1977 - The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

Sorry for the recent lack of updates. I was working on a new project. I'll link to it when it's complete. Until then, lets get back on track with this.

We now come to our final final film Walt ever worked on. Reeling a bit from their financial status and the underperformance of their last two films, Disney needed something cheap and likeable to bring folks back to them. They had, of course, still been producing shorts all this time, and the idea struck them to do another compilation film. It had already proven a way of saving money and getting audiences, and if they used mostly stuff they’d already made, it would save even more. As luck would have it, the company had released three shorts based on A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories, and with just ten minutes or so of linking animation, they were ready to go. But would audiences go for them in the 70s the way they did in the 40s? Would a compilation film with one set of characters work, or would it seem stilted and awkward? Rumbly in your tumbly? So am I. So get a pot of hunny, and let’s talk about The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.

GENERAL NOTES


The general trend in these movies is to open with a live-action shot of an ornate book being opened, usually with some narration to kick us off. In Robin Hood, they stepped that up a notch by having Alan a’Dale (Or The Rooster, whatever) as an illustration that comes to life and walks around on the opening paragraph. In this movie, that whole trend reaches its apotheosis, as we open with a whole sweeping shot of Christopher Robin’s bedroom with all of his stuffed toys who will be our characters. We then go into our book (a less ornate, more humble model), where for the rest of the movie, characters will reference what chapter they’re in, talk to the narrator, and occasionally climb all over the letters. The famous theme song is performed as the camera pans all over a very faithful depiction of the map found in most editions of the original book.

(Albeit with a very off-model Piglet)

The songs, speaking of which, are great. They’re all by the Sherman Brothers, who did so well in The Jungle Book. In fact, given the long and unconnected production time, the fact that they had one songwriting team is even more impressive. Hardly any of these are award-winners, but all of them are eminently hummable. Kind of get tired of that Tigger song the third time you hear it, though.

Actually, that is one of the issues this movie runs into. These are short films produced several years apart. They weren’t originally intended to be watched all in a row; there wasn’t even home media at the time. So there are some weird things that come from putting them all together like this. It’s weird that Piglet’s not in the first segment, given how ubiquitous he is in the other two. Tigger’s song getting two reprises seems weird if you don’t remember that originally it was one reprise in a short released four years after the last time it was sung. And the changes in voice for young Roo and Christopher Robin wouldn’t be noticeable at all.

And yet in the real world, chewing on your friend's butt while moving something is considered rude.

But the shorts themselves are very enjoyable, and there’s not a notable decline in animation quality. Recycling is mostly not an issue, due to the very specific proportions and movement styles of the characters. (In the new linking animation, pretty much everything Christopher Robin does is swiped from Mowgli, but other than that.) I'll also say this. I LOVE the Winnie-the-Pooh books, and I don't have a single complaint about the adaptation.

WINNIE THE POOH AND THE HONEY TREE

The first short, which was first released with a movie called “The Ugly Dachshund”, is a bit light on plot, but a lot of fun. It’s go lots of iconic moments; the little black rain cloud, Pooh getting stuck in Rabbit’s door, stoutness exercises, etc. The characters are very well-realized, despite the regrettable lack of Piglet, and the even more regrettable addition of Gopher, who wasn’t in the book and who is not terribly necessary. Although, I do like that this is joked about, with Gopher giving them his phone number and telling them not to forget it because “I’m not in the book, you know.” But even that’s tempered by the fact that the base joke doesn’t really work, because none of them have phones. The far better gag is Rabbit trying to figure out what to do with Pooh’s butt stuck halfway in his house, attempting to make it into a moose head, a shelf, and a chair.

As someone who's gone through four big floods, Pooh is doing it right. Save the hunny first. It's a FEMA guideline.

