Well, at least I beat my previous turnaround time for this post. I am ecstatic to finally be done with these package films and be returning to the traditional storytelling of disney films. Before we can finally leave them behind we have what is in my opinion the best package films since Saludos Amigos.
“Once Upon a Wintertime” starts us off with a beautiful sleigh ride around a river, then an ice skating trip gone wrong as our protagonist couple hit some interpersonal friction on the ice which leads to danger as the woman storms off onto thin ice which breaks apart and sweeps her towards a waterfall. Her man fails to save her and is knocked into a snowbank but she is saved by a concerted effort from the animals that have been flitting about them all day. This is a bit of a nothing opening, the visuals are pretty and the stylism on display is lovely, but the actual action is delivered without dialogue. This leads to the conflict being a touch toothless as it appears to be kickstarted by the man just deciding to be annoying after a while of very romantic interactions. Out of nowhere he takes a massive run up and hockey stops to spray his beau with ice shards. While we obviously know too little about any of their characters to say anything is in or out of character it certainly felt unmotivated by his previous behaviour and somewhat took me out of the rest of the short. The music was passable but completely not to my taste and didn’t feel like it was adding much to me.
“Bumble Boogie” is a fantastic piece of music. It’s a jazzy rendition of the “Flight of the Bumblebees” and the visuals bring to mind the best parts of psychedelia Fantasia had to offer. A bumblebee gets assaulted by various shape shifting things with similarities to musical instruments in time to the music. It’s hard to describe without going beat for beat and I feel like reading that description would take longer than the three minute piece itself, and still be woefully inferior. This piece is another in the list of things that make me wish we got a Jazz Fantasia and is well worth finding on YouTube if you’re so inclined. There’s not much depth to this that I could ascertain beyond simple enjoyment, so there’s not much else I can say here. Well worth the three minutes.
“The Legend of Johnny Appleseed” is some serious Westward Expansion apologia and as such is somewhat difficult to watch in modern times, doubly so as a non-American. A “pioneer” narrator tells us the story of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed, a godly apple farmer who was sent west (young man) by a personal guardian angel with a tin pot, a bible, and a bag of appleseeds. He befriends the wild beasts and plants apple trees all over America to be enjoyed by pioneers and Indians alike. At the end of his life he is only lured into heaven with the promise that they need some apple trees and the pioneer narrator tells us that what we see in the sky aren’t clouds, but “They’re apple blossoms from Johnny’s heavenly orchard of apple trees”. This short has decent songs and is well animated. It’s even somewhat endearing, but all that competency going towards some pretty overt Manifest Destiny propaganda is hard to stomach, and it gave me a sourer taste while watching it than Johnny’s apples must have. You’ll note that he plants those orchards from seeds which, from everything I know, is a terrible way to get apples that taste halfway decent. If you can divorce yourself from the propaganda aspects this is probably a fairly decent short, but this reviewer was not capable of doing so in this case.
“Little Toot” is the story of an irresponsible tugboat who is exiled after an attempt to help a ship makes it crash into the city. He finds a ship that’s been swept onto the rocks in a storm and brings it back home to great acclaim. It’s neither the worst nor the best of this genre of morality story, but it is commendable for a great atmosphere. The storm seems terrifying, the police boats menacing, and the ocean liners gigantic. Fairly mid, but entertainingly so.
“Trees” is an adaptation of the 1915 Joyce Kilmer poem of the same name, and using the 1922 musical composition by Oscar Rasbach for the same verse. In a framing reminiscent again of Fantasia the narrator tells us “Now we bring to you these three: Poem, picture, melody. A simple tribute to a tree” and it is clear that the Disney animators were interested in exploring what they could add to a work of art that had already been adapted from written to audio media. What they can add, as it turns out, is some of the best animation I’ve seen in this era of Disney films. While still cartoony, the style of the animals is far more detailed and because of this adds a level of realism, or at least verisimilitude, that many of the package film shorts lack. The different angles and scenes of the tree all look like different trees until we return to a shot of the tree at the angle we were introduced to it and can see the complexities that were missed on the first glimpse. This has the effect of making it seem like the one tree touches different worlds and the link to divinity at the end of the poem feels earned once we’ve seen this tree touch so many elements of life. This isn’t the most engaging short, but it is clear that there is a lot of effort being put into it and it is intriguing to think about.
