Rating:
If anybody tells me he likes Fantasia more than I do, I will tell him he is a goddamned liar. Thus, I’ve always wanted to see Make Mine Music, which (along with Melody Time) is sort of the common man’s Fantasia, but I’d never had the chance to before now. Instead of classical music, this picture features regular songs and takes a less serious approach. Originally released with ten segments, it now has only nine. The missing piece, “The Martins and the Coys,” was cut, depending on who you believe, either because of comical gunplay or because of a portrayal of southerners that made The Beverly Hillbillies look like the height of cultural sensitivity. I’ve never seen that segment, so I don’t know, but given that there are guns elsewhere in the feature, I’m inclined to side with the latter theory. As for the rest of the sequences…

BLUE BAYOU
Well, it certainly is blue. Everything on the screen except two birds and the moon is colored just as blue as can be. Whatever else you say about this segment, you can’t deny the honesty of the title.

In that case, what else can you say? Not much. It’s short, but it’s pretty boring. There’s a blue bayou, some birds (storks? cranes? I’m no ornithologist) fly gracefully around, the end. In terms of a way to start a movie, it’s as dull as all those shots of the sky in Triumph of the Will. So we can put that on our list of “Ways Walt Disney Reminds Us of Nazis,” right next to the entry for “hatred of Jews.” Also, this is not the Roy Orbison song “Blue Bayou,” so minus 500 quatloos for getting my hopes up.

ALL THE CATS JOIN IN
This jazz interlude (with music provided by Benny Goodman, so right on) takes place in a sketchbook world menaced by a “Duck Amuck” style giant pencil, bestowing or taking life on its own merciless whims. While trying to avoid this death from above, a group of youngsters submits to the overpowering call of jazz and heads to the malt shop to, as you might expect, join in. One of them is a hottie who comes tantalizingly close to exposing her naughty bits as she changes into her malt shop apparel. Another is a girl whose ass is too fat until the Pencil God shows itself and gives her a butt she can proudly display in public. Everyone dances and eats sandwiches.

Really, though, I like this one.

WITHOUT YOU
An imaginary dialogue.
PARENT: Hey, there’s a revival theater showing Make Mine Music! It’s a classic Disney cartoon. You wanna go?
CHILD: Yeah!
PARENT: It has a sequence of abstract imagery combined with a cripplingly depressing song about lost love or maybe even death!
CHILD: …

CASEY AT THE BAT
You know the poem, you know how the story goes. And if you don’t know, where the hell have you been for the last hundred years? I’ll have no further dealings with you.

The familiar story is told through a goofy slapstick cartoon. It’s pretty fun and has some good gags (a few of which are mustache related), but it’s nothing to write home about. A better cartoon about baseball is Warner Bros’ “Baseball Bugs.”

TWO SILHOUETTES
Dinah Shore sings while two silhouettes do a frou-frou ballet dance. Yawn. Also, a pair of cupids makes occasional appearances, so really there are four silhouettes.

PETER AND THE WOLF
Now this I like.

Maybe you know Peter and the Wolf because you are actually cultured and familiar with Prokofiev’s composition, with its individual instruments representing different characters. Maybe you know Peter and the Wolf because Tim Matheson whistles it in Animal House. Or maybe, like me, you know Peter and the Wolf and are familiar with the specifics and character design of this telling because you had it on one of those read-along book/cassette tape combos. Remember those? “You’ll know it is time to turn the page when you hear the chimes ring like this.” Man, those were great.

Sterling Holloway (perhaps you know him as my personal hero Winnie the freakin’ Pooh) narrates the tale of a communist boy and his collectivist animal pals as they hunt down a wolf (D-OH), in direct violation of the orders of Peter’s morbidly obese grandfather. The grandfather is represented in the score by the bassoon. Another word for a bassoon is fagot. You can laugh while you learn!

AFTER YOU’VE GONE
Did you expect to see a clarinet juggle, burst into flames, and turn into a fish today? I didn’t. But yeah, I like this one. The music’s good (Benny Goodman again) and the visuals are fun. Instruments dance about doing crazy things. Some disembodied hands turn into sexy disembodied legs. A clarinet and an upright bass get in a boxing ring and then don’t box. You know, the usual.

JOHNNIE FEDORA AND ALICE BLUEBONNET
Two hats fall in love and dream of starting a family, are separated by circumstances beyond their control, and are ultimately reunited on the heads of a pair of horses. Based on a true story.

THE WHALE WHO WANTED TO SING AT THE MET
They saved the best for last with this one. Willie the Whale’s been heard singing out at sea, so an opera impresario sets out to round him up. Only for whatever reason, the dude thinks it’s unlikely that a whale is actually singing; he suspects Willie must have swallowed one or more opera singers. But we know the truth: Willie’s the real deal. He dreams of knocking ‘em dead in opera houses all over the world, starring in all the classics of Western music.

A whale who sings opera? That’s awesome!

So it turns out that Melody Time isn’t great. It does, however, have moments of greatness, and I don’t hesitate to recommend it just on the strength of “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met,” which alone is worth the price of admission.

If you don’t like Make Mine Music, you will also totally hate:

Fantasia Fun and Fancy Free

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Fun and Fancy Free
• Tom and Jerry: A Nutcracker Tale
• Wednesday Top Ten: Disney Animated Features
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
• Fantasia