WINNIE THE POOH AND THE BLUSTERY DAY

This one is the best of the bunch, released along the improbably-titled “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit“. The plot has a much stronger line, involving a storm that floods the Hundred Acre Wood, and the characters are at their strongest. Piglet is here, and Tigger makes his debut as well, while Gopher is unseen save a small cameo at the end, so this really is the traditional Winnie-the-Pooh cast. Speaking of cast, shout out to the actors. This is really a Disney all-star list, including Sterling Holloway as Pooh, John Fiedler as Piglet, Paul Winchell as Tigger, Hal Smith as Owl, Ralph Wright as Eeyore, Bruce Reitherman as Christopher Robin, and Clint Howard as Roo. Not really household names, my fondness for Sterling Holloway notwithstanding, but these guys have been playing supporting cast in these movies for some time, so it’s natural that Disney would go to them for the shorts, and it’s great to hear them taking lead roles. The songs are also the best in the movie, particularly “Heffalumps and Woozles“, which is the trippiest thing Disney‘s made since the Pink Elephants in Dumbo.

I have had a Hero Party thrown for me. It's actually pretty awkward.

WINNIE THE POOH AND TIGGER, TOO

Mehhhh. Who knows what it is, but this one’s just not as good. I do. I know what it is. For one thing, Pooh takes a backseat in this one, which the narrator even brings attention to. The main characters are Rabbit, who’s a bit tedious and has an annoying voice, and Tigger and Roo, who work best in small doses. Pooh and Piglet are only in a short bit, and Eeyore and Owl aren’t in it at all. The plot, where Rabbit tries to traumatize Tigger into no longer bouncing, is mean-spirited and dull. There’s no new songs in this one, just the Tigger song repeated twice. Rabbit’s house, so crucial to the first one, is now a tree that opens directly onto a lake which is just whaaaat. Also Roo and Christopher Robin have changed voices.

That said, Pooh’s bit, where he follows his own footprints around a tree, convinced at every new lap that the crowd he’s surely following is growing larger, is hilarious. The problem, I think, is one of timing. The first two came out within two years of each other, this one was six years later. The first two came out on the two years surrounding The Jungle Book, this one at the end of a real rough patch.

A look at my writing process.

There is also a new bit of animation which is quite nice, where Christopher Robin and Pooh have a talk about how even though CR is growing up, they’ll always be friends. It’s really touching and more than a little foreshadowy. Later that same year, a far more mature sort of Disney film debuted, and before long, their first PG rated movie, all made by a lot of talented new animators taking over from the old guard. Walt was dead and gone, and everything was going to change…

 "Pooh, promise you won't forget  about  me,  ever.  Not
even when I'm a hundred."

Pooh thought for a little.
"How old shall I be then?"

"Ninety-nine."

Pooh nodded. “I promise," he said.

Still  with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.

"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I--if I'm not quite" he stopped  and  tried  again  --".  Pooh,  whatever happens, you will understand, won't you?"

"Understand what?"

"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come on!"

"Where?" said Pooh.

"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.

So  they  went  off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always  be playing.


ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* I cry almost every time I read that bit. Manly, manly tears.

Read More

1973 - Robin Hood

This is one that I’ve been dreading. I am quite well-known as a big fan of Robin Hood - my semi-defunct review blog will attest to that - so naturally I’m inclined to like this movie. My love of Robin Hood films, of the base story, my past working at the New York Renaissance Fair, these all make me the prime target audience for this movie. But knowing what I know about the state of the company at the time, I can’t shake the feeling that it probably isn’t very good. I mean, we saw what the devastation of Walt’s death did to The Aristocats, but then, we’ve also seen what effect personal views can have on objective assessment of a movie.

Indeed. So I’ll be trying to be as objective as possible, and I’ll be referencing The Aristocats in as fair and balanced a manner as possible. They were, after all, the only two movies made entirely between Walt’s death and the major company shakeup that’s on the horizon. So it’s time to see if this is a movie that steals from my soul to give to my pain, or if it’s a tale that stirreth my freborne bloode. Confused? So am I. So deer to kill a king’s dare, and I’ll tell ye of a goode yeman whose name was Robyn Hode.

