Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

Today, we continue our journey through the lesser known Disney “package films.” Our current feature is Fun and Fancy Free. Fun and Fancy Free is a bit more cohesive than the last couple of films we’ve seen, but it is still a collection of shorts. In this case, however, it is just the two shorts, “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk.”

  

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: Like I said, there’s two shorts, “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk.” These are tied together with a frame story of Jiminy Cricket wandering around a suburban household and singing about how laid back he is. He finds some sad dolls and tries to cheer them up, which leads to him playing a record. The record is a musical story, which turns out to be “Bongo.” After “Bongo” finishes, Jiminy notices a flier for a girls birthday party next door and goes to join it. At the birthday party, there’s a ventriloquist with two dummies entertaining a little girl for her birthday. The ventriloquist then tells a story, which turns out to be “Mickey and the Beanstalk.”

Again, as this is an anthology film, I’ll review each short individually.

Bongo: “Bongo” is the story of a bear, Bongo, who escapes into the wild and has to grow up. This animation for this looks is somewhere between a normal short and Bambi. The character designs are a little simple, in a normal “cartoon” style, but the backgrounds are relatively detailed. As mentioned previously, this is considered a “musical story,” but there isn’t really any musical numbers or anything like that. Just background music, at least as far as I remember. It is, however, narrated by Dinah Shore, who also sang for the “Two Silhouettes” short. Thematically, the story in “Bongo” is very similar to Bambi. Bongo, a famous circus bear, gets tired of the comfort and limiting nature of his circus life and escapes from his circus train into the wild. While everything is fine at first, he gets scared and discontented when life in the wild proves hard. He then finds a girl to love that makes the hardship worthwhile. After a misunderstanding, he must then fight for his girl to prove his worth and love for her. Like I said, this mirrors the thematic elements and the journey through life that is metaphorically shown in the story of Bambi. All in all, it’s a pretty good short. My only concern is that it seems to go on for a bit.

Mickey and the Beanstalk: This is just a classic. Most people have seen this short, separate from the context of the rest of this movie. If you haven’t for some reason, you should. This is basically a Disney retelling of the classic “Jack and the Beanstalk” story. The story, of course, follows the classic fairy tell, except for two factors. The first is that the golden harp is a magic golden harp-woman that sings a magical song that makes the land happy. The story starts off with the giant stealing it from the kingdom, which causes the famine that makes our farmers, Goofy, Mickey and Donald, sell their cow. The second change is that the giant is a magical, shapeshifting giant. This is basically just to set up some gags later on, but it does also explain how the giant steals the harp with nobody noticing. The animation for this short is really good. It feels similar to the animation for Alice in Wonderland coming up. All in all, this is a fantastic short. If you haven’t seen it, I believe it is on Netflix, so check it out.

Besides the two shorts, the frame story with Jiminy Cricket is pretty alright. The animation for him is a little better than Pinocchio, I think, but there’s nothing to write home about. When he goes to the birthday party, it becomes this mixed “live-action/animated” sort of thing. As mentioned before, at the party is a ventriloquist and two dummies. This is Edgar Bergen and his two characters, Charlie and Mortimer. They wee a lot more popular in their time, but it’s just weird. It’d be like, if a Disney movie were made in the modern day and part of it where narrated by Jeff Dunham, Walter and Peanut.

All in all, this movie was pretty good. It includes one of the best shorts that Disney has ever made. And everything surrounding it, while not as good, are definitely worthwhile. It seems that things are turning around from the depths that were the wartime Disney films. Next week, we’ve got Melody Time.

-CJ

This week we took a look into Fun and Fancy Free, the 9^th animated film from Disney Studios. Fun and Fancy Free was produced while the war was still going, but ended up hitting the big screen in 1947, about two years after the end of World War II. Despite being made during the war time, this film stands out over the others that we’ve watched over the last few weeks. The art and animation seem leagues ahead of what the last few movies, and while there is some live action here, it’s nowhere near as bad as Saludos Amigos, or The Three Caballeros.

Animation wise, Fun and Fancy Free is pretty reminiscent of Dumbo, with slightly better back ground art. Style wise it’s nothing out of the ordinary from what we’ve seen. The characters are more detailed, they still move very fluidly. The one thing that does irk me about this, is how flat the characters feel. When comparing this to Snow White or Pinocchio, there were subtle bits of shading in cheeks, and on clothes. Here everything just feels very one note. The backgrounds have improved from the last few films, and they feel like some weird cross between a Disney short and a pre-war film. I’m really happy that the backgrounds have improved this round, I’m hoping that it’s something that sticks when going into Melody Time.

