Yes, I have fallen behind my own standards... But the good news is that I (and you as my reader) have not given up. A large chunk of my absence can be explained by a commitment I made to set design a production of Alice In Wonderland that was directed by a very close friend. Plus, as a Disney fan, how could I be expected to say no? As an apology, I promise to share my take on Alice, but not until the time is right (see Week 13). So, in the meantime, let's just agree that life is crazy and that sometimes finding even the tiniest slice of time is impossible, but we're all sorry.
Now, you might also feel ripped off knowing that I have combined two movies into a single blog entry. But aside from the fact that it does make my life easier to lump them together, there's actually good reason for them to be discussed side-by-side and that is they are remarkably similar in composition. Much like Fantasia, Sauldos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music and Fun and Fancy Free are "package films," or theatrical releases of collected cartoon shorts that are strung together in some sort of thematic way. With Make Mine Music little effort is made to really weave the stories together other than that they're simply stories told through song. Conversely, Fun and Fancy Free gives us narrator Jiminy Cricket to help us navigate the different stories. His (and the director's) job is significantly easier, though, because Fun and Fancy Free contains only two cartoon shorts to Make Mine Music's ten. For clarification's sake, Walt Disney only chose to forgo more traditional animated fare like Snow White, Pinocchio, or Dumbo, because many of his animators were tied up by WWII and he did not want to completely get away from theatrical releases. Essentially, he made the choice to work with what he had and what he had was a lot of unused short cartoons.
I'll be honest and say that Make Mine Music isn't oft remembered or mentioned, because there's not a lot to it. The problem with it being comprised of ten shorts and running at just 76 minutes is that none of the cartoons have a moment to breathe. Before the audience can even get used to the characters, they're gone. And they're not exactly recognizable characters. If the shorts revolved around well-known Disney or even fairy/folk tale characters, they might make more of an impact, but they're not. The only use of a well-known character (that I can think of) is a Peter and the Wolf segment, but the rest are original or fairly unknown. Additionally, the cartoons don't all end in the traditional "happily ever after" manner that we have come to expect from the average Disney feature. In one about a singing whale, the whale is ultimately killed under the suspicion that he swallowed multiple opera singers (he didn't).
Speaking of death, the general tone of these shorts is pretty violent. The first segment features dueling families who kill each other off in a gun battle. The above image shows them going to heaven (really?). I read that in more recent releases of Make Mine Music, attempts have been made to tone down the more violent portions of the original. Of course, I don't know which edit of the film I saw, but I'd certainly hope it was the original, because it got pretty dark! I'd hate to think how much darker it could've gotten - this is Disney, after all.
There's not much more to say, so I will sum it up by saying I'm thankful the film exists, because without it, who knows what might have become of Disney animation had an effort not been made to keep it running during the war?
As for Fun and Fancy Free, there was definitely a lot more thought put into the thematic organization of the film and its shorts, but it didn't make much of a difference to me. In fact, such an effort is made to establish Jiminy Cricket as the film's emcee that the shorts are almost lost among the clunky set up, which is probably as long as either short when added together. Worth noting is that there's some live action in the latter half of the film, live action that includes not one but two creepy puppets! And let's face it, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Rock-a-Doodle are the only movies I can think of that made cartoons and real people co-exist well.
The first short comes in the form of Bongo, in what I can only imagine is the continuation of Dumbo's life, only this time he's a bear. Essentially, Bongo is a poor, mistreated circus bear, who runs away into the wild and must adjust to "uncivilized" animals. In time, he meets a female bear and they fall in love, which apparently in "bear talk" is conveyed via slap (maybe not a super strong choice for a kid's film...). But there's a big bear who tries intervene steals away Bongo's girlfriend for a time. I'm sure you can guess the heroic ending. Then, there's a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk featuring Mickey, Goofy, and Donald, which I had not only seen, but could get behind - familiar story told with recognizable characters, albeit in a condensed form. I might add, this short represented Walt Disney's final voice-over work as Mickey. The below image has somehow remained with me since the first time I saw Mickey and the Beanstalk as a kid (for whatever reason) and so I chose to share it.
Overall, two shorts do have a longer amount of time to establish themselves and their characters than was the case in Fun and Fancy Free, but in the end they're still shorts to me. I guess I require more time and depth in storytelling, just like Donald (above) wanted more to his sandwich. I just want to see one film when I sit down to watch a movie. But like I said before, I'm glad this movie gave way to more enjoyable films a little farther down the road.
Up next I have Melody Time and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which may or may not get a joint blog. Time will tell!
Thanks for reading!
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