Robert Reynolds This short is part of the Silly Symphonies series done by Disney. There will be spoilers ahead:This is a short primarily about the courtship of two monkeys clearly in love. There's a brief bit early on with a group of monkeys dancing and two parrots dancing, but the bulk of the cartoon relates to the adventures of the monkey couple.Crocodiles enter roughly midway through the short, themselves dancing briefly and one crocodile emerges to bring a bit of drama into the short as a threat to the monkeys, who move from one potential hazard to another. They come through all their misadventures intact and the short ends happily, as these shorts tend to do.This short is available on the Disney Treasures More Silly Symphonies DVD set. This short and the set are well worth having. Recommended.

TheLittleSongbird Monkey Melodies is no Skeleton Dance, but it is an improvement on El Terrible Toreador, The Merry Dwarfs and Cannibal Capers and has more interest to Arctic Antics and Frollicking Fish. The story is a familiar set up, but everything is done in a lively manner. Complete with niftily choreographed dancing, energetic music, crisp pacing and likable, engaging characters, the main positive asset about Monkey Melodies is the animation, not just fluid and smooth but also one of the more detailed Silly Symphonies in terms of animation such as with the water effects and the dancing through the treetops. All in all, very enjoyable from an animation perspective and one of the better early efforts from the Silly Symphony cartoons. 8/10 Bethany Cox

MartinHafer The Silly Symphony films are a bit antiquated compared to the later films of Disney--particularly when you see the older black & white ones from the series. However, back in the late 20s and through the 30s, singing and dancing creatures was all the rage. Sure, Mickey and the gang have aged better but the Silly Symphonies are often rather cute and featured some lovely animation for the day."Monkey Melodies" (not to be confused with "Merry Melodies") is a cartoon set in the African jungle. The main characters are a couple of cute monkeys that are in love. They dance about and all is well in their world...until...the dreaded crocodiles appear. Fortunately, the crocs seem more interested in dancing about than eating the monkey lovers (maybe I should have re-phrased that as it sounds like a line from "Candide")--at least at first. However, I knew the crocs HAD to get to the business of trying to eat the lovers because that is the theme of half the early cartoons in the series...seriously! When it's not a croc, it's a cat or a crow or a spider or some other evil creature that wants to eat the sweet main characters! Because it was a lovely BUT predictable cartoon, I'll deduct a point and give it an 8--which is still pretty good!

Ron Oliver A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.It's a jolly day in the jungle and the various & sundry simians are making MONKEY MELODIES. Two amorous little banana eaters allow their monkeyshines to lead them into unexpected danger...A pleasant black & white cartoon, with considerable action/reaction animation. As its title implies, the plot is largely driven by the tuneful soundtrack. This is possibly the only place you'll ever find a spoof of minstrel shows performed by crocodiles.The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.