One thing I’d like to talk about that’s been on my mind for some time is recycled animation. With the advent of xerography, it became fairly simple to copy old drawings and adjust them for the new movie. By saving them the trouble of working out layouts and scene directions, this was a huge time-saver for the company, and since time is money, they did it a lot. So far, apart from the recurring appearances of Bambi’s mom, it’s passed largely unnoticed. They’ve mainly been using it to pull off some tricky physical bits on the cheap. In this movie, it starts getting REALLY noticeable. Little John has an almost identical design to Baloo so they could reuse Jungle Book animation with little fuss, but it goes much deeper than that. Any time the Prince’s soldiers are marching, it’s just one guy copied over and over. The same running animations get reused time and again with different backgrounds. Random new characters appear for just one scene and then vanish so they could reuse some Aristocats stuff. It probably only seems so noticeable because I’m watching these so close to each other. Anyway, the shameless and frequent recycling helped them make the rest of it nice and clear and colorful, and the designs of the anthropomorphic animals are fun, and fit the characters well. They also get some good humor out of the various animals innate characteristics and relative sizes.

And I'm pretty sure the number of rabbits counts as a dirty joke.

As for the story that's served by this animation, it's pretty good. Kind of slight, but clever enough that I never really got bored. It’s very episodic, but that suits the nature of Robin Hood, who first appeared in ballads and legends. Speaking of ballads, the songs are mostly fine. Only the few sung (and written) by Roger Miller as Alan a’Dale really stick in my mind. There's also one called "The Phony King of England", which is notable for it's dubious historicity (They say John is "Too late to be known as John the First", and that he'll be remembered "Not because he passed some laws",) but also because the recycling really kicks into high gear. Otto the bog gets a mysteriously lengthened torso and shrunken legs so they can reuse some of Snow white, and a number of animals appear just for this one song so they can reuse Aristocats animation. Even Chinese Cat is back, albeit redone as a rabbit. Actually, that means his buck teeth make sense, so I guess that's fine.

Speaking of dubious historicity, this movie opens by talking about Good King Richard and his Noble Crusade, which was standard historical boilerplate before we knew better. But weirdly enough, Prince John's snake sidekick, Sir Hiss, later says that he hypnotized Richard to go on that "silly crusade", which I approve of. Oh, and of course the snake can hypnotize people, because then they can reuse Jungle Book animation.

Sir Hiss even gets that weird hairy back going on.

One thing this film definitely has going for it is the cast . To make another Aristocats reference, I complained about the mishmash of accents in that movie, and at first glance, that seems to be the case here, too. But there’s actually a method to it. The noble characters, Robin, Marian, Sir Hiss, Prince John, and the King, all have British accents, with the well-off servant Lady Kluck having a more ‘rustic’ Northern/Scottish accent. The lower-class characters all have American accents, with the vast majority of them being established actors from American westerns. These voices work quite well in the Robin Hood milieu, though they can go a bit far with the western motif. The sheriff’s men should not be referred to as a “posse”.

As for the specific actors, they’ve got some real winners. Phil Harris returns yet again as  Little John, and does a dynamite job. Andy Devine makes a great and humble Friar Tuck. Brian Bedford plays Robin with just the right mix of class and playful rebellion. Probably my favorite is Pat Buttram as the Sheriff. Buttram was in The Aristocats as one of the bully dogs, and he’ll be in quite a few still to come. He specializes in playing clownish, obsequious con artists and swindlers, so he’s a perfect fit for this comedic interpretation of the Sheriff, who always steals with a smile. An early scene where he wanders through the town following Friar Tuck so he can collect Robin Hood’s charity as taxes the very second it is given is particularly good.

