Make Mine Music

Make Mine Music (1946)

During World War II, much of Disney’s staff had been drafted into the army or were working on propaganda cartoons for the US Government (On that note, check out the short “Der Fuehrer’s Face” if you want to see Donald Duck as a Nazi), as a result, they had little time to work on any full narrative projects; thus, through the course of the war and a few of the following years, they released a series of six anthology or “package” films which tied a number of different shorts together to form a full feature. Unsurprisingly, these six films are some of Disney’s lesser-known works, likely due to their different format and style and I must confess that, until now, I had only seen bits and pieces of most of them. The first two of these six are the previously discussed Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros and next up is the appropriately titled Make Mine Music, which used a musical theme to tie its shorts together, as opposed to the South American theme of its predecessors. Disney had previously planned to do a series of films in the style ofFantasia, but the poor financial success of the film, coupled with the high cost of the extremely elaborate animation and potentially alienating use of classical music means they were never able to do so (At least, until Fantasia 2000). So, they decided to form Make Mine Music into a kind of spiritual successor to Fantasia, featuring shorts based around more contemporary music, with a few classical pieces and even a poem thrown in. The result is a spirited, fun-filled romp that won’t fail to bring a smile to your face.

Make Mine Music doesn’t really utilise a framing device to tie the shorts together, it just introduces each one with a brief title card, as if you’re at a concert and checking what’s next on the program. This works just fine, it knows what kind of film it is and doesn’t try to fake a narrative or introduce each piece extensively like Deems Taylor in Fantasia; thankfully, this keeps the film moving along at a steady pace as each short quickly transitions into the other, ensuring that if you don’t like one, there’s another one coming up in just a minute that you might. The animation is a step up from Saludos Amigos andThe Three Caballeros; while most segments are still animated in more of a classic cartoon style than Disney’s narrative features, the rough edges have been smoothed out a little and on the whole it looks a lot better. The animation is still relatively simplistic, for Disney anyway, but it’s well suited to the short format and there are still some very original ideas in here. The film starts off with “The Martins and the Coys”, a comic retelling of the Hatfield-McCoys feud; it’s silly, over-the top and actually, surprisingly violent and morbid! There’s a lot of shooting and a LOT of death, but it’s never gory or serious, the fighting is all cartoonish and silly, so it never becomes too grim; it goes on maybe a little too long and isn’t exactly the best start, but it’s fun enough and the music is pretty catchy. Next up is “Blue Bayou” (Probably the origin of the Disneyland restaurant of the same name) a simple piece depicting birds gliding across the Florida everglades. Apparently, this segment was originally intended to be part of Fantasia and I can see why, because it certainly fits the style of that film better – the backgrounds are beautiful, highly detailed and rich in colour and atmosphere. There’s something missing here that doesn’t quite capture the magic of Fantasia though, I heard that the music accompanying this short was originally supposed to be the classical piece “Claire De Lune”, but the version I saw featured the original song “Blue Bayou”, so I checked out the original version that had been cut from Fantasia and I definitely think it fits a lot better – a shame it was reworked for Make Mine Music because it really is a beautiful piece.

‘If this is supposed to be a Cajun restaurant, then WHERE’S THE FUCKING CRAWFISH?’

Next is “All the Cats Join In”, a jazzy short featuring a bunch of teens dancing to swing music, while a pencil draws the action as it happens. This one is great, it’s just pure fun and energy, the music is super upbeat and catchy and the use of the pencil is very clever and creative; one notable moment occurs when the pencil starts to draw the car the characters get into, but they drive off before it can finish, leaving only half a car. Another is when the pencil draws a girl but accidentally makes her butt too big, much to her annoyance; this is not only legitimately quite funny, but the fact that the pencil can’t always keep up with the very action it is trying animate just emphasises how fast-paced and energetic this short is – it’s definitely one of the best in the film. It’s followed by “Without You” which, to be honest I barely even remember; it’s kind of similar to “Blue Bayou” in that it’s more about the backgrounds and the atmosphere than any kind of narrative or animation, which is nice and all, but a little dull. A lot of the film consists of this structure of following a more high energy and comical short with a more serious and atmospheric one, which is a good idea in theory, as it keeps things from getting too crazy or too heavy, but I’m not sure if it really worked that well in practice.

