Dick Huemer Movies

This episode of the TV anthology Walt Disney Presents is an expansion upon the classic Academy Award-winning animated short Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (originally released in Cinemascope in 1954). When his students ask him, "Where does the music come from?" Professor Owl is only to eager to demonstrate the music is merely an organized series of sounds -- consisting primarily of the "toot" of the brass instrument, the "whistle" of the woodwind, the "plunk" of the string and the "boom" of percussion. Among the segments used to augment the original running time of Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom is an extended "cradle to grave" sequence from 1953's Melody, one of several successful Disney attempts to match and surpass the style popularized by the UPA studios. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This episode of Disneyland consists primarily of four lengthy excerpts from two of Disney's animated features of the 1940s. The Kings' Men Quartet musically narrate the story of those famous feudin' families, the Martins and the Coys, in a sequence originally seen in Make Mine Music (1946). Also from the same source, Jerry Colonna delivers a spirited narration to the cartoon version of "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. And Dennis Day doubles as the voice of the narrator and the title character of "Johnny Appleseed", a segment lifted from Melody Time (1948). Rounding out the episode is a newly animated musical adaption of "Casey Jones, the Brave Engineer", again featuring the considerable talents of Jerry Colonna. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In one of the best-loved and mostly fondly remembered episodes of the TV anthology Disneyland, host Walt Disney discusses the nuts and bolts of animation, and how individual cartoon components ultimately make up the sum total. For example, Disney demonstrates how a bouncing ball inspire a sequence in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, how an intensive study of water, fire, smoke and mud result in the "Rite of Spring" segment of Fantasia, and how a genuine ballet was transformed into a pas-de-deux between a hippo and an alligator in the "Dance of the Hours" segment from the same film. "The Tricks of Our Trade" was later released on 16 millimeter for classroom showings. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Another of Disneyland's "Fantasyland" segments, this one-hour episode traces the history of cartoon animation from 1906 to the mid-1950s. The program begins with clips from J. Stuart Blackton's pioneering Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, then moves on to highlights from Winsor McKay's "interractive" 1914 cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur. Thereafter, the emphasis is on the output of the Disney studio, from the modest "Laugh-o-Grams" of the 1920s to such sophisticated animated features as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Lady and the Tramp. Conspicuous by its absence is the brilliant animation of Disney's chief rival Max Fleischer. "The Story of the Animated Drawing" was later distributed for classroom use as the educational short The History of Animation. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In his first postwar animated feature, Walt Disney attempted to repeat the Fantasia formula, substituting "pop" music for the Classics. Make Mine Music consists of ten unrelated cartoon vignettes, each one featuring a popular recording artist. "A Rustic Ballad" is the story of the Martin-Coy hillbilly feud, narrated musically by the King's Men. "A Tone Poem" is an impressionistic interpretation of the song "Blue Bayou", sung by the Ken Darby chorus and rendered artistically by Disney's ace animators. "A Jazz Interlude", done in "sketchbook" style, is performed by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra, and features the jitterbug specialty "All the Cats Join In". Jerry Colonna is next on the program in "A Musical Recitation", offering his own inimitable version of "Casey at the Bat". "Ballad Ballet" features Ballet Russe stars Tatiana Riabouchinska and David Lichine, dancing to Dinah Shore's vocalization of "Two Silhouettes". "A Fairy Tale with Music" turns out to be Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", narrated by Sterling Holloway. Next, Benny Goodman and company return with a surreal visualization of "After You've Gone", followed by "A Love Story", which features the Andrews Sisters' rendition of the ballad "Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet." The hilarious "Opera Pathetique" finale finds Nelson Eddy narrating the story of Willy, "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met". Better in its individual components than its sum total, Make Mine Music was drubbed by critics, who felt that Disney had abandoned his "artistic" aspirations in favor of crass commercialism, but performed reasonably well at the box office, inspiring several more "omnibus" animated features. In later years, the ten individual segments would be released as separate short subjects, both theatrically and as episodes of Disney's various TV series (where the original narration was often supplanted by the unfunny interpolations of Professor Ludwig Von Drake). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The shortest of Disney's major animated features Dumbo involves a baby elephant with unusually large ears. Ostracized from the rest of the circus animals, poor Dumbo is even separated from his mother, who is chained up in a separate cage after trying to defend her child. Only brash-but-lovable Timothy Mouse offers the hand of friendship to Dumbo, encouraging the pouty pachyderm to exploit his "different" qualities for fame and fortune. After trepidatiously indulging in a vat of booze, Dumbo awakens in a tall tree. Goaded by a group of jive-talking crows, Dumbo discovers that his outsized ears have given him the ability to fly. The musical score by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace won Oscars for them both. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi