We finish up our series of Disney History posts with 101 Dalmatians (yes, it’s -an, not -on).

It’s Buena Vista and not RKO. It’s also based on a book, which I had forgotten.

This is the beginning of that rougher look of the 1960s cartoons, and here’s why: Xerox. In order to draw those complex scenes with all those dogs and all those dots, the animators Xeroxed much of the movie. That style and technique stuck until computers started being used. All of the vehicles are live action that have been traced.

On the topic of Xeroxing: Lady, Peg, that bulldog, and Jock all show up in one quick scene. At first I thought that it might be a cool “this story is happening at the same time as 101 Dalmatians“, but then the timelines don’t fit. A headline on a newspaper Roger is reading says “Carlsen speaks”, which is from an accident in 1952. Jim Dear and company are from the early 1900s.

Another interesting collision of worlds: Jasper and the Colonel come face to face at the end. What’s funny is that Pat O’Malley voiced both characters.

The DVD DOES have a Disney channel kid singing the Big Song. What’s funny is that, for a movie about a guy who writes music, there are only two songs in the film. One song is “Dalmatian Plantation” (and I won’t make any snarky comments about how long it took Roger to come up with that rhyme) and the other is “Cruella DeVil“:

Yep. Selena Gomez. Is it bad that I miss the Jonas Brothers?

What was my youngest’s favorite part? When the puppies hid their spots in the dirt.
My oldest’s favorite part? The bark network.
My wife’s? When Roger writes the Cruella song and then plays it sarcastically when she shows up. (That is pretty funny.)
Mine? I thought a story of a writer and a musician living together was rather delightful.

Well, as Netflix DVD Doomsday approaches, I’m glad that we went out swinging. For those that have known me for a long time, the following should catch your attention.

I think I’m actually a fan of Disney.

One factor heavily swaying my opinion is the prospect of taking my daughters to Disneyland. Another huge factor is that one of my old roommates now is one of their animators (woohoo, Tom! Try and work a Red Ox (or, even better, Mike’s EggMan) into the next movie).

I still think it’s shady that Walt Disney put the people organizing a Disney labor strike in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. The watering down of stories also bugs me.

But as I create, I now understand why Disney protects their intellectual property so rigidly. Yes, there’s obvious moneymaking, but there’s also a desire for Walt’s artistic intentions to be preserved.

Today I came across this cartoon tribute from 1966 when Walt died of cancer:

Storybook opening, once again, although this time the movie was distributed by Buena Vista and not RKO. This was one of the first signs of Disney becoming the mega-empire (that and, you know, the land named after Disney). The song at the beginning is not the goofy 1950s crooners; it’s now an actual bard. The first lines are not the first lines of The Once and Future King (“On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays it was Court Hand and Summulae Logicales…” That wouldn’t have been a toe-tapper.)

The songs do become the catchier jingle style that the 60s had for Disney. You can thank the Sherman brothers for that. They also worked on Jungle Book, Mary Poppins and Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (“I’m just a little black rain cloud…”) They’re the 1960s version of Alan Menken.

BUT ALAN MENKEN DIDN’T WRITE “IT’S A SMALL WORLD”.

SURRENDER YOUR BRAIN TO THE SHERMAN BROTHERS.

They introduced leitmotifs into Disney movies. Every time Mary Poppins shows up, a strand of instrumental “Spoonful of Sugar” plays. In The Sword in the Stone, you hear traces of the packing song (“Higitus Figitus“) when Merlin’s doing his thing.

I still say Higitus Figitus sounds like “Everybody Wants to be a Cat” (check three minutes into the clip), but maybe that’s the John Williams syndrome. Every time I hear the Indiana Jones tank song, I hear the Separatist droid army song. At least it’s not as cookie cutter as Randy Newman (in this link he’s getting political and yet I can still sing “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”).

The DVD did not have a bonus feature of the Big Song. I can’t even name the Big Song, but my wife would like to see Ashley Tisdale try and sing “Mad Madam Mim“.

My oldest’s favorite part? The flirting squirrels.
My youngest’s? When Mim turns into a dragon.
My wife? The wizard battle, which is funny because her second favorite part is the moral that magic won’t solve your problems.
Mine? That Merlin said the books always get packed first. Finally, someone who understands my packing strategy.