The penultimate short is “Blame it on the Samba” and stars Donald Duck and José Carioca who mope into frame coloured in blue with their heads hung. They find their way into a bar whose proprietor is the Aracuan Bird from The Three Caballeros. The Bird makes them drinks and puts different samba instruments into the cocktail shaker, and as it does this our protagonists have colour returned to them, both literally and figuratively. A short amount of dancing later we transition to inside one of the samba drinks where we see a live action plate of a woman playing an organ and the animated characters interact with her in a few different scenes. None of them are particularly interesting and I find the drop in energy noticeable and frustrating everytime the live action plate is intruding on the short; however, the best shot in the short is when the Bird blows up the live action organ and an animated one reforms around the player. Overall this short is alright, but personally I found it a touch bland. Carioca is a welcome returning character, but the Aracuan Bird was pretty mid in its first appearance and continues to feel like a bland version of the Road Runner in this incarnation as well.
“Pecos Bill” is the final short and what a bizarrely apt note to end this run of package films on. The short opens on gorgeous animation of a desert at night. The moon is shining on the cacti and the pillars of stone provide perches for birds and coyotes alike. A soft chorus of voices croons that “until darkness sheds its veil, there’ll be blue shadows on the trail” in a barbershop quartet ode to the still melancholy of the night. This beautiful scene sadly transitions into a live action plate of western pioneers, or a caravan of cowboys and the like - the time period seems deliberately vague - trekking through Texas.Some mild antics lead into a child asking who Pecos Bill is and the adults begin the story. We’re told a fairly simple Texan creation myth about how Bill dropped out of the back of a wagon as was raised by a Coyote family. He did each animal’s thing better than it could (jump higher, chew through bones, run faster etc), and eventually saves a foal from vultures. They go on to be such a wildly successful pair that he’s responsible for the gold in the texan hills (he rustles some bandits and shakes loose their fillings), the water in the Gulf of Mexico (he brought the rain from California), and the Rio Grande exists (he was thirsty and… dug it?) among a few less savoury creations (to do with depictions of Native Americans I don’t care to describe here). He finally meets a woman, Sue, who can match him in many tasks, and they are wed. For the wedding she requires a bustle, a dress, and to be allowed to ride Bill’s horse Widowmaker. She manages to ride the horse for some time, but is eventually bucked off and bounces ever higher on the bustle. Bill attempts to lasso her but is unknowingly sabotaged by Widowmaker and falls short. Sue bounces to the moon and we’re told that the coyotes howl at the moon in sympathy with Bill who was reduced to the same whenever he saw the object his love landed on. This short is a reasonably cute adaptation of the standard style of explanatory creation myth (“rainbows are God’s promise”, “Winter is because Demeter is sad about Persephone going to Hades”) with some cute Americana added in. Apart from the horrible depiction of Indians, which is mercifully brief, the short is filled with comedic bits and overall aims for a frenetic pace to match the pure undiluted madness of its main character. Unfortunately, the quartet style of singing, which in the opening lent a gorgeous sense of atmosphere and contemplation, is simply too slow and often stilted to match the energy of the plot, characters, and animation. Multiple times the animation is going for an obvious joke but has to extend the lead up by a beat or two too many in order to allow the slowly narrated lyrics to catch up with the joke. Because these instances are rarely expectation subverting, they simply leave the viewer with a sense of impatience and ruin the flow of an otherwise serviceable short.
In many ways “Pecos Bill” sums up not just the feeling that I left Melody Time with, but the entire run of package films since Saludos Amigos. Where the first felt like it had a theme and artistic exploration, the shorts since then have been largely or completely disconnected from each other and ranging wildly in not just entertainment quality but occasionally animation quality. Disney’s experiments with mixing live action with animation were surely impressive for the time, but to a modern viewer the seams of animation techniques are obvious as the energy leaves the animation to accommodate the shots, and often the mix itself causes problems as the shorts variously attempt to justify the blend narratively or abandon any sense of explanation. The most successful shorts are the ones that felt like they belonged in the pre-package era’s anthology film, Fantasia, with some of the highlights being what I’ve lovingly begun to think of as Fantasia, but JAZZ. in Melody Time “Bumble Boogie” was the breath of fresh air, but Make Mine Music had “All the Cats Join In” and “After You’ve Gone” keeping the energy for that film. Despite the best attempts of the Fantasia, but JAZZ segments, the shorts in these package films were on average, inoffensively boring, and for an entertainment product this feels like the most damning critique. Ultimately the package films made me not want to keep watching and this project has advanced so slowly because of this lack of interest. The excitement I feel to be moving onto a transition back to feature films is immeasurable, so let us move onto the “last” package film, but also the transition back to normalcy that is The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.
