Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

johnstonjames High! High! High! Cockalorum! La La la la la la! look 'Waterbabies' fans. if you want to put this movie up on a pedestal as a High! High! High! work of art, then you should know your 'Waterbabies' facts.i thought this movie was pretty good. i can't say i know the entire iconology or pre-production history of 'Waterbabies' like some of it's enthusiastic fan base, but i did think it had a lot of quality for a kiddie flick. good production values, a good cast, and high! high! high! standard hand drawn animation. can't say i ever heard of this film when i was growing up, but there was more to it than i would have guessed. i mean it had culture, it was based on Charles Kingsley's classic poem for babies.some people attacked the hand animation as being bad. come'on. anyone who knows good hand drawn ani. can look at this and tell it wasn't cheap. even the character design preceded stuff like 'A shark's Tail'.this movie was not ghastly or butt clenchingly bad, like some 'Waterbabies' haters would have you think. it was just gnaw on the chipmunk really weird. it did kind of freak me out a bit (i was really high! high! high! however) and the numerous reps of 'High Cockalorum' did make me want to run from my TV screaming. but this movie had high! high! high! production standards for a kiddie flick.basically 'Waterbabies' was about believing. in waterbabies that is. i mean they could exist couldn't they? maybe they're like loch nessie or that big foot thing. i personally think they are related to sea monkeys. sea monkeys are real right? i saw sea monkey's with me own eyes when i was little so i know they exist. i think i'll have another doobie and contemplate this. 'Baby' fanz sing! high! high! high! Cockalorum!

iwantsofia An orphan boy named Tom (Tommy Pender), who works for a pair of shady chimney sweeps, is falsely accused of stealing from the mansion where he is working at by Mr. Grimes (James Mason) - the real thief - and goes on the run. Tom's only alibi is the niece of the mansion's owners (Samantha Gates, a slender, blue-eyed blonde, with long, wavy hair, who I'm sure was the primary reason why I repeatedly watched this as a boy). He and his dog jump into a river and a witch turns them into water breathing cartoon characters! While underwater, he befriends and rescues a group of water breathing children known as water babies from a shark.A very interesting and always fascinating fable, set in 1850, that should appeal to all children. The animation (42 minutes of the 85 minute HBO VHS print) is just average, but it's preferable to most modern day animation - even computer animation! My only real gripe is a plot hole caused by a deleted scene. At 42:06, after the first verse of "High Cockalorum", the film cuts to a scene with octopi swimming, followed by Tom and Jacque's encounter with Terence. This leads to a scene in which the killer shark (voiced by Mason) leads our heroes into a trap. The shark then greets Tom with, "Young Tom, so nice to see your ugly mug again" - but this is the first time in HBO's print that Tom meets the shark! Most reference books list the running time as 92 or 93 minutes, and it was previously available from Sultan Entertainment and Nelson, so it's very likely that HBO's print is edited and / or time-compressed. Adding insult to injury, MGM released a fullscreen, 76 minute print on DVD in 2002! Let's hope a restored version appears in the near future.The film is copyright Ariadne Films 1978. "Ariadne" is the water baby voiced by Samantha Gates. Bernard Cribbins, who plays Mason's partner in crime, also voices the electric eel. A.K.A. Slip Slide Adventures.

sev127 I first saw this film when I was about 6 ish - my grandma thought it'd be a nice kiddies film to entertain me and keep me occupied....however, every time I watched it I had nightmares the same night. Yes it masquerades as a kids' film, but even now I find it really dark in places, particularly the haunting music that is played each time the guardian angel woman is on the screen, and her rather hypnotic eyes and voice. The actual "baddies" of the film, ie the sharks, Mr Grimes etc didn't scare me at all, I just always found the whole film rather creepy and dark. This is obviously something I can appreciate now that I'm 21 years old, but speaking from experience there is no way I would show it to my kids!

tahota49 This movie really is not what it would appear to be. A delightful children's animated fun-time is what you'd expect. This is not what is delivered. No one should watch this movie at a young age, because it will freak you out as much as 35 years later. I watched it at an early age, and now...roughly 16 years later or so....still freaked out a bit. You go from feeling very sorry for this kid who always has dirt on his face, to being scared of Mr Grimes, to receiving mental scars from the image and sound of the scary woman whispering "run boy" as her face is imposed over the normal footage, to thinking that maybe it's a good idea that we go animated from now on, to wondering what's up with that weird crab, and finally to trying to de-code the message on the cake at the end. It's all very odd. Maybe it's not really that scary. Maybe I was in a weird phase of my life at age 6, and this phase tainted the wonder of The WaterBabies. I guess you can judge for yourself, but only if you're over 18. Thank You.