As far as the story, Fun and Fancy Free is pretty basic. The first short “Bongo the Bear,” feels like the tail end of Bambi. Bongo the circus bear, longs to be a real bear and escapes into the woods. He doesn’t know how to be a bear though, and has a tough time in the forest. The story focuses around Bongo meeting a female bear named Lulubelle, and how they fall in love. Their courtship is broken up by another rival bear, and Bongo has to outwit his rival to fix things. While I think this is an alright story, I wish Disney had done something different. This plot has been used in almost every Disney film to date, and it would be refreshing if we had something original.

"Mickey and the Beanstalk" is the second part of this film and stars Micky, Goofy, and Donald. I really love this short, it’s classic in every way, shape and form. The only complaint I have about it is the real life breakaways that we get. It’s jarring to be watching the animation, then come face to face with two dummies, and an old man in a living room. While watching this, we brought up the fact that it would be like watching one of Disney's old movies, where Jeff Dunham just shows up at random intervals and starts in on a comedy routine. I really wish that Disney would’ve left the live action out of these movies, it looks bad, and it hasn’t aged well at all.

Musically, Fun and Fancy Free holds up. However, there’s nothing super catchy about any of the songs. Even after just watching it, then sitting down to write, I don’t remember any of the music from any of the shorts. That being said, I think that’s a running issue for Disney in this era. I can remember music from Disney's “Sleepy Hollow”, and Cinderella, but no matter what happens I can’t seem to keep a single tune with me through this mess.

Overall, this movie does stand above the other packaged films that Disney was working on at the time. The quality has taken a turn for the better, and other than the few complaints I have regarding the animation, and the strange live action cuts, I found myself liking this movie a lot. I’d say this either ties, or is just under Dumbo for me. I’m really hoping that the quality we saw here will continue on with Melody Time.

-AJ

Make Mine Music (1946)

Today, we had a nice respite from the general disappoint that has been “the wartime movies.” We got the pleasure to watch Make Mine Music. As expected from a wartime film, this is a collection of animated shorts. Unlike previous examples, however, it’s relatively good and easy to follow. And the animation is generally good.

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: As mentioned previously, this is another anthology film. In general, the theme is that every piece is tied with music. It’s almost like they were trying to do another Fantasia, but with more contemporary music. There’s no frame story and each short is self contained, so it’s just a relatively relaxed watch.

As this is an anthology film, I will review each short independently.

Blue Bayou:

This was a nice, calm animation to watch. This piece stands out from the rest because the art, particularly the background art, are beautiful. The animation, however, is a bit limited, with very little movement. The animation isn’t bad per se, just limited. The glowing effect on the two birds gives me a reminiscence of later Don Bluth Studios animation. Supposedly, the backstory for this short is that it was originally intended for Fantasia, but it was scrapped. It had different music originally. This explains why the backgrounds are so beautiful. Just a nice piece to start off with.

All the Cats Join In:

This short is basically the exact opposite of “Blue Bayou,” with simplistic art and backgrounds, but much better, fluid animation. Instead of being a nice, calming piece, this was energetic and fun. There’s this sort of theme that the animation is moving too fast for it to be illustrated properly, with a “Duck Amuck”-esque pencil filling in the scene as it goes on. In general, I just liked it as a fun, pleasant short.

Without You:

I almost forgot this short. Abstracted visuals; it had a feeling similar to some of the more abstract shorts from Fantasia, such as the “Toccata and Fugue.” Overall, just an okay short.

Casey at the Bat:

This is one of the better shorts of movie. A retelling of Ernest Thayer poem “Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888.” You probably remember it from a high school English class. This short is an odd one compared to the rest of the movie, as the musical element is downplayed. The poem is sorta “sung” but it’s not consistent. The animation is good, but this definitely feels out of place. This short can stand on its own if it were released as a normal short.

Two Silhouettes:

This is basically “Without You” as mentioned above, but with two rotoscoped dancers dancing over the backgrounds. Again, basically forgettable.

Sourced via IMDB

Peter and the Wolf:

This is probably the best piece of the whole film. It’s also probably the most memorable piece. Just a good animated adaptation of Peter and the Wolf. If you haven’t seen a rendition of Peter and the Wolf, it is basically a story that’s told with musical accompaniment. Different instruments in the music represent different characters in the story. Basically, tells the story of a young boy, named Peter, who goes out to hunt a wolf and makes some animal friends along the way. Stuff happens and, long story short, he eventually captures the wolf. Good animation and music, just a fun short.