Despite the ordering of the name we actually begin with the adaptation that genuinely makes me want to read The Wind in the Willows, “The Adventure of Mr. Toad”. We open in a large library while a narrator asks us who the “most fabulous character in English literature” is. A few answers are postulated but the narrator tells us that in his opinion it’s Mr. Toad from The Wind in the Willows. We begin with a pan down a river while the setting (English countryside) is explained and that Mr. Toad has a number of fairweather friends, but among them there are three true friends. The camera goes inside of a house perched on the river to see Mr. Rat awaiting Mr. Mole’s arrival for tea. After his arrival the postman delivers a letter summoning them to Toad Manor where the long-suffering Mr. MacBadger has been attempting to rescue Toad from his financial irresponsibility. We learn that Toad has taken to wandering the countryside in a yellow “gypsy wagon” with his horse (and enabler) Cyril. We see the duo tear their way through a scene “on the way to nowhere” before Toad sees a motorcar and is entranced, mimicking it all the way back to Toad manor in a display of impressive vocal talent (the sputtering of an early car coming out of a toad’s body was highly amusing) and apparent yet unremarked upon levitation. We see the three friends attempt to restrain Toad from his financially ruinous new mania by keeping watch on his room, but unbeknownst to them he escapes through the window and is arrested for stealing a car to take on a joyride. We join the narrative again in the courtroom where the prosecution is asking leading questions to Toad’s friends and not letting them answer. Mr. Toad rises in his own defense - yes, the barrister's wig on the toad body is adorable - and calls on the horse Cyril as his defense witness. Cyril recounts that Toad and he had absconded from the manor and found a beautiful red motor car sitting outside a pub filled with weasels. Mr. Toad negotiates with the weasels for the car, signing them the deed to Toad Manor in exchange for the car. The deal is witnessed, in an official sense, by the disreputable looking bartender Mr. Winky, who in the present is called as the defence’s star witness. True to his untrustworthy face, Mr. Winky takes the stand and corroborates the prosecution’s narrative, not Cyril’s. We’re shown a flash of Toad’s friends appealing the case, but cut to Toad alone in the Tower of London around Christmas. His “grandma” (read: Cyril in disguise) comes to visit him, and helps him escape, also in the disguise of an old lady. He makes his way to Mr. Rat’s house, who is apparently hosting Mr. Mole alone for Christmas. MacBadger also comes around and informs us that there were lights on in Toad Manor. When Toad arrives they all decide to go through a secret entrance to retrieve the physical deed from the weasels and Mr Winky. They do so in a large fight scene and the end of the story shows us Toad Manor restored, and Mr. Toad unrepentant taking up piloting as his new mania.
The adaptation of the Wind in the WIllows itself is not something I’ll be able to discuss here, as I’ve actually never read that novel; however,I have been made much more interested in doing so by this film. What I can discuss is how beautiful it was to finally have longer form storytelling. This story had multiple moving pieces and allowed for some slower moments that built to a large climax. The animation itself was simply gorgeous, the English countryside was stunningly portrayed, with a good deal of detail, and all the animals in their human clothes were a brilliant balance of dapper and cute. The weasels move lithely and are all in typical gangster caps, we even see them patrolling Toad Manor with muskets and bayonets. Mr. Mole’s hat that eventually gets sliced up. Mr Rat’s glorious mustache, deer-hunter hat, and corduroy coat looked wonderful and perfectly capture his attempt to be serious and demure - but also his struggle to be that in the face of Toad’s antics. MacBadger’s controlled or suppressed anger is a treat every moment he’s on screen. And Mr. Toad’s dapper, gentlemanly misbehaviour is soft spoken in the best ways. Truly all these characters wonderfully relate the tale of the “most fabulous character in English Literature”.