One bit that I had some actual trouble with was the portrayal of Prince John. I'll make this clear, I don't think the filmmakers were trying to make him look gay, or make fun of gays. They wanted him to be young, and they made him a mama's boy, and because they were old men, that took the form of the most tired collection of schoolyard gay taunts imaginable. He's effeminate, obsessed with his appearance and jewelry, has a pronounced lisp, flirts like Dean Pelton, has an equally lisping associate who is a snake and sleeps in his bed and is always licking his ear... Damn, maybe they were trying. Anyway, he gets some of the better writing, and he's played by Peter Ustinov, who lisps just as much when he plays King Richard later, and he's got this weird hair trigger temper, so he's all right.

Work it, girl.

So yeah, I can say that's I honestly liked this movie as a film fan and Disney fan. I liked it as a Robin Hood fan, too, particularly the Sheriff and Little John. But it's less of a "this is a good movie", and more of an "I enjoyed watching this". It's cute, but there's really not a lot going on. It's worth a watch, if you find it on TV and there's nothing much else going on. But don't knock yourself out.


ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* If you're having trouble picturing what recycled animation looks like, please view this instructive video. You'll note that most of it is from this movie.

* I meant it when I said my Robin Hood blog was only semi-defunct. I may not have posted on it in over a year, but I also haven't seen a Robin Hood movie in over a year. I do really need to do season 3 of the BBC show, though. Actually, I have a review of “The Men of Sherwood Forest” written and ready for posting whenever I get off my duff and make some screencaps. But I do have such a comfortable duff.

* In the opening credits, everyone’s actor, name, and species are mentioned, e.g. “Brian Bedford as Robin Hood, a fox”. The only exception is “Roger Miller as The Rooster.” Which is a bit odd.

* It has been said that this film more than any other inspired the Furry subculture. Which is weird, because Robin and Marian are really the only “attractive” characters. Still, in my admittedly limited experience, I have noticed a lot of foxes among the furries, so maybe they’re on to something.

Also this.

* There are no horses seen throughout the entire film, but I didn’t notice until Robin and Marian’s carriage gets pulled away at the end by nothing in particular. I guess they didn’t want to deal with talking animal confusion. Probably why Bambi's mom didn't turn up.

* How does Marian, a fox, have a lion for an uncle? And why is she only referred to as the King’s niece, even when Prince John is the subject of discussion? Seems she’d be his niece, too. Or possibly his daughter, but that just raises further questions. And not just about Sir Hiss.

* The Rabbit family is curiously overrepresented in online screen caps for this movie. This is troubling, as any time I find a minor character overrepresented in pictures of an animated movie, I assume people have a weird sex thing for them. (see above.)

Read More

1970 - The Aristocats

Once again, this is the last movie Walt worked on, but unlike last time, his personal input was very limited. More or less, he approved the concept and then died. And it really shows. This movie is a crazy mess, and not very enjoyable to watch. Thing is, I really thought this would be an uncontroversial opinion. But when I took it to Twitter, I was more than a little surprised with the reaction.

But it wasn’t just my brother’s secret internet girlfriend that felt that way. While her opinion was the most vociferous, there were several who agreed with her. And I seriously don’t understand it. This movie is so self-evidently the product of a freefall in the company due to the death of its beloved figurehead that I was sure even a child would see it. Well, I’m no stranger to controversy (My dissenting opinion on Alice in Wonderland is the most viewed entry here by a long shot,) so let’s get into it. Catty? So am I. So get yourself some Fancy Feast avec Meow Mix, and let’s talk about The Aristocats.

The film concerns four cats, Duchess and her three kittens, who are owned by a doting old Parisian woman. So fond of her cats is she that she’s leaving all her money to them, in care of her loyal butler Edgar, who will inherit once they die. Edgar, who I guess is too stupid to realize that he will basically be inheriting the money and taking care of the cats like he already does anyway, decides to drive them out to the country and abandon them or drown them or something. He is attacked by dogs and loses track of the cats, who try to find their way back to Paris, with the help of a rough alley cat, two geese who don’t really do much of anything, and a polyethnic jazz ensemble. Then Edgar gets mailed to Abu Dhabi or something.

