Disney in Quarantine: Five More Shorts

How to Play Baseball, 1942, rated G, 8 minutes.

Over some (maybe) official narration, Goofy models the highlights and rules of the game: field composition, uniform, pitching, and hitting. Two teams (made entirely of Goofys) battle it out in a world series game while providing an over-the-top physical parody of America's Past-Time. End with an all-out brawl under a stars and stripes banner, which was likely fitting for the time, but strange to consider among other, more violent organizations of American sport today. It's a sort of cute, drippy kind of comedy, the kind you'd expect some totally-not-into-sports character doing in a very exaggerated way. Like, "Hey, kids! Look at these dorks trying to SPORT!"

How to Play Football, 1944, rated G, 8 minutes.

Yeah, see above, although there are more gags on the audience during this one (cheers echoing over the rules being told, camera panning the length of the field following a play but obscured by spectators). Taxidermy Tech takes on Anthropology A & M where, again, each team is made entirely of Goofys. Physical comedy includes pants falling down, a butt being smacked (hard), a cheerleader being kicked and beaten, and at game's end, the coach being put into a padlocked straightjacket. The ongoing commentary is sarcastic and blunt, most memorably, "What a dumb quarterback!"

Double Dribble, 1946, rated G, 8 minutes.

In a similar spirit as both previous shorts, two teams of Goofys and one miniature-sized one battle out a game on the basketball court. Gags are mostly the same, exposing underwear and beat-downs among team members although the audience gets involved in this one, grabbing the ball and passing it or preventing shots when the mood strikes. In a moment that would be echoed some forty years later by Pee-Wee in Porky's Revenge, the little guy gets put in after an injury just before the buzzer and gives the game his best try. Nice. It occurs to me that these shorts are basically suggesting that athletes of all sports are . . . not that smart or have little common sense, but they all seem happy and enthusiastic about everything, so at least that's positive.

All in a Nutshell, 1949, rated G, 7 minutes.

Chip and Dale try to overtake Donald Duck's giant walnut-butter factory; things go poorly for Donald. Not a lot here, but good-spirited physical comedy that usually involves one or all characters getting smacked in the head by nuts. Some sympathy for Donald; he's just trying to make his nut butter. There's something kind of silly and charming about these chipmunks, their high voices and carefree attitudes are inspiring in light of Donald messing with them, a lot like Tweety, Road Runner, and Jerry (of Tom and Jerry). Perhaps this is some sort of metaphor for life: try to carry on your happiness even when things seem negative.

Out of Scale, 1951, rated G, 7 minutes.

Donald Duck has a very elaborate toy train setup crafted around the large tree where Chip and Dale live; after he moves the tree, they take up residence inside one of his toy houses. After nurturing them there for a while, he decides to mess with them (pretty innocently) by confusing them and mixing up the weather. When the figure out what he's doing, they shrug it off, squeaking out, "Look at that bum!"

Disney in Quarantine: Five Short Films

Golden Touch, 1935, rated G, 10 minutes. A King Midas story where Midas is large and sort of creepy with little to no regard to any of the living things around him. The golden touch comes to Midas (who's already rich) by way of another creepy character, Goldie, who has the face of a septuagenarian but the voice of a toddler. Goldie reluctantly bestows the golden touch upon Midas, who enjoys turning statues, water, and animals to gold but has second thoughts only when he realizes his food is affected.

Rating: you can skip this one, unless you like your animation heavy with uncanny weird guys and subtle cruelty to animals. There are some skeletons (which my youngest son enjoyed relating to the current Midas Fortnite skins and the Oro story), but they're not exactly scary. It's a story about greed, but only in degrees; the sweaty king's hunger for food wins out over his hunger for gold, how relevant. How manly! Mostly I just cringed.

On Ice, 1935, rated G, 8 minutes. Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, and Pluto go ice skating! Mickey and Minnie are wholesome and sweet; Goofy ice-fishes with chewing tobacco and gets outsmarted by the fish he means to catch; Donald messes with Pluto and gets himself swept away in a kite versus waterfall debacle; Mickey saves the day and Goofy does more dumb stuff, but funny dumb stuff because it involves Donald getting smacked in the butt with a baseball bat. Stellar.

Rating: This was cute at first but went downhill fast. So much of early animation focused on physical comedy (which is done great with Mickey and Minnie's scenes) and cruelty (Donald is not a nice duck). The cruelty is pretty minor, just pretending to be a cat and laughing when Pluto repeatedly falls on the ice but I know my children would have likely felt sad for the dog and confused at all the meanness. I remember watching an animated version of the three little kittens who lost their mittens back when I was maybe five or six and feeling very sad about the bullying (the three rich kittens would not allow a poor kitten to play with them because he had no mittens); this felt a lot like that and I didn't like it. Mickey needed to step in and tell Donald to back off his dog. What a jerk.

Elmer Elephant, 1936, rated G, 8 minutes. Elmer is a sweet, shy, waddling young elephant attending Tillie the Tiger's birthday party with a collection of jungle friends. He gives Tillie a bouquet of flowers, which she enjoys, and is soon bullied by the other party goers, presumably because Tillie likes him best. They decide to focus on his trunk and assemble in a petty little parade which imitates Elmer's anatomy and distinct way of walking. Insecure, much? What a bunch of dicks. Elmer storms out of the party but is consoled by a friendly elderly giraffe and a squadron of pelicans. When Tillie's tree house catches on fire, Elmer's new friends assist him in putting out the fire, which in a "all's well that ends well," conclusion, wins Tillie's love and affection. The other animals apparently peace out because they're useless and bitter jackasses.

