This isn’t the Disney one. Or the made-for-TV one. Or like the musical one...
Toyland is sort of like Duloc, in Shrek—but instead of fairy tale characters, it’s nursery rhyme characters. Bo Peep, the Cat and the Fiddle, the Three Little Pigs, Little Miss Muffet, Jack and Jill, and others from nursery rhymes live in Toyland, along with Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee. Stannie and Ollie are inept toy makers who live with the Peep family. When the wretched Barnaby’s marriage proposal is rejected by Bo-Peep, he threatens the Peeps with the receipt of their past-due mortgage. Stannie and Ollie offer to help, first trying to get a loan from their boss and then trying to sneak into Barnaby’s house, but fail. Finally, they dupe Barnaby into handing over the mortgage documents. Fuming, Barnaby frames the death of a Pig (of the Three Little) on Tom-Tom, Bo-Peep's love interest. Yet again, Ollie and Stannie foil his plans. Banished and in a rage, Barnaby coaxes an army of disgusting Bogeymen to attack Toyland. And—you guessed it, Stannie and Ollie come to its defense. If only there was an army of life-sized toy soldiers hanging around.
Wow. I don’t fully remember how this film got on my list. I think I got a recommendation to watch a Laurel and Hardy comedy. If you’ve ever seen artwork of “old Hollywood”, you’ve probably seen Laurel and Hardy’s images. I also try to load December up with “Holiday movies”. Wikipedia and several other sites list this as a “Christmas/Holiday” film, but I don’t see why—“Die Hard” has more Christmas than this. Other than a brief cameo from Santa Claus (who has outsourced work to the Toy Maker), this film doesn’t refer to the holiday.
Instead, the film has more of a “proto-Wizard of Oz” production design. Except, instead of being one of the cinematic classics, this one is an absolute mess. The nursery rhyme characters are seemingly more shallow or uninteresting than they are in their nursery rhymes. Barnaby’s “evil menace routine” felt like a high school drama class’s idea of evil. And the comedy—that was the most disappointing part for me. I chuckled a few times, but in general, I found myself bored with Laurel and Hardy’s antics. Sure, they are the forefathers to some of the best “two dumb guys” comedy pairs—Bill and Ted, Dumb & Dumber, Kenan & Kel, Jay & Silent Bob, etc.—but I just didn’t find their “oversized child” routine to be that funny. I can’t figure out why Chaplin’s comedy breaks-through for me, but other comedy acts from this era annoy me. No clue.
Anyway, the “March of the Toy Soldiers” stop motion animation act was pretty cool. But the actual-monkey dressed up as Mickey Mouse (in a costume that sealed its face into a mask) was terrifying and sad…kind of like the film.