Deviation Actions
Melody Time, the 10th animated feature of the Disney Animation canon, is considered to be the last of the Anthology movies. Like its predecessor, Make Mine Music, it's a music-filled package film with songs sung by contemporary artists. After that, Disney finally got all the money he needed to return to feature-length animation starting with Cinderella.
STORY/REVIEW
First segment is "Once Upon A Wintertime", which is sung by Frances Langford, a story about two couples (a human couple and a rabbit couple) skating on ice. As the two males failed to impress the two females, things take a turn for the worst on thin ice. While it looks pretty with its wintery background but it's tonally misplaced when comedy and action are in the slow, dramatic singing. I remember seeing this on "A Walt Disney Christmas" on VHS when I was a kid.
Up next is "Bumble Boogie", a swing-jazz interpretation of Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" by Freddy Martin. While sharing the same abstract surreality of Dumbo's Pink Elephants, this is pretty decent.
"Johnny Appleseed", tells the legend of pioneer John Chapman, who travels out West with only a pot for a hat, a Bible, and a bag filled with apple seeds. All told and sung by Dennis Day. This is the better of the bunch, with a story that really works as its own narrative.
"Little Toot", sung by the Andrew Sisters, is the story of a little tugboat who has gone too far with trying to be a big tug like his dad by helping him push an ocean liner by the rudder. This gets him sent away for twelve miles, until he sees a ship in distress. While the story is odd, it's pretty okay, nothing special, but nothing terrible.
Joyce Kilmer's "Trees", sung by Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians, is set to nice and wonderful imagery, with some reminiscent of Bambi.
"Blame it On the Samba", sung by Ethel Smith and the Dinning Sisters, reunites Donald Duck with his Saludos Amigos and Three Caballeros co-star José Carioca. Also from The Three Caballeros is not Panchito but the Aracuan Bird. While it's fast-paced, it's mainly Latin dancing, merely leftover from Saludos and Caballeros.
"Pecos Bill", the final segment begins with a live action setting where Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers explains to Bobby Driscoll (future star of Peter Pan) and Luana Patton the legend of Texas cowboy Pecos Bill. That's where the animation portion comes in, showcasing Peco's early life being raised by coyotes and saving a young horse from being eaten by vultures. Then as a grown-up, he became a well-known legend from taming a raging cyclone to a breeze, bringing rain from California thus creating the Gulf of Mexico, knocking out rustlers' gold teeth for why there's gold in them thar hills, digging the Rio Grande, painting the Painted Desert, and finally, making the Lone Star Texas State. One day, he fell in love with a redhead named Slue-Foot Sue. The wedding came and as Sue was riding Bill's horse, Widowmaker, he tossed her off and she kept bouncing and bouncing on her bustle until finally she landed on the moon. This caused Pecos Bill to leave everything behind to return to the coyotes and howl at the moon, in memory of Sue. This short is most interesting and intriguing, mainly on the censorship of Pecos smoking a cigarette. I've seen the unedited version of it and it's okay. Now don't get me wrong, smoking kills, but censoring the smoking is going too far.
FINAL WORD
Similar to Make Mine Music, it doesn't reach the heights of Fantasia, but Melody Time is an interesting collection of shorts you can enjoy.
6/10
Ebonivor Updates
Commission Are Officially Open!
Commissions Coming Soon
FanExpo Cleveland
Yes sir Little Toot just couldn't seem to behave himself. He wasn't really bad but it just seemed he was always getting into trouble. For you see Little Toot was a tiny tugboat because a tugboat is supposed t pull the big ships around the harbor and that's what Little Toot's father did his name was Big Toot and when he blew his whistle, it sounded like this. But when Little Toot blew his whistle, it sounded like this. Well that was a funny little whistle now wasn't it? But Little Toot didn't care so he went on his merry way zipping around in the water in and out among the big ocean-liners tooting his whistle and blowing around the black smoke balls out of his smokestack first the whistle, now a puff of smoke. Suddenly when the big ship went completely out of control, it went round and round in circles and it ran right over Big Toot who went down under the waves and he came up full of water spluttering and gasping for breath. Well as I said, Little Toot didn't really mean to be bad in any way but when he saw how hard Big Toot worked pulling the big ocean liners, he decided to help him. So when he saw Big Toot tugging away with a huge ship from the end of his rope, Little Toot just stood around and back to the big liner then he started to push. But he pushed on the rudder by mistake and when the rudder turned, the big ocean liner of course turned to him well you could imagine the rest. And then the big ocean liner which was still out of control, had crashed into the docks then it went right up on the land and it stopped in the middle of a street that is after knocking down a couple of buildings. Meanwhile, the fire engines came running and there was much excitement. Well up to that time, one of Little Toot's troubles were little ones but now he was really in deep trouble for steering an ocean liner right up onto the street and through a couple of buildings was certainly no joke so the police boats arrived and they took Little Toot away bringing him out of the harbor and out into the big ocean beyond the 12-mile limit from outside the Harbor and they left him there all alone with instructions never to go back home. Out there in the ocean beyond the sight of a land, Little Toot spent a frightful night being tossed about by the big waves while the light buoys and the sounds in the night made creepy noises. But then a storm came up and Little Toot was soaked all the way up to the top of his smokestack the waves became bigger than he was towered over him and they crashed onto his head so that he sputtered and he coughed with water. Meanwhile, the sky was lighted with a rocket the signal of a ship in distress. By getting his own fears, Little Toot raced to the spot where he saw the rocket and in a flash of lightening, he saw a big oceanliner being caught between two rocks so Little Toot believed he needed some help and when he raced towards the spot, he started to puff the smoke balls from out of his smokestack only he puffed them so that they spelled SOS in smoke of the sky. SOS means that somebody's in trouble so just as Little Toot hoped, the other tugs back home at the harbor saw the smoke in the sky and knew that something was wrong. So they tried to get out and help but the storm forced them back which meant Little Toot was the only hope now and instead of bucking the waves like the other big tugs have done, he skimmed along the top of them jumping from one to the other. So when he got to the oceanliner, the captain of the ship threw a large rope to Little Toot then Little Toot started to pull and pull and pull and he made it the ocean liner was pulled free then off Little Toot went to take it safely back into the harbor and the other tugboats in the harbor who had witnessed the whole thing, set up a tremendous rocket with their whistles because that was their sound of approval for Little Toot's daring rescue and a welcome home to Little Toot who had certainly proven himself very worthy of finally being a full-fledged tugboat and incidentally made his father really proud of him too.