It's so pwecious I might fwow up.

The characters are barely worth mentioning. Edgar is probably the most interesting, despite his abrupt and rather pointless turn to evil. His design is really good, and he’s well-acted by surrealist comedian Roddy Maude-Roxby. As for everyone else… Meh. Most of the actors who are any good are better in other Disney movies. Even the usually-reliable Sterling Holloway is really phoning it in as their mouse friend. Likewise Pat Buttram and George Lindsey, who will be giving us several fine performances in films to come, are perfunctory as two hillbilly dogs. Phil Harris makes a game attempt as Thomas O’Malley the alley cat, but the character is no more than a retread of Baloo, down to the song about his laid-back lifestyle and an over-solid design that looks more like a bear than a cat. Duchess is played by Eva Gabor, with all her trademark warmth and class, but also with a Hungarian accent that really calls into focus the fact that no one in this movie sounds French. I mean, we’re culturally conditioned to ignore American and British accents in something taking place in Foreign Lands, if they’re speaking English. Translation convention and all that. But it gets weird when you put in things like a non-English-speaking accent, characters with British accents who are explicitly identified as British (the geese) interacting with French characters with British accents (Edgar, one of the kittens, the horse), and most of all, Scat Cat and his band.

Scat Cat is O’Malley’s jazz-playing friend, voiced by Scatman Crothers. (Get it? Seriously though, I love lame puns, so I‘m fine with this.) He does fine, of course. He’s a damn good jazz musician and voice actor, so it’s no surprise. But if I wanted to hear him acting in a lousy animal thing, I’d just watch Hong Kong Phooey. His band consists of Italian Cat (Vito Scotti) on a mostly inaudible concertina, Russian Cat (Thurl Ravenscroft) on bass, English Cat (Lord Tim Jones) on guitar, and Chinese Cat (Paul Winchell) on drums or piano. A minor nitpick is that the drums and piano are often heard at the same time and the concertina not at all, so it would make more sense for Italian Cat to play one of those. A major nitpick is CHINESE CAT WHAT THE HELL.

You know where this is going, right?

If you’ll notice the names of the actors, you’ll see Crothers and Jones are of the appropriate nationalities for their cats; Scotti is American, but was raised in Italy by Italian parents; and Ravenscroft is at least WHITE. And all of those guys are Class 3 minority characters. Their nationality just adds a bit of interesting color to extremely minor characters. But Chinese cat, holy roar… He’s got the buck teeth, L-R confusion, wears a cymbal like a cone hat, and his contribution to the song about how great it is to be a cat is to play the piano with CHOPSTICKS and sing “Shanghai, Hong Kong, Egg foo yung! / Fortune cookie always wrong!” And he keeps getting highlighted and it’s really weird and off-putting. Class 1, all the way.

Speaking of the songs, they’re once again written by multiple songwriting teams, and are generally pretty dire.

WRONG, Laura. The only good one is one you didn’t mention, the title song. While I’ve long been opposed, or at least indifferent to the “Title song sung over the opening credits” thing Disney used to do a lot, this one is nice and lively and makes up for its traditionally horrible lyrics by being sung by Maurice Chevalier, who is awesome.

Less awesome (SEGUE!) Is the animation. While the Jungle Book used the sketchy nature of xerography to great effect, here it just looks sloppy and unfinished. Loose guide lines appear all over the place, with even the face lines they use for eye placement flickering in and out of view. The cat animation is all over the place, too, with the cats randomly going back and forth between completely catlike and practically anthropomorphic. I’m not expecting Lady and the Tramp verisimilitude here, but they shouldn’t just randomly grow thumbs when convenient.

I will also admit I have a fondness for speaking-tubes as a plot device.

