Melody Time

Melody Time (1948)

So next was Melody Time, which is basically just Make Mine Music 2, it follows the same format of shorts based around (mostly) contemporary music, as opposed to the classical theme of Fantasia and similarly forgoes any framing story or continuing narration in lieu of just showing the name of the shorts on screen and letting them play. However, there are only 7 shorts here to Make Mine Music’s 10; while this only seems like a very small difference, it has a reasonably strong impact, as having just 3 less makes a lot of the shorts in Melody Time feel a little too bloated. Make Mine Music certainly had some duds in the mix, a few of the shorts were a lot slower and less interesting, but because they didn’t last too long and there was a lot more of them, the slower moments ultimately didn’t hurt the film quite as much in the long run. In Melody Time, however, the weaker shorts just last a little too long, there are less better ones to round out the mix and even some of the better ones drag on a bit too long as well, making it difficult for the film to live up to its predecessor.

The first short is “Once Upon a Wintertime”, a love story between a boy and a girl (and two rabbits as well, I guess) during... well, the wintertime. It’s okay. The animation is pretty interesting, it’s a style Disney hasn’t really used thus far – there is a softness to the lines, everything is quite rounded and very stylised, the characters look sort of like they are out of an old Archie comic, it’s a pretty cool style. The music is pretty standard in comparison though and overall the short falls a little flat as an intro. The next short, “Bumble Boogie”, is a lot better, but a little disappointing for different reasons; it follows a bumble bee being chased by hostile music and instruments to the sound of a jazz variation of Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee”. I think this fits the idea that Melody Time and Make Mine Musicwere supposed to be Fantasia for the modern era of music better than a lot of other shorts, it takes a piece of classical music and mixes it with contemporary music to put a modern spin on it, that seems to fulfil the ambition they had in mind pretty well. The almost neon colours are vibrant and eye-catching and the animation is spirited, creative and fun, on the face of it this is a great short; what’s a little disappointing however, is the fact that at this point, I feel like I’ve just seen enough Disney shorts play a piece of music and have the animation match every step of the rhythm and in particular, where they just show the musical notes and instruments moving around on the screen to the sounds - this short is very similar to the Make Mine Music short “After You’ve Gone” in this regard. There’s nothing wrong with the idea in and of itself and I know it’s kind of the point of the film, so I can hardly get mad, but “Bumble Boogie”, while definitely fun, just approaches this idea from the exact same angle as so many others we’ve already seen. The idea was just becoming a little tired to me, by this point, it’s still a good short but I found it hard to get too into it, because of this.

Be the bee.

Probably the most famous segment of the movie is “The Legend of Johnny Appleseed”, which retells the life of the famous American pioneer and folk hero. This “short” (It’s almost 20 minutes long!) is more like a mini-Disney movie, it is not set to one piece of music, but is narrated in rhyme and has several unique songs within the narrative, just like a full length Disney animated feature would. This segment is definitely flawed, but still one of the highlights of the movie, the animation is nothing experimental or anything, but it’s good and has some great imagery, such as the many apple trees stretching out into the clouds. The narrative is very schmaltzy and a little too sweet - the narrator literally says ‘well shucks’ at one point – but you can forgive it and it is still pretty charming. The songs are pretty great, in particular Johnny’s main song, “The Lord’s Been Good to Me” – which reminds me a little of “Bless your Beautiful Hide” from Seven Brides For Seven Brothers – which is very sweet and memorable. This isn’t one of Disney’s greatest shorts, but it’s definitely still a good one and one of the strongest of the movie, I think it might have worked better as a full length feature though. Next is “Little Toot” which is... I dunno, forgettable is really all I can say, there’s really not much to it; it’s about a boat who causes some trouble for his Dad and then ends up helping him at the end. Yay...? I don’t know, the animation is definitely very good and the music is catchy enough, but there doesn’t seem to be much soul or creativity to this one; once again, it falls into that problem of being cute, but not much else - it’s hard to really criticise it too much, but there isn’t much to praise either.

