D52 Week 11: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

At last, we reach the final film of the wretched 1940s! Nothing from the package film era is inherently awful on its own. Underwhelming, but not terrible. But when they're the only Disney thing you watch for a month and a half, it really does become a bit like torture, doesn't it? As the dessert bar at Disney's metaphorical package film buffet, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad concludes our extended gorgefest with something that would've actually been pretty good on its own, but now that we're stuffed, it's not so appetising, because we're not Ichabod Cranes that can just eat and eat indefinitely, defying the laws of physics in the process. If we eat any more, we might vomit all over the place! And that would be quite the buzzkill, now wouldn't it?

D52 Week 10: Melody Time!

Imagine you're some sort of child in the late 90s. Your mother would like to do something nice for you, and so she decides to buy you a Disney movie, in the popular Video Home System media format of the day. So many wonderful choices, both classic and recent! Now imagine that your mom's really weird and has ended up giving you Melody Time instead. You've just been imagining something not-as-bleak-as-usual from my childhood! And I imagine you'd be just as disappointed as I was. This just really is not a movie for young children anytime in the last couple decades. The Andrews Sisters! The Sons of the Pioneers! Horticulture! This did not interest me! I haven't dragged out that old VHS tape in over a decade because, um, it just didn't sound like fun. But was there any chance that I might enjoy it more now, ostensibly being an adult and with a bit more of a historical perspective of the 1940s in Disney history?

Well, no. Not at all, obviously. But perhaps it could at least follow through with one of the concepts laid out during its titular song?

Mel-oh-dee Tiiiiime! It's time for sweet romance...

I'm going to hold you to that. I'd better be up to my ears in sweet romance with every single short or you're gonna get a knuckle sandwich, everyone involved with this film.

D52 Week 9: Fun and Fancy Free!

Just imagine being part of Walt Disney's film animation division in 1941! Everyone was riding high on the successes of two films and the failure of two others, and it seemed like the sky was the limit! Why, there you had a studio that could continue expanding indefinitely, starting countless new projects before even finishing the previous one, forever and ever, right?

Well, everyone who thought that was kind of a moron. Hitler happened and then the 1940s became the package film decade. Unlike Make Mine Music, with its mostly new (but low-budget, of course) shorts and general making mine music, Fun and Fancy Free was an attempt to blatantly burn off a couple half-completed feature film projects from before the war. The name, of course, comes from the fact that, well, they couldn't be bothered to find any sort of thematic link between the two segments. I've already got one - the climbing of plants is fairly important to both. Walt Disney's Plantastic Adventures?