So yeah, the first attempt without Walt basically turned into a train wreck, but it’s best to get that out of their system. Hopefully next one does better.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

* This is the only Disney film I know of that received a glowing review in Entertainment Weekly from Snoop Dogg, back when he was Snoop Doggy Dogg. Much has been theorized about his reason for his recent name change to Snoop Lion, with most assuming it’s a reference to the Lion of Judah. I think it’s because he likes cat movies. Even he hated the lyrics, though.

* This is the first Disney movie I saw in theaters, in a 1987 rerelease. I didn't mention it because while I am dimly aware of the fact, I have literally no memory of it, what with being 3 years old at the time.

* That’s it. I don’t want to think about this one any more, additionally or otherwise. Play me off, Chinese Cat.

Read More

1967 - The Jungle Book

And now we come to the movie that, in a way, was Walt Disney’s last. Of course, in a way, the previous one was his last, and in a way, so is the next. And so is the one two after that one. You know what? It’s hard to come up with these intros, so cut me some slack. Anyway, this was the final one Walt worked on personally, and though he didn’t live to see its completion, his spirit lives on in his animation staff, his classic voice actors, and his specific request that the filmmakers not read the book. आप इस पढ़ने में परेशानी हो रही है? So am I. So go pick a pawpaw or a prickly pear (Both of which are found only in America, and not at all in India, so I don’t know why Baloo sings about them,) and let’s talk about the Jungle Book.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you know I’m a guy who likes to read. If you haven’t, hi, welcome to the blog! I like to read! I have, in fact, read most of the books that these films are based on, though I try to only bring it up when it’s pertinent. (I was biting my tongue so hard writing the One Hundred and One Dalmatians entry.)  Given Disney’s request that his animators not read the book, I figure I should let you know the fruits of that in the ever handy list format.

* In the book, Baloo is the more strict of Mowgli’s teachers and is responsible for teaching him the Law of the Jungle. In the movie, he’s a fun-loving slacker who teaches Mowgli to relax.
* Book Bagheera and Movie Bagheera are both serious and responsible, but Book Bagheera is prone to spoil Mowgli and is the most easygoing of his teachers.
* Book Kaa is Mowgli’s third teacher, rescues him on several occasions, and is very proud and confident. Movie Kaa is a villain, distrusted by all, tries to eat Mowgli, and is a cowardly sycophant.
* Book Shere Khan is a cripple, with a deformed front leg that causes him to limp, and despite his arrogant bluster and surprising hunting ability, is disrespected by the other animals. He kills humans for fun, because they are weak. Movie Shere Khan is physically powerful and feared by all, and hunts humans because he’s afraid of their guns and fire.
* The Bandar-log from the book are a disordered society, and it is specifically and frequently stated they have no king. In the movie, the monkeys are led by King Louie, an orangutan, which is a species that isn’t found anywhere near India.
* The ‘Mow’ in Mowgli rhymes with ‘cow’ in the book, but ‘glow’ in the movie.

Thy hypnosis thing is actually in the book, only he does it by dancing. Like John Travolta.

So the question becomes, why even make an adaptation? If you’re going to ignore so many essential elements of the book in your movie, why purport to be basing a movie on that book? Well, it’s not actually always, or even usually a bad thing. Sometimes it’s intentional, like in Paul Verhoven’s film adaptation of Starship Troopers, which was made as a satirical reaction to the rah-rah militarism of the novel. Sometimes it’s more inadvertent, that the filmmakers saw something in the book that sparked ideas in their minds in some other direction, and they thought a different interpretation would be better, like Stanley Kubrick’s film of The Shining. Or Lolita. Or a Clockwork Orange. Or - You know what? He does it a lot. Moving on. The good thing is that as I have demonstrated, you can still wind up with very good movies. (Yes, Starship Troopers is very good. If you disagree, shut up.)

I’m not really sure why they felt the need to change things so drastically, as the basic structure of the film is pretty much the same as the earlier Mowgli stories in the book. Man-cub lost in the jungle, raised with animals, sent off to join the human village as he grows old. And with a good, iconic narrative like that to build on, Disney produced an excellent film, and the characters they created, while very different, are also completely wonderful. There’s one bit that’s just Baloo and Bagheera standing there and expositing for like five minutes, and I didn’t get a bit bored, due to the writers’ great grasp of the characters, aided by the fantastic acting.