‘Are those police boats?’

‘They have boats?’

Next a recitation of the poem “Trees”, set to some images of, shockingly, some trees, as well as nature in general. This one slows things down a little and is more heavy on atmosphere and mood than narrative or crazy visuals, which is good, it is a much needed rest and isn’t so slow as to kill your enthusiasm too much. Like “Blue Bayou” in Make Mine Music, “Trees” feels kind of like the resident call back to Fantasia - its highly detailed, rich backgrounds, use of atmosphere, slow pace and focus on nature and careful movement are all reminiscent of Fantasia. While this makes for a good short, again, at this point the constant attempts to recapture the magic of Fantasia are getting a little tired and it can get a little frustrating waiting for Disney to just move on and embrace something different; the short’s still good, though. We continue to cling to the past with “Blame it on the Samba”, which brings back José Carioca from Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros, as well as the latin theme those movies shared, as he and Donald go to a cafe and dance to samba music. The music is perfectly fun and upbeat, as is the animation, but again the creativity is sorely lacking because we have seen this enough already – two whole movies were dedicated to this idea, we didn’t need any more shorts based around these characters or this type of music guys, move on. The attempts run even further than this when they not only bring back that stupid little bird who looks like Woody Woodpecker AGAIN (I’d say he’s starting to turn into “The Hooter” of these package films, but to be fair he’s a lot less annoying here) but they also bring back the live action woman who danced with Donald in The Three Caballeros for another “revolutionary” scene with blends live action and animation. We get it guys, you can put live action and animation together. It’s impressive. Great job. Do you think you could do something else? I dunno, maybe I’m being a little too hard on Disney here, but I’m just getting a little tired of seeing the same stuff from them at this point and it made me kinda lose interest in the film.

FUCK OFF

Thankfully, the film brings back some energy and creativity with the last short, “Pecos Bill”, which – after a rather tedious and unnecessary live action introduction – follows the adventures of the titular cowboy, the ‘toughest critter West of the Alamo’ and his adventures alongside his trusty horse, Widowmaker, a name which sounds like a finishing move for the Undertaker. This segment is great, there is so much energy and creativity to the animation here, the crazy, hyperactive and over-the-top imagery fits the ridiculous nature of the Pecos Bill legends perfectly. There’s a lot of Disney’s signature style of making the movements as insane as elaborate as they can, as opposed to just the bare minimum and as always, it’s a joy to watch, especially after some of the previous shorts seemed a little phoned-in; there are just so many imaginative moments, my favourite of which has Bill’s horse riding on him, as Bill propels them across a river by shooting his guns repeatedly, like a boat’s motor. Like “The Legend of Johnny Appleseed”, “Pecos Bill” is a longer short with a heavier narrative and while it does run out of steam little by the end, it always holds your attention and is mostly very fun. This is probably the best short of the bunch and a great ending to the movie, reminding us that, despite some less imaginative shorts along the way, Disney still had a lot of creativity in them and still knew how to throw out a hell of an ending.

Just an odd sight

It’s hard to criticise Melody Time too much, because it honestly does try and has a lot of good moments, but it’s hard to get too into it either, because a lot of these ideas just seem tired by this point. This is the fifth Disney film to feature shorts paired with music and the third to feature music-based shorts exclusively; while the idea is, as always, a sound one, new ideas and creativity were clearly running a little dry. I just think they’d done a few too many in this format and I imagine Disney agreed, because – as previously mentioned – they only released so many package films in a row due to the issues that World War II caused for them and after Melody Time, they didn’t release another musically themed package film until Fantasia 2000. Melody Time is hardly a triumphant farewell to this format and definitely doesn’t live up to Fantasia or even Make Mine Music, but it’s still a pretty fun movie; on the whole, there are more weak shorts than strong ones here, but the better shorts are definitely strong enough to make Melody Time a reasonably fun time, but that’s about all.

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