After You’ve Gone:

This is just a nice piece of animation. Basically, just some jazzy music with dancing musical instruments. The animation and art gives me the feeling of a mix of the moving broomstick from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and the abstract, dancing animation of “Toccata and Fugue.” A decent watch.

Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet:

This was probably my favorite short of the movie. It’s just a cute little love story of two hats set to one long song. The animation is perfectly serviceable, but, for some reason, the sentiment of the short really hit me. Like I said, this is a cute short, but its happy ending isn’t earned without drama. About halfway through, this short gets really sad and almost, I might say, scary in a rather “serious” kind of way. But in the end, everything works out.

The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met:

This is another good short. Fun story about a whale that can sing opera. An opera owner goes out to find this whale, thinking that the whale swallowed an opera singer and he could save the opera singer. Once he find the whale, you watch as the whale goes through his career as an opera singer, doing a great job and becoming world famous. At the end, you find that was just a fanciful dream as he is harpooned by the opera owner. Spoiler: the whale dies. A bit of a downer to end the film on, but it’s a great animation with really good snippets of different opera music.

All in all, that’s Make Mine Music. Not the best film we’ve seen so far, but it was still pretty good and definitely better than the last couple of entries. The whole thing clocks in at just over an hour, so it’s worth the time it takes to watch. I would recommend this film.

-CJ

Sourced via IMDB

This week we took a look at Make Mine Music. Like Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros I’ve never seen this move before. I went in to this hoping to see something different than the messes we’d been greeted with for the last two weeks, and I was pleasantly surprised. Make Mine Music is a collection of short films, with collections of jazz pieces all mixed in. It’s not the best film out there, and it’s far from my favorite, but it’s a nice change of pace from what we last watched.

The Martins and the Coys

For anyone that may have seen this short in the past, we’ll be reviewing it later if we can find it. The US release for this short has been removed due to “Comic Gunplay”.

Blue Bayou

This section of film feels the most out of place in the movie. It’s a nice piece, the music is easy on the ears, but the animation is out of place with everything else. This piece was originally cut from Fantasia and it’s pretty obvious. The backgrounds lack fine detail, and have the blurry detail that other shorts from Fantasia had. There’s also a lot of glimmering effects, and the two egrets that are the main focus are very bright and clear compared to any other aspects of this short. I really liked this piece, but it does feel off when compared to the rest of this movie.

All the Cats Join In

This piece felt kinda standard to me. It depicts a bunch of teenagers going to a soda shop, and dancing to a jukebox. Everything in this piece is drawn in with a pencil, that breaks the 4^th wall, but that’s not a bad thing by any means. Compared to Blue Bayou it’s incredibly bright and flashy with it’s use of color, and high upbeat jazz music. I wanted to like it more, but I think what let me down about this, is the lack of detail in the people. They all just look like someone you’d see in a Tom and Jerry, or Loony Toons cartoon from this time. Looking at it that way, this piece seems like it just doesn’t belong.

Without You

Overall, I’d say this was the most forgettable piece of this entire film. Again, it has a lack of fine detail, and it’s overly abstract. It feels like it could’ve been scrapped from Fantasia as well, but there’s no focus, no movement, or anything really engaging. I’d even go so far as to say it’s animation is lazy. This short is easily my least favorite of the bunch.

Casey at the Bat

Animation wise Casey at the Bat brings back the standard stuff that we’ve seen from Disney with Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros. There’s not much to say here, the story, and animation are standard for the time. The thing that feels most off about this, is that it’s more of a dramatic reading, not a song. Like everything so far it just feels out of place in this film.

Two Silhouettes

I’d hoped we’d seen the last of the bad rotoscoping from Disney, but I guess not. Two Silhouettes is exactly what it sounds like. Two Silhouettes dancing over some brightly colored back grounds, that are actually really well done. I’d rather just look at the back grounds than the black figures on the screen, because they just end up taking away from everything. The movement is way to fluid, and it just takes away from the back ground art. I would’ve been happier with this just showing me background art for the entirety of this piece.

Sourced via IMDB

Peter and the Wolf

This is the only short from this movie that I’ve seen before. Again, everything is pretty standard animation wise, but it fits in so much better than Casey at the Bat. At the start of the short, we’re shown that every character has a musical instrument attached to them. The story is fairly standard, but there are some changes to the story to make it more kid friendly. This is one of my favorites of this movie, but I think it’s more or less due to nostalgia.

