After the two Latin American package features, I was anxiously anticipating a
change. My change was a bit bigger than I expected, as it came in the form of a week’s absence from watching and writing. However, I got an apartment in Washington, DC (woohoo!) and am now faithfully returning to The Disney 50 with…
#8 – Make Mine Music (1946)
Here’s what I’ve decided about package features. I think I prefer them without the attempt at storyline or thematic consistency that we saw in both Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros. It’s much easier to just enjoy a bunch of well-done, creative shorts that don’t feel so obligatorily tied to a theme.
Make Mine Music is a pretty fun group of shorts. I enjoyed the sense of play and the wide variety of work we get to see.
What is troubling, however, is that for the DVD release of the film, Disney censors out an entire short: “The Martins and the Coys.” Apparently, the portrayal of “comic gun play” was too inappropriate. What…? I mean, in “Casey at the Bat” one of the spectators at the baseball game yells that she wants to “kill the umpire.” That’s pretty violent too, Disney. Probably should have censored that while you were at it. For the venturesome YouTube watcher who isn’t afraid of a little comic gun play, The Martins and the Coys is readily available online.
A few of the shorts stand out in my mind as highlights. “All the Cats Join In” is particularly enjoyable to watch. Employing a sort of minimalist/surrealist style, there is a neat effect involving the animated pencil drawing all of the elements of the scenery just as the characters begin to interact with them.
As I mentioned in my post about Fantasia, Disney recycled footage originally intended for a “Clair de Lune” segment and made it into a segment for Make Mine Music called “Blue Bayou.” Interestingly enough, as much as I enjoy Debussy’s music, I thought the animation worked better for “Blue Bayou” than it did “Clair de Lune.” Still wasn’t a favorite, but worth a mention.
I loved “Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet.” Absolutely loved it. Finally, a great little story without a narrator. One of my main qualms with most of the package feature shorts is that Disney relies too heavily on a narrator instead of just letting the stories tell themselves. “Johnny Fedora” had a pretty simple story, but it was well done and Disney didn’t push it too hard. It was understated, and it worked quite nicely.
As much as I love Sterling Holloway and appreciate his place in Disney history, the narration of “Peter and the Wolf” kind of killed it for me. It could have been an opportunity for Disney to explore some really beautiful Russian artistic work, and the short came with an already established narrative…so why the narrator, I wonder? It just felt dumbed down a bit from what it could have been. Why not just tell the story? I really had higher expectations for this one. I guess I should note, though, that I do remember watching “Peter and the Wolf” in my elementary music school class. The introduction of the instruments at the beginning, showing what their motifs mean int he overall piece, is a pretty cool idea, and it helps illustrate the complexity of Prokofiev’s composition.
So, all in all, Make Mine Music was enjoyable. Out of the three package features so far, I would definitely watch this one again before the other two.
(PS – Yes, I know “Casey at the Bat” is a part of Make Mine Music, and it’s probably the best known of its shorts. I didn’t love it; didn’t hate it. I just liked some of the other stuff more.)