I am somewhat unnerved that this was the first image result for screencaps. 

This is pretty much the first movie where Disney really went for big name talent, even trying to get the Beatles at one point. Sebastian Cabot returns, playing Bagheera and doing an excellent job of it. Louis Prima’s King Louie is also fantastic, with Prima’s legendarily swinging voice livening up his scene. Sterling Holloway makes another welcome return, this time as a villain. His Kaa is actually really creepy. Baloo is magnificently voiced by singer Phil Harris, who will also have a leading part in our next two films. George Sanders as Shere Khan sounds exactly how you’d expect a man-eating tiger to. There’s also reliable Disney utility players Thurl Ravenscroft (yaaaaaay), Pat O’Malley, Verna Felton, Hal Smith, Ralph Wright, and Clint Howard as the elephant troop. Mowgli is voiced by the director’s only son that didn’t get to play Wart, and he’s way better than the other two were.

This elephant is played by Clint Howard. I hope you relish him as much as I.

Songs are FANTASTIC. Oh, it feels so good to say that! I’m so tired of saying the songs are bland with a couple of standouts, but that’s really what I’ve been given, mostly. I think this is really where we begin the true tradition of Disney animated films also being excellent musicals (Not to say we won’t have a few more missteps to come). The music is all written by one songwriting team, The Sherman Brothers, which also helps a lot. I haven’t mentioned it, but a lot of these have had songs by multiple writers working independently, which means the sound of the films tends to come off as inconsistent, which can be a real problem in musicals. It’s not something that really gets noticed on a conscious level, but I really felt it in this one. Even though the jazzy sounds of “The Bear Necessities” and “I Wanna Be Like You” couldn’t be further from the military drill of “Colonel Hathi’s March” or the dreamy smoothness of “Trust in Me” and “My Own Home”, the songs really hang together excellently and fit the film perfectly. The vultures also get a song, but it’s pretty lousy, and notable only because that’s what they were trying to get the Beatles to sing. So it really does sound like a faux-Beatles thing and suffers for it.

Animation is also great. The xerography is used to great effect, with the center masses of the animals very smoothly animated, but sketchy edges utilized for fur. Lots of fun with the characters’ physical attributes, especially Kaa’s immense length and King Louie’s lanky arms. There’s some occasional mishaps, like when the snake gets a hairy back, but all in all, this is some of the best animation we get from this method, in the best movie we get in this era.

Sweet! Free lunch!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

* The music for these last few has been written by a guy named George Bruns, and even though I should expect it by now, I still always go “Huh? George Burns?”

* That shot of Bambi’s mom running away turns up again. Bit out of place here, but you know, Orangutans.

* You may have noticed I always type out One Hundred and One Dalmatians, rather than the sensible abbreviation 101 Dalmatians. This is for the simple reason that One Hundred and One Dalmatians is the name of the movie. 101 Dalmatians is the live-action remake. And the book is The Hundred and One Dalmatians. This was for some reason important to tell you.

* Bruce Reitherman was actually the second actor they cast for Mowgli, as the first kid’s voice changed during production. Ahem.

* Contrary to what my brother might tell you, I like the Stanley Kubrick movie of the Shining. I just think it’s a failure as an adaptation, which is not a bad thing, and it’s not particularly any better than the TV-movie remake. Both have ups and downs. So does the book. Frankly, they could all be trying a little harder.

* The book version of The Shining is getting a sequel, called “Doctor Sleep”. It’s about Danny and his psychic cat driving around the country and fighting cannibals. Don’t worry, the full plot description makes it sound much worse.

* Sorry I’m not more on topic. I just can’t think of much more to say. It was really really good. Anyway, here’s Deems.

Oh, Deems. You make everything better.

Read More