan following.
• Growing the Beard: The Happy Harmonies are, for the most part, beautifully drawn and animated but sadly unremarkable in their execution. Though the early ones during the time they were restricted to two-strip technicolor dipped heavily into Unintentional Uncanny Valley due to using more realistically drawn characters. By 1936 the shorts look much more cartoony and have wilder animation. Compare and contrast the first "Good Little Monkeys" short with "Pipe Dreams" as an example.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: "Toyland Broadcast" has the show transmitting from station ABC.
• Jerkass Woobie: The cat from The Discontented Canary was quite persistent in his pursuit of the titular canary, but he's simply following his feline instincts, is stuck outside during a storm while the canary manages to find his way back to his cage, and his yelp of pain after being struck by lightning sounds a little too realistic.
• Nightmare Fuel: "Bottles" is a notorious short for its downright creepy beginning and climax—especially for its unforgettable villain, a sadistic bottle of poison with a skull and bone arms, that is obsessed with torturing and then trying to kill the poor shopkeeper! And then there's his shrill voice and cackle..
  "AH-ha-ha-ha-ha! Death! Walks! Tonight!"
  • The "Spirits of Ammonia" sent to capture the shopkeeper are also pretty creepy, and they make good on knocking him stiff and handing him over to the heinous poison bottle.
• So Okay, It's Average: The majority of the shorts have this reputation, while nothing terrible, compared to most cartoons striving to compete with Disney’s Silly Symphonies they didn't really stand out behind a few examples.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: To go hand-in-hand with its stunning backgrounds and animation, "To Spring" is loaded with jaw-dropping special effects work, especially when Old Man Winter appears.