Number Eleven: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

1949

I have a question. What would possess someone to name their child Ichabod? That has to be the worst name in the history of names, including Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii. I did not just make that up. I’d rather name my child that than something that reminds me of a fish for some strange reason.

Speaking of fish, the first part of this movie is about Mr. Toad, a classic character from The Wind in the Willows. Shut up, toads and fish are totally similar subjects, and it reasonable for my brain to make that jump. Anyway, Mr. Toad is a rich adrenaline junkie, which is pretty much never a good combination. One day he spots one of those “new” automobiles, and immediately he decides he must have it. So he hunts down one, finds the owners and trades his whole estate for the car.

Unfortunately, the owners of the car are weasels and do live up to their name quite well as they stole the car and are more than happy to part ways with it. This leads to the police capturing Mr. Toad for car theft, and sentencing him to jail time for a very, very long time.

One day, Christmas day in fact, Mr. Toad receives a visitor. It is his old horse. He brings Mr. Toad an outfit to wear as a disguise and together they break Mr. Toad out our prison. In order to fully get away, he sees a train and decides to steal it. Off he goes home, where all his friends help him clear his name, by obtaining the deed to Toad Manor. He is exonerated and goes on to bye many a crazy contraption more.

After this tale, we move on to a little town called Sleepy Hollow, where a school teacher with a gigantic nose who goes by the name of Ichabod Crane lives. He sucks. Really, he’s quite boring and ugly, and I don’t know why any female would ever be interested in him. Well, I guess it can be hard to judge the attractiveness of a cartoon sometimes. However, I am fairly sure this dude would still be vomit inducing ugly.

But not to Katrina Van Tassel. She quite fancies Ichabod, and he returns the feelings. There is one problem. Every male in Sleepy Hollow also is enamored with Katrina. It could be because she is pretty. It probably is because her father is the richest man in the town.

One night at a Halloween party, Ichabod and Katrina dance, maddening one of the rival suitors. This rival goes on to tell a story of the Headless Horseman who haunts those parts. It’s a story that could very likely scare you out of your skin. It certainly does that for Ichabod, which was the plan of this rival. The party ends and Ichabod must bravely ride home through a creepy dark forest, alone.

Really, he should have known better. Everyone knows forests are full of things wanting to kill you, like a headless horseman who rides around with a sword trying to cut people’s heads off. This is exactly what Ichabod runs into. After a long chase, Ichabod spies a bridge not too far from him. Remembering that if he passes the bridge the horseman cannot get him, Ichabod makes a run for it. He successfully outruns HH. Then HH throws his head, a pumpkin lit on fire, at Ichabod. The next day no one is able to find Ichabod, only his hat. Rumors say he skipped town and married a wealthy widow, but the citizens of Sleepy Hollow know better, they knew he’s dead. The end.

Yay!  A Disney movie that actually killed off the main character, just like in the book! Not even the Tim Burton version of Sleepy Hollow would do that, and if you’ve seen anything by Tim Burton, you know that is saying something. It just makes me so happy when a movie sticks closish to the book.

This two part film was awesome. It reminded me why I love Disney movies in the first place, and why I wanted to do this crazy blog in the first place. It was hilarious, haunting, happy, and any other adjective you can find that starts with an H. Mr. Toad has always been one of my favorite characters, mainly because he’s a lunatic. Lunatics can be pretty awesome. Unless they do something crazy like try to eat your socks. That’s just weird.

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): Katie, who I still love, despite all the havoc she wrecks on my life.

Best Song: The Headless Horseman song. Talk about heebee-jeebees.

Best Part: The stout woman with the bad haircut. Every scene she was in was simply amazing. Someone does need to tell her she needs some hair gel though. 

Number Ten: Melody Time

Melody Time

1948

FINALLY! This is the last of the movies based on random music from the 40’s! You have no idea how amazing it is to be done with watching the same basic movie over and over and over and over and over again. Truly, it’s amazing to be done with them. I can finally stop writing the same review over every single day! Yippee!

Sadly, I still have to write about this movie. I guess I don’t really have to, but I did say I would every day, and I can be very stubborn when I say I can do something. So here it goes, again.

You know what forget it. This movie was exactly like yesterday’s, except with different stories. I don’t need to explain this again! You can go read what I said yesterday! That’s easier. You might think that means I am being lazy in my blogging. I say it’s being more productive with my time. Right? Right!

I did like this movie better though than Make Mine Music. I’d seen most of it already, so that could be why. Or it could be that the stories were all completely hilarious, especially when they involve bustles, a really dumb article of clothing. Why on earth anyone would ever have worn one is beyond me, but it makes for some entertaining storytelling.

So I’d say this movie is pretty cute, but thank goodness it is over, because I can soon write real blogs again! Won’t that be wonderful? I think yes.

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): My sick, including me, family. No one else in their right mind would come to our house right now. I think we have the plague.

Best Song: I kind of don’t remember any of them… Whoops.

