I am going to Disney World next year, and while reading through travel books and blogs I got the suggestion that families should watch all the classics that inspired the rides (except for Song of the South, nobody recommended that). There was some dissent in what makes up THE list. Do you include live action? Pixar?
I decided to go with chronological animated feature films and include Pixar. I will avoid sequels I don’t want to see, and to give myself veto power. After all, this is a fun project, not some kind of pennance.
Part 1- 1937-1950
Snow White (1937)- the first feature animated film, and it still stands up. The antics of the dwarves and the animals lean heavily on the shorts that came before, with a lot of slapstick humor. It contrasts against the horrific evil queen, who makes herself ugly to prove she is beautiful, pretty deep.
Pinocchio (1940)- I don’t think I watched the whole movie before, just carefully curated clips in Disney specials. Yikes. Demon magicians stealing children to sell as livestock, smoking, heavy-drinking children, fox con men, evil puppet master, being eaten by a whale…nightmare fuel!
Fantasia (1940) This movie based on music was more enjoyable, but I saw why Disney+ put a disclaimer for racism in front of it. I loved the baby pegasi the most.
Dumbo (1941)….I just couldn’t put myself through it, so I watched the 2019 live action remake- which was focused on the humans and included a demented P.T. Barnum type character trying to sell…Disneyland? Sort of? In the end the baby elephant got the happy ending he deserved.
Bambi (1942) I pushed myself to watch this. The death scene is much further in than I remembered. Thumper is a great character.
Then we had two movies that were basically long cartoons about South America and a smoking parrot, Saludos Amigos (1942) and the Three Callabararos (1944). This was because of WWII using most of their resources.
Make Mine Music (1946) was not available.
The next three movies were collections of shorts: Fun and Fancy Free (1947) Melody Time (1948) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). In Fun and Fancy free, I remember the Jack in the beanstalk retelling with Mickey, Donald and Goofy, but didn’t recall the love story of Bongo the circus bear, or that the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummies are narrating. Did you know that Walt voiced Mickey Mouse (he handed it off after this). Melody Time had a lot of shorts, Pecos Bill, Johnny Appleseed, once upon a wintertime, bumble boogie, little toot, trees and blame it on the samba. I remember seeing some as “educational” in school (on a movie projector, if that dates me!)
I had seen the story of the headless horseman many times, but not the story of Mr. Toad from the Wind in the Willows. I really felt for poor Badger in that.
I think I will devote a separate post for the next film, Cinderella, as I had quite a few realizations about it.
Want my checklist so you can play along? Just ask!