Rating: This was probably my favorite of the five; there are strong precursors to Dumbo, which deals pretty extensively with bullying as well. The ringleader of the rudeness was really just an animal version of the kid in the circus crowd who would eventually go on to imitate Dumbo's ears, but in Dumbo that kid got a nice retaliatory beat-down from Mrs. Jumbo in response. These little brats just . . . I don't know, had to go home or something. Boo.

Sea Scouts, 1939, rated PG, 8 minutes. Donald Duck takes his nephews on an attempted sailing expedition; he's a terrible sailor, is obsessed with his Napoleon hat, consistently puts the young ducks in harm's way, and battles a shark (which he punches out in the end) over the hat.

Rating: I get that Donald is supposed to be this overreacting sort of scoundrel that exemplifies the physical comedy in these animated pieces, but there's nothing endearing about him (other than being a dick, that is). He uses a few comical phrases and big words to condescend to his nephews, and he's in and out of peril throughout the story, but overall it's all pretty mean-spirited and negative. I guess that's what people found funny back then. It's different than say, the interactions between Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner or Tom and Jerry because those stories are about creatures who are natural opposites on the food chain and in nature. Donald Duck is just shitty. Shitty to his nephews, shitty to other animals, shitty to the core. I don't often want to harm animated characters but I'd like to punt him.

Donald's Dog Laundry, 1940, rated G, 8 minutes. Donald Duck tries to entice an innocent, unsuspecting Pluto into a dog-washing contraption. Things don't go according to plan.

Rating: See above. Also I was reminded very strongly of people or children in real life who insist on doing things to pets that are clearly unwanted. Stop doing this and leave them alone.

30 second reviews?

Ebert does one-minute reviews; I have quite a few more familial commitments so I'm doing 30 second ones. Yes, I know you all shot me these recommendations back IN JANUARY.

The Lion King: Good voice talent (James Earl Jones and Jeremy Irons) but music is pretty weak. I do bawl every time Simba takes back the kingdom, though. My kids loved it.



Troll Hunter: This is the experience I had hoped to have at The Blair Witch Project (and obviously didn't). Otto Jespersen is one hell of a bad ass; you should seriously put this one on your list.



Forrest Gump: I'm kind of over this by now, but I'll always enjoy the military scenes and Jenny's changing hair and outfits. Sally Field severely annoys me in this, sorry, although I suppose her accent is better than most morons who attempt a southern. Give me Celeste Taubert in Soapdish over Mama Gump any day.

Music is cool.





Waitress: This was cute, I guess. Cute and I don't know, dorky. Pies were good, and Jeremy Sisto was extremely convincing as the jealous husband, but it all seemed much too sappy and chick-flicky for me. It felt like someone watched Bagdad Cafe (which is a good film) and made a bland, annoying rip off.


Rushmore: My first Wes Anderson experience; I found it clever but overlong even at only ninety-three minutes. Unfortunately our PS3 kept splitting the screen on the disk about every five minutes so my patience was thin already. My favorite parts were all Bill Murray, topping the list was his slapping the basketball out of the kid's hand as he walks through the park. Brilliant.




One last thing: I was in my last year at the U when this came out; say what you will about the film itself, it's still one of my favorite trailers, ever. Watching it makes me happy.

the circle of media.....

I saw The Little Mermaid after it had been released to video in 1990. A few of my friends rented it for one of our Friday night escapades and I was skeptical. Mostly we just sat around eating Cheetos paws or TMNT Crunch-a-bungas with lipton coconut iced teas in bottles (all of this is now extinct) watching The Naked Gun, every single time, so I was annoyed that the routine had to be messed with, especially for an animated Disney film. I didn't really allow Disney in my life until FINDING NEMO, so I was the sulky, complaining one when we got together to watch this. Of course, I ended up loving it, watching it over and over, and buying the soundtrack (ON TAPE), learning the words to every song and playing them on the piano nonstop. I would listen to the soundtrack when I got ready for school in the morning. WHAT A DORK.
This all came back to me last night as we received it as a netflix selection. My little guy (who is almost 3) sat next to me eating popcorn and was super into the eels (flotsom and jetsom?) and the butchering French chef. I had to stop and consider the fact that Christ, almost 20 years ago, I was watching this with my friends, and now I have kids who are seeing the things that I saw for the first time. My life is going very fast. It's funny how films and songs take on a new meaning when you start explaining what you were doing the first time you experienced them and remembering the little random things in your youth..!
On another related note, I had a different, more unpleasant Little Mermaid experience in the spring of 1998 when Disney released some commemorative VHS version of the film. I was working at the Kenwood Blockbuster Video where they allowed people to preorder the movie. Usually the new release shipments came in on Monday's delivery, but this shipment was huge, and came in the previous weekend. We normally had to prep the boxes, call the people who ordered them, etc., etc., so everything would be ready when they were officially released on Tuesday. One woman called to ask if the films were there. Some dude who was a little dim told her, "Oh yeah, we have them here, they're back in boxes, we just haven't taken them out and prepped them yet." and said for her to come on down. It happened to be POURING rain that day, and this blond haired, sopped woman comes bouncing in with her huge umbrella, ready to pick up her copy earlier than anyone else. The manager, unaware that the other guy had told anyone this had to sit there and try to explain why she couldn't have it and how the dude misinformed her blah, blah, blah. The woman sat there and just yelled her head off, bitching about how she walked up there in the rain, told her daughter she would have it tonight, would have to go home and explain this all to a six-year-old, how she was letting her down, it went on and on. The manager was finally just standing there at a complete loss as to what to say or do next so she just said, "ma'am, I'm really sorry," And the woman just snarled and said, "YOU SHOULD BE." and spun around on her heel and stalked out into the rain again.
The next day she came back in and I gave her $10 in goodwill rental credits and she was my best friend for life.