Best Part: When the piano turns into a snake and then a flock of butterflies and tries to eat the fly. I swear this actually happened.  

Number Eight: Make Mine Music

Make Mine Music

1947

Sometimes families can be totally awesome, especially when they happen to have obscure music based Disney movies, such as Make Mine Music. However, it would have been nice to know ahead of time I was related to someone who owned this movie before I bought it. I could have saved a whole dollar and fifty cents.

This is Fantasia, but instead of classical music, it’s music from the 40’s. I am not going to go over every single short film, as it’s 11:07 and my brain is sleepy. Zzzzzzz.

Because I am tired, I will only talk about my favorite three stories, in no particular order. First (not really first, I think it was in the middle, but that was an hour ago, so I don’t recall), we have a delightful story of two hats who live in a department store window. They are in love and adorable. Unfortunately the girl hat, Alice Bluebonnet, is sold. Johnny Fedora, the male, is thoroughly depressed because of this. Until he too is sold. That makes him feel a little bit better, but still, he is always on a constant lookout for his love. One day he spots her, and leaps off his owners head to be by her side, only to fall on the ground and get trampled. A random person picks him off of the street, cuts ear hole in him, and places him on a horse’s head. Johnny would be sad, but luckily on the horse next to him sits Alice. The end.  This story is probably the cutest thing since baby kittens. Which is a redundant term. Sleep…

Next, but not really next, we have Willie the opera singing whale. He can sing tenor, baritone, and bass, because he has three uvulas. Sadly for him, he is harpooned. Off he goes to Heaven, still singing. This story was as sad as if someone run over a litter of baby kittens.

Then we have Peter and the Wolf. Ever since I was six I have loved this part of the movie. Having each animal represented by a different instrument is genius, and it is narrated by Winnie the Pooh (Sterling Holloway). Not even baby kittens are better than that.

Personally, I found this film to be wonderful. It was quite enjoyable, creative, well drawn, and even though it didn’t have one storyline, I still liked it a lot. Not as much as baby kittens, but it is hard to beat little fluffballs. 

Now sleep. Zzzzzz.

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): Sidney for part of it, and my brothers for the rest of it.

Best Part: Willie singing in Heaven. He’s a giant pink whale with a harp. It’s kind of awesome.

Best Song: The one for Alice Bluebonner and Johnny Fedora. It makes me go “AWWWWW.”

Number Nine: Fun and Fancy Free

Fun and Fancy Free

1947

Yes, this is movie number nine. Yesterday we did movie number seven. I can count, I promise. However, due to issues getting Make Mine Music, movie number eight, we had to skip it for now. But never fear, it will be watched! It defiantly will as I had to order it off Amazon for a whole dollar fifty! See how dedicated I am to my work?

I miss full length movies with one plot that makes some sense. Can I hurry up and get to Cinderlla? Or Mulan? Or The Lion King?! Especially that one! Because these collections of shorts are killing me. Truly. I can feel them affecting my kidneys, and that can never be good.

One of the nice things about this movie was the narrator, Jiminy Cricket, who I love. Seeing a cricket in a tailcoat just makes me happy, what can I say?

Another redeeming quality was that Walt Disney actually did the voice for Mickey Mouse in this movie, for the last time. Up until this point he had been supplying the famous rodent with his voice, something I never knew.

Jiminy Cricket is floating around in a plant holder, saying how wonderful life is when you live it fun and fancy free, a term originating from the play A Midsummer Night’s Dream, something I really should have known. To continue living a life of no worries, sadness, commitments, really anything of the negative sort, Cricket puts on a story record, a record that tells a story. Yeah it’s really self explanatory.

This story is about a bear, named Bongo. He is a circus animal who escapes his sad and torturous life to the wild. In the wild, he meets a nice lady bear. She slaps him, which means love. They live to be very happy.

The next story was told by a bunch of dummies. No really. They’re creepy ventriloquist dummies telling a story. The story is Mickey and the Beanstalk. Everyone knows this story. Mickey gets beans for a cow, everyone yells at him, it grows into a stalk, a giant lives at the top of said stalk, FEE FI FO FUM, Mickey and his friends steal the magic singing harp, giant falls down and dies. The end.

I would say that technically there was nothing wrong with this movie. It just wasn’t that great. I know that Disney can do better than this, because I’ve seen them/him do better. Oh well, at least there are many films to look forward to coming up soon.

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): A variety of people kept walking in and out throughout the film.

Best Song: “Fee Fi Fo Fum.” I would totally become a ugly giant if it meant I could sing that song all the time.

Best Part: Probably the scene mentioned above. I’m working on becoming a giant now. 

Number Seven: The Three Caballeros

The Three Caballeros

1944

I totally watched this movie yesterday. Except this time it was awful. This movie felt exactly like Saludos Amigos, without all the humor.