We fade out from watching Mr. Toad lazily circle Toad Manor in his new obsession of an aircraft, and return to the library where Bing Crosby takes over narration for “The Story of Ichabod Crane”. As the “camera” moves through The Legend of Sleepy Hollow book, we see the village of Tarrytown on the Hudson, and go inland to a “quiet, peaceful, and somewhat foreboding” secluded glen of Sleepy Hollow. We follow a newcomer to the town, Ichabod Crane, as he bounces into town with his nose buried in a book. Immediately we see that the animation of this film has a smooth physicality to it, similar to rotoscoped animation, but maintaining the cartoony physics common to Disney’s more slapstick shorts. We hear about the ways that Ichabod integrates himself into town as the schoolmaster - finding the mothers who cook well and teaching the young women how to sing - and we hear that he has become “the town’s ladies man” who “gets around like nobody can”. After living some time as what I have to assume is Disney’s family friendly way of describing a lothario, Ichabod meets the daughter of a local wealthy landowner, Katrina, and falls in love with her (or at least her connections to money). The local proto-Gaston - Brom Bone - and his gang of “country bumpkins” are also enamoured of Katrina (or her father’s wealth), and “every portal to Katrina’s heart was jealously guarded” by them; nonetheless, “Ichabod was was confident he’d soon run roughshod” over them all. Ichabod’s confidence appears to not be ill-placed as we’re shown that Katrina wishes for someone to challenge Brom openly, and as soon as Ichabod does she starts to favour the schoolmaster. A variety of antics ensue, with Ichabod moving smoothly through Brom’s more direct approaches and managing to be the Bugs Bunny to his Yosemite Sam. This all changes one Halloween, as Brom is invited to tell a ghost story around the fireplace, and tells the story of the Headless Horseman, and Ichabod is revealed to be particularly superstitious and fearful of what goes bump in the night. Later that evening, as Ichabod is riding home, we see him perceiving the creeping woods as more menacing than we’d seen during the day, and as a taloned gauntlet of clouds cover the moon, he enters a tunnel of closely arching bare branches, promptly losing what little cool he had remaining. His spooked horse bolts and he falls into a graveyard and is knocked unconscious. Coming too Ichabod realises that he was overly scared of natural occurrences, until the Headless Horseman rides into frame. Impressively animated in dark purple and red shades, with jet black shadows and a steed composed of darkness, the Horseman manages to look both out of place, and like the culmination of the art style of this short. An exemplary chase sequence then ensues, with Ichabod almost making it across the bridge that Brom’s story from earlier in the evening marked as safety, but he is not quite able to make it and may have been taken by the Horseman. The narrator tells us that Katrina married Brom, and that Ichabod was never seen in Sleepy Hollow again, but it’s left ambiguous if that’s due to him leaving or being taken by the Headless Horseman as “The next morning Ichabod’s hat was found, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin, but there was no trace of the schoolmaster”. As the camera leaves the story world, and returns to the library, the lights all turn off, and we hear the narrator say “man, I’m getting outta here”, in a fittingly spooky ending to the spookiest story I’ve seen from Disney.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a touch weaker than The Wind in the Willows for a Disney adaptation, and I get the sense that the animators likely took some liberties when it came to the hijinks surrounding the courtship of Katrina. It also leads to the film ending on an incredibly strong eerie atmosphere, but the middle of the story has an almost opposite aesthetic. Ichabod’s vulnerability to superstition is something that could quite easily have been worked into the narrative prior to it becoming relevant, and it leads to the film not feeling like a coherent narrative, so much as a series of plot points. Where The Wind in the WIllows provided numerous antics for the animators to adapt, those antics also felt linked to each other through the character of Mr. Toad and his manias, in a way that Ichabod Crane’s adventures weren’t able to replicate. While the storyline of a womaniser pursuing a local rich daughter partially for her beauty and partially for her wealth isn’t inherently problematic, the lack of embellishment in any narrative way makes it feel like the plot is happening to, rather than being driven by the characters. The cartoony elements also feel more out of place in this narrative, especially once the supernatural elements have been introduced, in a way that makes them stand out rather than offsetting each other. In “The Adventures of Mr. Toad” the serious character/legal drama contrasted with the zany manias of Toad, and the cartoony weasel scenes, but in Sleepy Hollow the cartoony elements do not enhance the eerie, but detract from the moods that attempt to be established.
Overall this film is a clear and vast improvement on the previous package films, and I welcome any return to longer form storytelling, even if the production hell these two films went through is fairly obvious from the final products. I have found forcing myself through these 6 package films rather difficult, as indicated by the enormous gaps in between posts (mea culpa), but this last package has reignited my joy in this project and has me excited for the next one. Next time, (I’ve learned not to commit to a timeline here), we will be discussing the first of the next batch of feature length films, Cinderella.
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