I have to comment on the animation style. Even though it’s more Jungle Book/Aristocats (rougher edges than the 1950s), the attention to detail is awesome. Even when Merlin is a fish or a squirrel, it still looks like Merlin. Every little misplaced hair, every ruffle of fur, is very impressive. Robin Hood, why can’t you be more like Sword in the Stone? That’s how you do mythological-Britons-who-may-or-may-not-have-been-real-people-but-history-still-obsesses-over.

I won’t drag out an analysis of the plot or symbolism. You can Google that.

I will quote this comment from Martin Gardner:

As a check against the tendency to find too much intended symbolism in the Alice books, it is well to remember that when Carroll gave the manuscript of this poem to Tenniel for illustrating he offered the artist a choice of drawing a Carpenter,a Butterfly or a Baronet. Each word fit the rhyme scheme and Carroll had no preference as far as the nonsense was concerned. Tenniel chose the carpenter.

I will give my two wacked-out cents/sense (see? I can wordplay, too!) about the art. My oldest and I appreciated that the English countryside is very detailed, down to the blades of grass, so that Wonderland has a stark contrast of screensaver-ish proportions. (She noticed the details. I don’t think she knows what a screensaver is (flying toasters had lyrics?).)

I classify Disney songs in one of two categories: radio friendly and not. “A Whole New World“? Radio friendly. “The Morning Report“? Not. (Pull up to a stop light blasting that. You’ll see what I mean.)

Alice in Wonderland‘s title song sounds a lot like Cinderella’s, which makes sense since Cinderella is 1950 and Alice in Wonderland is 1951. Have you ever sat through the opening credits of these movies?

“Cinderella/She’s as lovely as a breeze”

or however that song goes.

Alice in Wonderland is the same.

“Alice/in Wonderland”

but what makes it more awkward is that they try and rhyme everything with Wonderland…underland…blunderland.

I have also determined that any song Alice sings is not going to see any airtime outside of the movie. Did you know that she sang? Me neither.

Disney songs also have a tendency to narrate character actions. Guess what the cards are doing during “Painting the Roses Red”. I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t doing their taxes. To be fair, most musicals and even Mozart’s operas narrated actions to death…literally.

Alice also is guilty of major foreshadowing. “If I ever have my own land, it will not make sense. It will be a wonderland.” My favorite line of hers is, “This is the stupidest tea party ever.” I thought that was gutsy for 1951.

Disney first started working on the film in 1933, so you can see it took the studio a while. They said it was tough capturing the episodic style of each section of the books into one coherent movie. I can see that.

There is no Disney channel heart throb singing “Very Merry Unbirthday”, which made me kinda sad, but there was a deleted scene of the Duchess and the Psycho Baby. The artwork matched the first edition of the book, with the insanely disproportioned heads. So scary.

The Cheshire cat in the theatrical release sings part of “Jabberwocky”. That decision cut his original song, “I’m Odd”, out of the picture. BUT THANKS TO THE HEROIC EFFORTS OF THE VAULT DWELLER (is this Disney or Fallout?), the sheet music was discovered. Enjoy it in all its Haunted Mansion-esque glory.

My oldest’s favorite part of the movie? The Mad Tea Party (hold your Bachmann jokes, please) song. My wife loves the visual gags connected to the wordplay, like the actual half a cup of tea.

My youngest? The “cat who smiles in the moon”. I had to ask her to limit her answer. Initially she said she liked Mickey swing dancing with the queen, which is a part of an old cartoon included on the DVD.

My favorite part? When the cards number off and 1-10 and then there’s a random yell of, “Jack!” I also find it funny that the guy who voiced the King of Hearts is named Dink (you know, because the king is bossed around and everything). I also recognized Pat O’Malley (from Jungle Book), James Macdonald (every Disney mouse other than Mickey), and Don Barclay (the Guy Who Gets Kicked Around in Every Movie).

But who could miss Ed Wynn? That guy’s voice is so cool. Only one guy could play Dr. Dussel, Uncle Albert, and the Mad Hatter.

That’s how you do it, Disney!

They followed up Snow White with Pinocchio. They enlisted the talent of Mel Blanc (the voice of the donkeys) and the ukulele-wielding Cliff Edwards (as the singing cricket).