After You've Gone

This piece feels like it belongs in Fantasia. It’s bright, feels like a jazzed up version of Tocatta and Fugue. It’s got a lot of abstract elements from Fantasia going on in it, but the back grounds are all beautify detailed, the animation is well done, and it comes together incredibly well. The whole segment is focused on a set of instruments, just wandering through a musical playground. I feel that this could easily be a stand alone short. It’s fun, colorful, and it’s got a lot of personality.

Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet

This film took a surprising turn for the better around the last for shorts. I knew a little bit about this section, and I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it turned out better than I expected. The story depicts a pair of hats who fall in love at the store, but when Alice is purchased, Johnnie is left behind. The two eventually find each other and are reunited in a happy end. Music and animation wise, this short really gets it all together.

Finale: The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

Who at Disney decided to close this movie out on something depressing? The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met follows a whale named Willie, an opera singing whale, who wants nothing more than to be a star. The movie opens on the latest discovery about a singing whale, and if the rumors are true or not. A talent named Tetti-Tatti agent thinks that there must be someone stuck in the wale, and goes out to hunt for it. They eventually find Willie, and he sings for the people in the boat, showing off his skills. We’re then treated to a look into Willies career, and we see him at the Met and other places singing and performing to crowds of people. Oh but wait… that was all a lie. It turns out that whole montage was just a “what if” scenario. Instead, we find that Tetti-Tatti harpooned and killed Willie. The end goes on to say that Willie will still sing in heaven, and the movie closes out. It leaves me with a sense of dissatisfaction. Everything in this movie has had a mostly happy ending. So why are we left with an unhappy one at the end of the film?

Over all I’m actually pretty pleased with Make Mine Music. The first half is something I’d mostly skip over, but the second half is overall pretty great. I wish there was more consistency with this film, because it ends up feeling like some kind of out of place Fantasia. Art styles are all over the place, and half of the film feels abstract, while the other half has well defined stories, plots. I wish they’d either stayed fully abstract, or fully defined. If they had this may have over taken Dumbo as one of my more liked films.

-AJ

Sourced via IMDB

The Three Caballeros (1944)

What did I even watch? I don’t even know how to continue with this movie. This week, we had The Three Caballeros. I’m going to be truthful, I had no idea what to expect with this movie. Based on the name, I figured it was some sort of adventure following the world and characters set up in Saludos Amigos. Boy, was I wrong…

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: I don’t really know what to tell you here. This movie is framed with Donald Duck opening birthday presents from his friends from south of the border, but it doesn’t stay on that track for long. The movie starts off with some shorts, making you think that this is just Saludos Amigos 2, but then it takes a hard right into crazyville.

First off, let’s focus on the stuff I liked. The art and animation for this film is easily much better than Saludos Amigos. It’s relatively good in it’s own right, though it still does just feel like an extended short. The scenes that combine animation and live action are actually really decent for the time, though they do look dated. This movie would be great for kids, as it’s frantic action would match their speed and the movie does offer some educational moments and is a fun introduction to some cultures that they may not have normal interaction with.

The only sequence I really liked was The Cold-Blooded Penguin segment. It told a pretty decent story an it makes sense. I also have a bit of nostalgia for this segment, because I either watched it as a kid, seperately, or I read it in one of those Disney Golden books. Either way, a pretty decent segment that’s well introduced by a survey of the birds in South America.

However, following this, we are brought to a short about kid who finds a flying donkey and using it to race. Again, it’s pretty decent, but nothing to write home about. After this, the movie falls apart. Soon after, we are introduced to José Carioca. After dancing scene that’s a combination of live action and animation, we are then introduced to Panchito Pistoles. From here on out, it’s basically just dancing scene after dancing scene with live action people and trippy animation combined. And that’s the rest of the movie.

It loses any context, any story, any grounding in a narrative. Now, in other instances, we’ve had parts of movies that were just a pure expression of animation. The difference here is that all the animation is pretty tired. It’s either our main characters badly interacting with the live action dancers/actors by just watching them, or it’s gaudy explosions of colors and shapes. Either way, it’s not very engaging and doesn’t express much animated talent.

You shall WORSHIP!