Little too much junk in the animated trunk

Next is probably one of the more – if not the most – famous shorts from the film, “Casey at the Bat”, a musical recitation of the poem about an arrogant but beloved baseball player. I like this one a lot too, it has a lot of really great physical humour and some truly outlandish and bizarre visual gags. The animation is all really fast and exaggerated and there are a lot of good jokes about the famously complex and hard to understand rules of baseball - lots of images of balls being thrown back and forth seemingly randomly, players doing apparently meaningless hand gestures that are so complex and awkward they end up tying their fingers in knots, it’s great. Casey himself is wonderfully cocky, he’s such a smug asshole, the very particular decisions in his design and style of animation – his big, puffed out chest, shit-eating grin and slow, cocky swagger of a walk – are all very clever and help cement his character, which only makes it all the more satisfying when he fails. When Casey strikes out, the scene suddenly changes to an idyllic picture of chirpy blue birds and frolicking children in a park, before cutting back to Casey, who is now crying and snivelling like a spoiled child because he finally struck out. This is such a strange moment and the ridiculously sugar sweet imagery of the park almost seems like a self-parody of Disney’s style and some of their odd transitions, such as cutting from the extremely dark moment of Bambi learning of his mother’s death to a bright and sunny forest, also with a bunch of chirpy blue birds; I had to laugh. Funniest of all is this one guy who is rooting for the rival team, he has a delightfully goofy voice and design and when his team is doing well he innocently cheers them on... only to get beat up by the home team’s fans; then, as the home team starts to make a comeback, this poor guy just sits there, looking more and more defeated as the home team fans continue to beat on this poor guy! It’s so hilariously pathetic, the guy looks so sad. This is a really funny short. Once again, this is followed by a more serious short, “Two Silhouettes”, which just features... well, two silhouettes, dancing. It’s a neat effect and a nice idea but it can’t really capture your attention after “Casey at the Bat”.

Mudville - the Millwall of the baseball world

Next the classic “Peter and the Wolf”, which is one of my favourite pieces of music ever, so I have to admit I’m a little bias to this section, even though I can acknowledge that the animation isn’t really as good as the music. The introduction is great, explaining all the characters and corresponding instruments and they even borrow a bit of imagery from the opening to Fantasia in the form of the colourful shapes representing different musical instruments, but the short itself is a bit too... on the nose for me. I know “Peter and the Wolf” has always had a narrator to explain the story, but I don’t know how much it was really needed here, I think the animation should have stood on its own and told a story with the music, isn’t that kind of the point of the film? Maybe it’s just the narrator’s weird voice, but for some reason he kind of gets on my nerves, I don’t know I just think he kind of puts a damper on the segment and doesn’t really need to be there. It’s still a good segment and the music is, of course, fantastic, but I think it’s sidetracked a little too much just so they can have a bird acting goofy and a guy make jokes over it, I dunno. Thankfully the next piece, “After You’ve Gone”, picks up the pace a little as a bunch of anthropomorphic instruments dance to a jazz song; the song is great and the animation is fun to watch, but I dunno I think I was kind of getting tired of this kind of short by this point. Don’t get me wrong, Disney are always great at matching animation to the rhythm of music and creating interestingly abstract shapes and colours to represent different sounds, but I dunno, we’ve seen a bit too much of it by this point. It’s a fun short, but it started to feel like the creativity was running a little dry.

Look at the duck it doesn’t give a shit

Next is “Johnnie Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnet”, a musical love story about two hats that fall in love in a department store but are torn apart when bought by different owners and must find their way back to one another. This one’s a sweet idea and the song is nice, but it doesn’t exactly go anywhere that interesting; some of the gags about the different hats are pretty funny, but that’s about it. This one reminded me a lot of the recent Pixar short “The Blue Umbrella”, which is about the titular blue umbrella, carried by a man, falling in love with a red umbrella he sees carried by a woman; the two are separated when the man and woman walk separate ways and the blue umbrella escapes from the man in his search to be reunited with the red umbrella. It’s pretty much the same basic narrative, right up to the point where both the blue umbrella and Johnnie Fedora are trampled, damaged and left in the street, before finally reuniting with their loved one. It’s very possible that Pixar got their inspiration from this short and that’s pretty cool to see, but I think they ultimately did a better job than this; not to say there’s anything wrong with this short, it’s cute, but that’s it. Finally, the film ends on “The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met” (Descriptive, but not very succinct ) which chronicles the story of an opera singing whale who is hunted by a composer who believes that the whale has in fact swallowed an opera singer and is determined to get them out. Most of this short is just okay, but I have to admit being impressed by the very strange and original premise, the idea is almost Seussical (Is that a word? I feel like that should probably be a word). Most notable is the fact that this short and thus, the film itself, takes quite a dark turn and ends on a very bittersweet note when we see the whale achieve great heights as an opera singer, only to discover this was all a dream of what could have been possible, had he not been killed by the misguided composer. It’s a genuinely tragic climax - appropriate, considering this is supposed to be an opera - but the film closes on a hopeful moment as the whale sings on in heaven and the audience is promised that ‘miracles never really die’. It’s a surprisingly mature and thoughtful moment and a satisfying close to the film.

Get off the stage you downy-clown ass fuck

The shorts of Make Mine Music are hit and miss; though thankfully they hit more than miss, those few missteps do unfortunately hold it back from being a truly great film. Though the idea of doing a version of Fantasia with contemporary music is an exciting one, Make Mine Music doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor, but obviously that was a very hard act to follow. Viewed by its own merit, the film has a great sense of humour, some catchy music and a lot of fun, if not revolutionary, animation. If this is one you’ve never seen, I definitely recommend checking it out.

Other Thoughts

The bird in “Peter and the Wolf” looks kinda like that Woody Woodpecker bird from “The Three Caballeros” and is just as annoying, no more of this bird please.