Melody Time is a distant cousin of the Fantasia concept. This ‘package film’ is comprised of seven shorts that have only the movie title in common. Well, that may be a bit harsh, but it’s not a lie. While each of the segments reflects different artistic styles and different methods of storytelling, they are an odd fit for this one film. The animation varies and the music varies much like in Make Mine Music, however while I still believe Make Mine Music to be a bit clunky, Melody Time is downright disjointed at best. If I could say anything it would be to accept the fact that this is a collection of shorts rather than a cohesive film, it would make for a more open viewing experience.
Once Upon a Wintertime
I’ve watched this segment a couple of times now and it just makes me think that this is what life was like in Middle America prior to the First World War. The animation style here is something that the studio will start to stray from – the cartoony humans. In this sequence the rabbits have more defined personalities to me than the humans do. They seem sort of goofy and as the story progresses, you do learn that the animals were the stars of the story. The male lead also makes me think that this is what Peter from the Peter and the Wolf segment in Make Mine Music would grow up to look like.
Bumble Boogie
This sequence is more of a showcase for the musician rather than the animation itself. While I would consider the bumblebee cute and the environment he lives in as abstract, it’s not as refined as say the Pastoral Symphony in Fantasia. The music in this sequence is a swing version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee; clips from this feature are featured in any documentary about Fantasia as an unused idea. (I almost typed rejected, but it was only under consideration and was not animated to or worked on during the Fantasia process like Clair de Lune.) I like this much better than the creepy After You’ve Gone segment of Make Mine Music.
The Legend of Johnny Appleseed
As for the animation in this sequence, I love, adore, and will profess my love for the care and detail in Johnny. I love his sloped nose and his large forehead. I adore his genuine smile that meets his eyes when his angel encourages him to travel into the great unknown. Johnny does in fact look a little like the actor that provided his voice, Dennis Day. Once again due to my (lack of) age, I needed to research Mr. Day. He was a regular on the Jack Benny Show and would have made his voice familiar to the audience of the day.
Little Toot
Ladies and gentlemen, we present the Andrews Sisters for a return engagement with the Disney studios. We last heard them in Make Mine Music during the Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet segment. For a group of singer sisters that reportedly did not get along in real life, I always enjoy hearing them perform because there is such a charm that even the Divine Bette Midler can’t capture. This segment is a retelling of the children’s book of the same name by Hardie Gramatky. It’s the perfect little story for the short form. The main character Little Toot gets into trouble one too many times trying to act like his father and is banished to the ocean. In the throes of a storm, he rescues an ocean liner and becomes a hero.
Trees
I went straight to Wikipedia for this one, because I have never heard of the poem in this sequence before. “This segment is a recitation of the famous Alfred Joyce Kilmer poem by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians with the lyrical setting seen through the seasons.” So, it is claimed to be famous. Can any of my English Lit Majors out there confirm this? The thing that I enjoy the most about this segment is the liberal use of the multiplane camera and the stylistic nature of the trees – not trying to make them real, rather the gorgeous stylization leading to the ideal.
Blame It on the Samba
I’m not sure who to blame for this segment. It feels like the following sentence: “Oh, well, we were going to use this in ‘The Three Caballeros’ but we ran out of time so let’s use it here.” I had never seen this before, but on my HD television the animation seemed horribly soft and separated which told me there was going to be some live action with animation coming up. I was right, of course.
I’m not sure who thought it was a great idea to put a woman playing the organ in a giant wine glass, but ta-da! Let’s put some dancing girls in some bubbles while we’re thinking about it! Oh, and let’s blow up the organ while we are at it!
In all fairness, this segment was capitalizing on something that was considered groundbreaking: melding live action and animation together. This was something that had been done before by Walt Disney himself in the late 1920’s in the Alice Comedies (featuring a live action Alice visiting Wonderland). While done well (even if I don’t understand the choices made artistically), if this was released in the day of DVDs this would have been a cut segment featured on the “The Three Caballeros” Collector’s Edition.
Pecos Bill
I’ve already discussed the editing that is done in this sequence previously, so I will have one more snarky comment and then I will move on. “Smoking is bad, but painted Indians slapping each other stupid are fine.” I’m going to stop asking at this point what is okay to show and what isn’t okay to show.
Phew! I’m a whole new woman now.
I am not a fan of any kind of western, western folklore, or any sort of “old west” pioneer tales. Yet I recognize that there is a whole generation of people who adore the Lone Ranger and the idea of living the life of a cowboy. The story of Pecos Bill is just as familiar to them as the story of Christmas is to me. I do have to say that I like the pacing of the story and how the myths of Texas are credited to Pecos Bill.
When seeing this, it seems like, in reaction (conjunction even) with the war effort, to be one in a sequence of shorts that tell American folklore. Johnny Appleseed in this film, later Paul Bunyan, much later John Henry, and one might be even inclined to include Ichabod Crane. There is part of me that wishes that the Disney Company originally executed the idea of including them together in the day instead of many years later. I don’t think that I really want to spoil this segment as much as the others, but suffice it to say that if you liked Casey at the Bat, you’ll enjoy this.