Think back to what I wrote yesterday and you pretty much have this movie. It is set in South America, stars Donald Duck and this parrot guy, and doesn’t really have a coherent story line. Only this time it’s excruciatingly boring. I hated this movie and don’t ever want to watch it again.

Okay, I almost stopped this review right there. I guess writing a seventy six word complaint really would not suffice. But really there isn’t much else to say. This was a really bad use of seventy five minutes. I don’t usually feel this strong about movies, but this is an exception. To make it worse, it had to star Donald Duck, a character I really do not like too much. I kind of despise him actually. When you add him into a bizarre movie 

like this, it just creates a nightmare for me. Okay that’s it. Then end.

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): No one L Everyone abandoned me. The jerks.

Best Song: I guess it was technically a musical, but none of the songs were good enough to memorable, so…

Best Part: When the storm came and knocked my power out, giving me a break from this dreadful show. 

Number Six: Saludos Amigos

Saludos Amigos

1942

So, apparently I lied when I said movies that featured both live action and animation were not included on the list of the fifty animated Disney movies. I am now completely baffled as to how the Disney “canon” as film historians refer to it as was chosen. It does seem to be a somewhat random selection at times, but whatever, it isn't up to me to chose. I just watch them.

This film is one of the choices I’m confused about. It’s not even a full length film, with a running time of a mere forty two minutes. All it is are short stories that all happened to be based in the same area, Latin America. In between cartoons we see the artists who made the cartoons traveling around different countries, using the culture in these places such as Brazil and Argentina as inspiration for the film.

The cartoons themselves are quite entertaining. They have the feel of a documentary, with a narrator explaining everything that is happening. Subjects are different aspects of Latin American culture. Ranging in subject from airplanes to tourists to gauchos, each one displays a different country of that area. Some famous and well loved characters show up, for example Donald Duck and Goofy. Each cartoon is filled with clever wordplay and classic slapstick, and they are highly enjoyable. 

However, I still say this movie, if I can really call it that, is weird. Sure it was funny, but it didn’t have a storyline, just separate stories strung together. That’s of course not always a bad thing. In this case it isn’t necessarily awful, just peculiar.

Another odd thing about it was the length. Disney movies are never very long, usually running somewhere around eighty minutes, but this one is so short it doesn’t seem like it would qualify to be a feature film. Okay, after just googling the required length, it does technically count as a full length film, but only by two minutes. So still. It’s super short. And super weird. At least it had llamas!

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): Kassy.

Best Song: It wasn’t a musical so booooooo. I like musicals more.

Best Part: Donald Duck riding a llama across a bridge, and subsequently falling off. Even though it was at least an eighty foot drop, he doesn’t die, because he is a Disney character and laws of physics and other silly things like that do not apply. 

Number Five: Bambi

Bambi

1942

This movie makes me feel bad to be a human. All the humans, or the one human, in this movie suck. They cause trouble, kill beloved characters and start massive forest fires. They are nothing but a nuisance to the animals who made a home in this forest.

One of these animals is named Bambi. He is a deer. Bambi is happy little baby deer, making friends with rabbits and skunks, until his mom is shot by a hunter. Then he is sad.

Life moves on for Bambi. He grows up and meets a nice doe, on whom he twitterpates. I’m not making that word up, that is the term used by the wise old owl in the movie. Unfortunately, his happiness is cut short by the stupid hunter, probably the same one who killed his mom, falling asleep without putting out his campfire, and burning the whole forest nearly down. Luckily for most of the animals, they all escape and live happily ever after.

I could go in to more detail about the plot, but really, there isn’t much more. Plus I am sure you all know how it goes. This is one movie that everyone has seen before, probably more than once. So there is no need to tell you how it goes, you already know.

Now that’s over with, I have one question for the writers of this film. WHY?!?! Why did Bambi’s mom have to die? Why? Everyone who has ever seen this movie hates that part! It’s dumb. I don’t care if the plot sort of revolves around it. Who needs plot anyway? Can’t we just have sixty nine minutes of endearing animals? Storylines are really overrated now a day’s anyway!

I hate animal deaths. I do. The ending of Charlotte’s Web still makes me cry to this day. Don’t even get me started on Mufasa’s death. Watching the opening for The Fox and the Hound used to  make me produce buckets of tears. Animal deaths are just dumb. I don’t mind if a human dies in a movie, but killing a cute animal is just wrong.

Besides this tragic aspect of the film, Bambi is fine. That’s it. Just fine. It doesn’t make me want to chew glass, but it’s not a movie that I absolutely love watching. It just exists for me. Sure it does have its moments, like when the animals twitterpate (I’m using that word as much as I can from now on). This has never been one of my favorites, and I don’t believe that I’ll ever feel anything but “meh” to it.

Movie Watching Budd(y)(ies): Katie

Best Song: In this movie, there were two songs, and I disliked both of them. So I refuse to give either one the title of best song. And I can do that, because it’s my blog and I make the rules. So there.

Best Part: Twitterpating!