The storybook opening is the same as the others. What’s cool is one of the storybooks is Alice in Wonderland, which wouldn’t come out for another decade. Disney prioritized Three Caballeros. How do you win a war? With singing birds. And guns.

The animation is beautiful. The only parts that date it are the schools of fish and the Blue Fairy’s face. Her very diminished facial features are similar to Snow White’s. One of the really cool parts, though, is that the animators drew the Blue Fairy without the telltale black outline that the other characters have.

Geppetto is so steampunk. His tinkering with gears and THE BLUNDERBUSS HE KEEPS UNDER HIS PILLOW give it away. I also love his clocks that depict various stages of animal death.

My wife’s favorite part? Any time Jiminy Cricket sings. A close second are the clocks.

My oldest’s? The tiny fish that follows Jiminy when he’s underwater. My youngest’s? Cleo the goldfish dancing with Figaro the kitten.

My favorite part? The existential analysis of what it means to be human.

Yeah, you heard me.

Jiminy is not sure about a puppet gaining life. “A lovely thought, but not at all practical.” Yep. Life is not practical. God could have very well existed on his own but created some very impractical works of art. Jiminy describes himself as “the still, small voice that no one listens to” with the purpose of guiding people “along the straight and narrow path”.

Jiminy is definitely not deity, though, unless you count some very Zeus-ish tendencies. Every single chance he gets, he tries to hook up with a girl. If he hadn’t been trying to get with a clock, he might have noticed the boy made of wood sticking his finger in a fire. Can a conscience have a conscience? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The DVD started out with an anti-smoking ad. Watch the movie. Count how many times Pinocchio, a donkey-boy, a fish, a cricket, or a whale inhale tobacco. Heck, they even have Tobacco Row on Pleasure Island.

Like with all the special editions, the Big Song is sung by a Disney channel puppet.

This time, the Big Song is THE BIG SONG. You know, the one they play every time the Disney logo shows up? The one they’ve played for decades?

They had Meaghan Jette Martin sing it. The autotune fits the whole automaton theme.

Watching this video made me wonder if Robin Hood had a music video. Do I want to wait another Netflix DVD cycle to find out? No.

This afternoon we finally got around to watching the first Disney animated feature, Snow White.

Just like how Jungle Book looked like it was from the 60′s, this one is definitely the 30′s. Snow White looks like a 30′s Hollywood star and some of the animals looked Betty Boop-ish.

It’s a classic tale of obsession with beauty that leads you to hire a guy to cut out your stepdaughter’s heart and bring back the evidence in a conveniently-decorated box.

There’s an interesting blend of stop animation water in the wishing well (and the obvious storybook opening and closing).

The Big Song is covered on this DVD by Tiffany Thornton. (who?)

My oldest’s favorite part? When Dopey stood on Sneezy’s shoulders and danced with Snow White a la Sleeping Beauty.

An aside: Snow White sleeps more than Sleeping Beauty. She’s discovered in the dwarves’ house sleeping, much like Goldilocks, and then is encased in the glass coffin for her Sleeping Death. (The ornery dad part of me told the girls that when the dwarves killed the queen, that was the end of the movie. Roll credits. They were not happy with that ending. It helped that the movie faded out and defaulted to text to catch up the narrative.)

My youngest’s favorite part? The queen turning into a bad girl, with the spiky hands.

My wife’s? The pipe organ silly song:

Proof that my wife and I are meant for each other? Just like with Jungle Book, she stole my favorite part. You gotta love this song. It bring backs so many memories of walking around Disneyland. Add that to the Hobbit-esque dwarf hoedown, and it’s instant win.

So, I have to pick a new favorite part. I guess I’ll choose when the dwarves return from their Heigh Ho mine to see the lights on. Grumpy warns everyone to approach with caution. Listen to the guy. In a world where apples can kill you and princes feel free to hop over walls to stalk you at your only water source, some caution may be prudent.

I do love that the haunted forest is not really haunted but is really a fear-induced jazz daze montage. I also appreciate (in a “Wow. This is the 30′s and not the 50′s” sense) the vultures sweeping down to snack on the queen. Very grim, like the hunter getting tangled up in the vines at the end of Tarzan. Snow White does actually do more things than Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. I’m definitely more of a Mulan and Rapunzel fan.

Call down an avalanche using a rocket? Yes, please.