The movie becomes senseless and, in doing so, it commits the worst sin of all. It just becomes boring. I hate to say, but for most of the movie, I was hoping that it would end soon. And the worst part is that they waste this group of characters on this lazy film. It would have just been nice to see these three birds having adventures in South and Central America. Or even a series of shorts, which follow these three birds in many different adventures.

All in all, pretty disappointing, confusing and overall boring film. I came into it a bit excited and I didn’t realize until now that this is my least favorite so far. Hopefully, next week’s Make Mine Music will be better.

-CJ

This week we continued our trip down the war time series with the Three Caballeros (1944). I went into this film thinking it was a bunch of shorts featuring Donald, Jose, and Panchito. I was hoping for structure, a decent bit of animation, and maybe some songs sang by the three main characters. Boy was I wrong… This movie just confuses me to no end. It starts off with a bunch of shorts, and half way though just starts hemorrhaging colors, music, and quality, and can’t stop. I had hopes for this movie, and I feel really betrayed after watching it.

Animation wise, this movie holds up much better than Saludos Amigos, but just barely. Like Saludos Amigos, everything feels like a standard Disney short for the time. It’s cleaned up, and there’s some definite improvement, but half way through the film it feels like half of the animation department left. Live action and animation meet about half way through the film, and the quality takes a nose dive. I understand that they have to project over the animation for this, but it just feels weird… it disconnects you from everything that the movie has set up at that point, and it doesn’t really improve from there.

Storywise, this movie really falls apart. I could excuse the lack of shorts pertaining to the Three Caballeros, and for the first bit of the movie I could dig what they set in front of me. We’re looking at shorts about birds. Specifically Donald Ducks avian family. We open with Pablo Penguin, a standard story about a penguin who wants to be somewhere warm. It plays out as a “The grass is always greener tale” and it’s pretty standard. The second act provides us with what seems like a documentary on birds. I was following this so far when the movie took a hard right and threw us into a story about a flying donkey, and a kid. I could even stay on board with this to an extent. I wasn’t happy about the transition, and I wasn’t thrilled that we’d stopped with the birds, but I could still dig it.

After this though, the movie just starts spiraling out of control. We’re left with something that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It just starts coming together as a giant mishmash of randomly assorted clips, all held together by the appearance of some stupid bird with an annoying song and screech. For instance, the “Sound Track” from Fantasia makes a brief come back, live action dancing is primarily used for the last part of the movie, throwing off the whole aesthetics of the animation. Not only that, but we don’t even see Panchito Pistoles until the very end of the movie. If he’s supposed to be a part of the Three Caballeros then why does he feel like some scrapped character that Disney just scooped out of the bottom of the bin and provided a few lines of dialogue before sending him back to the trash?

I really want to know what happened with this movie… because it seems like it could’ve been really good. I would’ve even been alright with this being a second Saludos Amigos. However it falls short in every way shape and form. Parts of it feel like it could be in Fantasia, other parts are just standard affair, and I could’ve excused the live action if it had been presented more like Saludos Amigos. I blame Saludos Amigos for not knowing what it was trying to be, but it at least had better structure than this flaming sack of third rate characters. The Three Caballeros feels like it could've been alright if they’d stuck with one theme, but direction is everywhere. It’s not only that, but the animation, music, and relationships between the characters feels overly recycled.

My end thoughts for The Three Caballeros is that nothing in this movie fits together. Everything is so out of synch, and it just comes off feeling more flashy and cheap than everything else. We’re still missing techniques, and artistry that made films up to this point so beautiful and enjoyable to watch. I miss the days of Bambi, Snow White, and Pinocchio, and we’ve just barely scraped the surface of the war time films. With both this and Saludos Amigos being such let downs I’m actually afraid to see what other atrocities come out of the Disney Studios from this time out. Next week, we’ll be covering Make Mine Music, and I hope that it turns out better than the last two films we’ve watched.

-AJ 

Saludos Amigos (1942)

Oh boy. Here we go. Today is when we start the Wartime period of Disney Animation’s history. I’ll admit that I’ve been dreading this moment since we’ve started this project, as it’s filled with a bunch of movies that the average person probably hasn’t heard of, much less seen. And on that note, we start today with Saludos Amigos.

Original Poster Sourced via IMDB

Summary: Saludos Amigos is much like Fantasia in that there’s not really a since narrative. Instead we have a collection of shorts. Whereas Fantasia is a collection of shorts tied together and synched with music, Saludos Amigos is a collection of shorts with a theme of South America, particularly Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina.

