You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Specials’ category.
Director: Jack Hannah
Release Date: November 24, 1950
Stars: Bootle Beetle
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Morris, the Midget Moose’ starts with an eldery bootle beetle who tells two young bootle beetles the short’s story.
The beetle tells us about Morris, a very small moose with normal antlers who befriends Balsam, a moose with small antlers. They’re both outcasts, but together they defeat the reigning moose, the invincible Thunderclap.
This moralistic story is very sweet, but also slow and boring. It reuses a gag from ‘Moose Hunters’ (1937) of moose throwing each other on the ground, affecting the complete landscape, but the gag is executed less elaborately, and with less funny results.
‘Morris, the Midget Moose’ was the only cartoon featuring Bootle Beetle outside Jack Hannah’s Donald Duck series. It was also the little insect’s last appearance on the movie screen.
Watch ‘Morris, the Midget Moose’ yourself and tell me what you think:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCXxKMIdLHU
‘Morris, the Midget Moose’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities’
Director: Jack Kinney
Release Date: March 3, 1950
Rating: ★★
Review:
After the Walt Disney studios quit its package features, it started to release ‘specials’ again, one-shot cartoons featuring no recurring character.
These specials were essentially the successors of the Silly Symphonies, and a few were made during World War II. However, most of them were made in the fifties, if not necessarily to advance animation, then certainly to keep animators busy between feature films. Unfortunately, almost none of these shorts match the inventiveness of the Silly Symphonies or were really successful (the Academy Award winning ‘Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom’ (1953) is the prime exception).
For example, ‘The Brave engineer’, the first special from the fifties, looks like it has been a left-over from the compilation feature ‘Melody Time‘ (1948). Like this feature’s sequences ‘The Legend of Johnny Appleseed‘ and ‘Pecos Bill‘, it’s a half sung and half narrated tall-tale based on a poem about a legendary American hero from the 19th century.
This time comedian Jerry Colonna sings and tells the story of Casey Jones, a train engineer, a character who really existed. In the cartoon Casey desperately tries to deliver the western mail on time. On the way he encounters all the cliches featured in westerns involving trains: a damsel on the rails, train robbers and a villain who blows up a bridge. The ride ends in a clash with another train. Unlike the real Casey Jones, who died in the crash, the cartoon Casey survives and delivers the mail on time, almost…
Despite the relatively fast pace and many corny gags, the story never really takes off. The viewer somehow never gets involved in the story and remains uninterested to the end.
Watch ‘The Brave Engineer’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Brave Engineer’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities’
Director: Clyde Geronimi
Release Date: January 15, 1943
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
Both propaganda shorts Disney released in January 1943, ‘Der Fuehrer’s Face‘ and ‘Education for Death’, were the most powerful propaganda the studio ever released. However, the two couldn’t be more different: while ‘Der Fuehrer’s Face’ is an outrageously funny satire, ‘Education for Death’ is, some funny scenes notwithstanding, the most unsettling short the studio ever released. Its general tone is black, grim and its purpose is to shock, not to entertain.
Based on a book by Gregor Ziemer, ‘Education for Death’ tells us how Hans, a typical German boy, is indoctrinated by the rulers of the Third Reich. The short is conceived in a quasi-documentary style. The narrator makes us believe that the scenes we’re watching, are happening right before our eyes, and unlike any other cartoon of the period, the Germans speak real German, which is translated by the narrator.
Moreover, most of the human designs are quite realistic, with Hans’s mother, animated by Milt Kahl, being the acme in human naturalism by the studio thus far. On the other hand, all scenes are heavily dramatized, using colors like red and black, vast shadows, and extreme camera angles, which depict every Nazi as a towering and threatening figure.
In the beginning we are still allowed to laugh at a ridiculous version of Sleeping Beauty, in which Hitler, dressed like a ‘handsome knight’ rescues a fat, Valkyrie-like Germany from an evil witch (said to be democracy). But after the school scene, the short turns decidedly black, with images of book burning, a bible being replaced by ‘Mein Kampf’ and Jesus by a Nazi sword. In the final scene, Hans has grown into a grim soldier, who, wearing chains, blinders and a muzzle, marches to his own death. No matter how blatant this propaganda short is, this is one of the most disturbing endings of an animated film ever put on screen.
Watch ‘Education for Death’ yourself and tell me what you think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vLrTNKk89Q
‘Education for Death’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Walt Disney Treasures: On the Frontlines’
Director: Charles Nichols
Release Date: March 16, 1961
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘The Saga of Windwagon Smith’ was Disney’s last tall tale cartoon after entries like ‘Pecos Bill‘ (from ‘Melody Time‘, 1948) and ‘Paul Bunyan‘ (1958).
Unlike the former, which were rooted in American folklore, this story seems to be an original, although it retains a traditional feel. The story, which is narrated in rhyme, and partly sung by Rex Allen and the Sons of the Pioneers, tells about Windwagon Smith, a sailor who arrives at Westport, a small town in Kansas on a wagon with a sail. He convinces the villagers to make even a larger one to sail the prairies to Santa Fe with. But when it’s ready the villagers get scared and abandon the ‘ship’, except for Molly, the mayor’s daughter, who’s in love with Smith. Together they vanish into a storm.
‘The Saga of Windwagon Smith’ was the last cartoon to be directed by Charles Nichols. It’s also the last of only six shorts directed by him not to feature Pluto. It’s moderately stylized except for Molly, who’s conceived and animated in a charmingly stylized way, seeming to float more than to walk. Nichols left Disney in 1962 for Hanna-Barbera, where he worked on countless television series. In the late 1980s he returned to Disney, where he worked onto his death in 1992, 81 years old.
Watch ‘The Saga of Windwagon Smith’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Saga of Windwagon Smith’ is available on the DVD ‘Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 