The good news is that with each passing package film, Disney and his animators seem to be growing closer to establishing the whimsy and magic we all know and love. In fact, Melody Time starts with a segment, Once Upon a Wintertime, that makes up in story what it lacks in animation value (these things were made on the cheap). Whereas I complained in my previous blog about a stream of seemingly insignificant stories and characters in Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free, the beginning of Melody Time instilled me with confidence. The Disney narrative I had always imagined was becoming clearer.
But life isn't that simple, because in the remaining six segments, I was up and down and back again. Yes, Disney and his animators were finding/rediscovering the magic of storytelling, but they weren't doing so on a completely consistent basis. Also, I am assuming, perhaps falsely that Disney was closely involved in these projects, but then again, maybe I'm wrong. Just know that I am choosing to pin the success and failure on him, because I know his name. Fun fact: I also wrote a report on him in seventh grade - didn't we all?
Speaking of strong starts, I felt similarly watching The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which is comprised of only two segments with - thankfully - very little time spent tying the two together (take heed Fun and Fancy Free - no disrespect to the cricket). The first feature is a retelling of The Wind in the Willows, and, arguably the better of the two. The follow-up is a take on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, narrated by Bing Crosby, who could probably held my interested and attention through anything.
Before I get any deeper, though, I would like to the time to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the films beginning with Melody Time, the older of the two releases.
As I mentioned Once Upon a Wintertime gives Melody Time a solid start, portraying the parallel romances of two young couples, one human, the other animal. The story has a certain simplicity, but there are little touches that make it compelling, such as the side-by-side comparison of young love and the male and female counterparts ultimately teaming up. The next segment, Bumble Boogie, is relatively forgettable and brief. But The Legend of Johnny Appleseed, the film's second longest piece at 17 minutes is a success. Perhaps it's the pairing of humans and animals that gives Disney its unique appeal, because in this segment Johnny is able to woo a pack of wild animals simply by treating a stray skunk with the same kindness one might afford to a dog. As a result, Johnny and the animals travel the United States sowing and planting apple seeds. Alas, it's not all sunshine and happiness, because for some strange reason, the ending shows us Johnny's eventual death (don't worry he goes to heaven and all that), which is the segment's one true flaw.
Then there's Little Toot, or the beginning of the end. It's here that Melody Time started to lose me. Little Toot is a rather dark tale about a small, yet troubled tugboat. At one point he causes his dad to crash a cruise ship and lose his job. What happened to escapism?! Anyway, the follow-up is about the seasons of trees, which I might say is just Bambi with Bambi cut out. So, about three minutes of nature's beauty as it endures the various seasons. Visually striking, but it feels like this belongs in another movie. Then, it's Donald Duck's five millionth appearance. I seriously had no idea he was in so many Disney films, poor Mickey. Naturally, he shares time with the other caballeros and there's a samba. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Finally, it's the over-sized finale, Buffalo Bill, which feels too long for two reasons. First, it's the longest segment at 22 minutes and, second, it follows after three pretty brief animations. There's also a third reason that just came to my mind, it's the weakest story of the bunch and it involves live human narrators. Why?! Then, the color palette is too reddish-orange for my taste and the characters are just drawn in a very irregular-looking manner. The final straw was the glaring omission of my home state, New Mexico, see below. In the end, there were a lot of things working against this short, which tried to explain Buffalo Bill's entire history in a matter of minutes.
In the end, you win some, you lose some. Nevertheless, Melody Time, reveals Disney animation to be on a general upswing, so I'll accept.
The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is the greater success, though, containing two longer-form animations that feel more Disney-produced than most of what had been seen in the "package film" era. What the adaptations of The Wind in the Willows and Sleepy Hollow had was the general "look" and story of a Disney film. Sure, the animation lacks the detail previously seen in Snow White or Bambi, but it's pretty on par with that of Dumbo, which was made on the cheap. The stories, though condensed down from a normal feature-length Disney movie, have definitive beginnings, middles, and ends, with plenty of time to establish necessary emotional beats.
More important, to me, than either of the above criteria is the characters. In comparison, this is where I would rank The Wind in the Willows higher than Sleepy Hollow as it is able to capture the essence of compelling characters far better. For most of Sleepy Hollow I was confused about who I was supposed to be rooting for and still kind of am. Ichabod was seemingly the "hero" of the story, yet in the end he didn't get the girl. Then, there was the fact that he seemed to use the women in the village to get meals. But he had the voice of Bing Crosby, so how could I not root for him in some way? Meanwhile, the characters in The Wind in the Willows were complicated, yet understandable. There's Toad, the likable heir too often wrapped up in some sort of mania. As an audience member I wanted him to ultimately succeed in spite of his flaws.
It's worth noting that I have zero experience with the texts of either The Wind in the Willows or Sleepy Hollow. And even though I know I saw this film as a child, I recall owning it, I remembered almost none of it, so there you go.
Oh, one last thing that I thought was kind of cool, is that at the beginning of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, the narrator asks, "If you were asked to chose the most fabulous character of English literature, who would it be?," before naming off the likes of Robin Hood, King Arthur, Oliver Twist, and Sherlock Holmes, all of whom have been given their own Disney adaptions. I have to wonder if Mr. Toad would feel cheated knowing he only got half of a feature-length film?
This week I have to catch up by watching Cinderella and then Alice in Wonderland, which got me into this mess of being behind!
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