The movie has a loose framing of live action film scenes with a newsreel-style narration over it. This narration continues into some of the shorts, but not all of them. Also, as a word of warning, this is Disney’s shortest feature, so there won’t be a ton to write about here.

Lake Titicaca

As an opener, I thought this was a relatively good short, following Donald Duck as he wanders around Peru and the eponymous Lake Titicaca. As he learns about the culture here, so too do we. There’s some decent information to learn and some okay slapstick humor, but the animation is nothing to write home about.

Pedro

Probably my second favorite short of the bunch. Centered around a little plane named Pedro, it presents a fairly standard “Little Engine that Could”-esque story where he has to make his first trip to pick up the mail. In his flight, he gets a little careless and flies too close to the scary mountain Aconcagua. After struggling to survive the terrible whether conditions the mountain brings, he barely makes it back home and completes his mission. The animation is a little better than most of the other shorts, but I can’t help shake the feeling that this is just a bog standard animated short. Apparently, Disney felt the same way, as it was re-released as it’s own independent short in 1955.

El Gaucho Goofy

Despite this featuring my favorite regular Disney character, Goofy, this is my least favorite short of the bunch. It was interesting learning about the tradition of Gauchos, but the animation isn’t great and the plotting is tired. Goofy’s silly nature just seems to be at odd with the almost strictly educational nature of the narration. Overall, just left a bad taste in my mouth.

Aquarela do Brasil

This was, by far, my favorite short of the bunch. The art was actually interesting, the animation is pretty fluid, and the music was decent. It reminds me of a lower-rate Fantasia short. Good colors and fun transitions. It also introduces a brand new character, José Carioca. Just an interesting little short; not as educational as others, but a bit more fun.

Overall, the movie is just a bit bland. It feels like a short. Not even an extended short, just a short, like you’d see in between movies at the theatre in the 1940s. There’s nothing particularly bad, but there’s just nothing particularly good. Overall, a decent watch, but I wouldn’t seek it out for anything more than the historical context.

-CJ

This week we took a look into Saludos Amigos. I’d never seen this film up to this point, but I knew a little about it’s back ground. Saludos Amigos was a film that was commissioned by the U.S. Government during WWII to promote ties with South America, who were friendly with the Germans. The film was made mostly to draw attention to South America, and to try and build ties and friendship between them and the US. Knowing this, it’s pretty easy to see the correlation and what Disney was trying to accomplish here, but where does it stand on its own?

Saludos Amigos isn’t like any Disney film we’ve seen before. It’s one-third live action, and two-thirds animation, and truthfully I wish it’d just stay all live action. The film opens up and plays the movie up as a documentary about three areas of South America, and then proceeds to throw animation in where it deems it necessary. I’ll admit, I don’t even really like the animation here. It’s the sort of lower standard animation that you’d get out of any Disney short at the time, and the half-assed transitions, and over dramatic voice overs don’t lend it any help. Even the shorts they’ve placed in the movie don’t have anything special to them, with the exception of the last short “Aquarela do Brasil” which was my favorite short of this entire film.

“Lake Titicaca” “Pedro” and “El Gaucho Goofy” are all very standard for Disney. Donald loses his temper, Goofy gets into wacky hi-jinks, and the story for “Pedro” is hardly original. All together it feels as though there’s no originality, through any of the film, and the only thing I really liked about these shorts was the facts that were overlayed on them. I really tried to find anything that I did like about these shorts, but the rough, and janky transitions, and the choppy bits of animation left me really disliking most of what this film had to offer.

The only redeeming bit that this movie had to offer was “Aquarela do Brasil”. The short itself is exactly what this movie should’ve stuck with. We get an animator working at his desk, paining a landscape of Brazil in witch Donald Duck and Jose Carioca interact with. The music is nice and upbeat and doesn’t sound like the elevator music we’ve been listing to through out this entire film. The colors are nice and bright, and it feels like an environment where the cast should be.

This was an incredibly short movie, and while I really did want to like it, it leaves me extremely disappointed. It’s not a bad film, but it’s just so disorientating, and confusing that I just kind of want to forget it. The animation isn’t special, the short stories that are in this are lacking in any sense of originality, and coming off of Bambi, that was visually very striking and easy to get into, it just feels like Disney took a massive nose dive. In every way shape and form this has been my least favorite Disney film to date.

My last thoughts - This film would’ve been much better if Disney had either done a straight documentary or a straight film about Donald and Goofy being stranded in Brazil.

-AJ