Spot-On Disney Fun: “One Hundred and One Dalmatians”

Disney’s Seventeenth Animated Feature – 1961
This movie is a treat, tip to tail. Beginning with the jazzy, modern-art inspired opening credits, you’ll realize you’re in for something special. This little movie-before-the-movie features dancing dalmation spots that hop onto a musical stave and animator’s sketches that spring to life. Work-in-progress sketches of dalmations run in a row, reminiscent of Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies of horses. And One Hundred and One Dalmatians makes any number of references to famous films, just as it has inspired many imitators. Even future Disney features (I’m looking at you, Aristocats) will try to recapture its magic. Any why shouldn’t they? This is one of those rare films that succeeds on every level: story, characterizations, animation, pacing, and message.

Beautiful Dreamer: Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty”

Disney’s Sixteenth Animated Feature — 1959
Sleeping Beauty, or rather Princess Aurora (or maybe you know her as Briar Rose) has been given new life as one of the Disney Princesses (trademark symbol most definitely here). She’s the princess with long blonde hair and pink dress. My daughter has a Disney Princess snow shovel with her picture on it. That’s one broad product line. Why three names? The character is born and named Princess Aurora in the Disney film, based on a 17th century story La Belle au bois dormant, (The beauty asleep in the wood) by Charles Perrault, later interpreted as Little Briar Rose by the brothers Grimm. Disney uses “Briar Rose” as her alias when she goes into protective hiding as a peasant girl.

Putting On the Dog: Disney’s “Lady and the Tramp”

Disney’s Fifteenth Animated Feature — 1955
The opening theme music to Lady and the Tramp is a full-blooded love song, “Bella Notte.” This love story happens to star dogs in all their simple and joyous honesty. As Josh Billings wrote (quoted at the top of the film), “In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money can not buy … to wit—the wag of a dog’s tail.” To wit and to woo, as upper crusty cocker spaniel Lady is memorably wooed by the Tramp, a mongrel literally from the wrong side of the tracks. We meet him as he wakes up in a refuse heap at a train yard. The story is set in an earlier, quainter era. The opening moments of Lady and the Tramp show a horse-drawn sleigh similar to the “Once Upon A Wintertime” sequence in 1948’s Melody Time.

Curiously Brilliant: Disney’s “Alice In Wonderland”

Disney’s Thirteenth Animated Feature - 1951
Disney’s Alice in Wonderland doesn’t open in the classic Disney fashion, showing the opening of an animated storybook; which is ironic, since Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland is arguably the best source material Disney had worked with to date. Carroll’s fantastical novel with its magical transformations and talking animals begs to be animated. In fact, Disney made his name as an animator in 1923 with a silent, black and white Alice In Wonderland in an animation where he combined footage of a child actor as Alice cavorting in a fanciful, animated world.

Night and Day It’s “Cinderella”

Disney’s Twelfth Animated Feature – 1950
The 1950s were a magical decade for Disney. The studio produced a slate of memorable, winning films including Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp, book-ended by two iconic princesses: Cinderella in 1950 and Sleeping Beauty in 1959. Some decades you can do no wrong.

My Funny Valentine: Disney’s “Fun and Fancy Free”

Disney’s Ninth Animated Feature – 1947
Fun and Fancy Free  is another post-war package film, made up of two short narrative films—Bongo and Mickey and the Beanstalk—that were originally planned as separate feature films. Bongo, based on an original short story by Sinclair Lewis (of all people) follows a circus bear who wants to live free in the wild. Mickey and the Beanstalk is (big surprise) based on Jack and the Beanstalk, and stars Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy as peasants who discover temperamental Willie the Giant’s castle in the sky through the use of some magic beans. This Mickey represents the last time Walt Disney would voice the character. He was getting a little busy, what with being Walt Disney and all.

All You Cats Join In and “Make Mine Music”

Disney’s Eighth Animated Feature – 1946
Make Mine Music was Disney’s fourth “package” film, a feature-length film made up of a series of shorts. World War II had just come to an end, but during the war, much of Disney’s staff had been drafted or called upon by the U.S. government to make training and propaganda films. It was difficult for Disney to get anything in the pipeline except short films. And these reasonably popular package films were also a way for Disney to experiment with new techniques and talent.

Three’s A Charmer: Disney’s “The Three Caballeros”

Disney’s Seventh Animated Feature – 1944
Having seen The Three Caballeros as a child, a college student, and a fully-grown adult, I can confirm that it has more layers than you may think it does. For the kids, it’s got simple, silly visual humor and music that will get their little feet moving; for adolescents, it’s just weird enough to get them texting “LOL” and “WTF” to their friends on the other side of the room. Now that I’m a grownup (and an artist/educator to boot), I see that the folks at Disney managed to make a mostly respectful, informative celebration of Latin American culture that’s a lot more engaging than that description makes it out to be.

Disney’s “Fantasia” Encourages Your Imagination to Soar

Disney's Third Animated Feature - 1940
Back in June, when we ran Regina Robbins’s essay on Disney’s Dumbo, I included a short sidebar on 1940’s Fantasia. In retrospect, I believe I gave this film short shrift. It’s easy to dismiss this film, since Walt Disney himself all but offered a public apology for this box-office bomb. At the time, he commented, “We all make mistakes. Fantasia was one but it was an honest mistake.” I would never describe this as a mistake. It was created as a showcase for the talented, innovative Disney animators, allowing them to push their artistic and technical skills to the limit, mostly unfettered by the demands of story. And that’s a big risk, because without story, it’s a lot more difficult to engage an audience. After all, stories are the way we make sense of the world, and without characters to care about and stories to follow, Fantasia does drift, even flounder at times. On the plus side, this film is at times entrancing, at all times risky, and pushed film animation to new heights of excellence. I think Fantasia can—in the era of the dvd player—fulfill its original promise: to encourage an appreciation of classical music in children. The sequences that went “right” in Fantasia are superb; and the parts that went “wrong” are what your “fast forward” and “skip” buttons are for.

A Disney Halloween Treat: “Ichabod and Mr. Toad”

Disney's Eleventh Animated Feature - 1949
We’ve made a point of covering the classic Disney features in the order of their production, but in honor of Halloween, we’re allowing Disney’s 1949 feature, Ichabod and Mr. Toad to jump the line. Ichabod and Mr. Toad is the last of a series of “package films” that combined shorts until the 1970’s. Ichabod and Mr. Toad would make a terrific choice for a children’s Halloween party, even for under-fives, as the Ichabod story is scary but not too; ultimately, it’s funnier than it is frightening. And Mr. Toad is a hilarious and adventurous tale that incorporates Christmas, but transcends season and speaks to all of us, all year ’round.

Released in 1949, Disney chose two huge (and hugely different) stars to narrate the stories. Bing Crosby relates the American tale of Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Basil Rathbone narrates the English story of Mr. Toad from Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows.

Introduced as the most fabulous character in all of English literature (not overselling it, are we, Basil?), Mr. Toad is a replete, fun-loving, speed demon who merrily races around the country side in a canary yellow cart pulled by his friend, Cyril the horse. (So THAT’S what they mean by “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.”) Mr. Toad is everybody’s favorite wild child, full of mirth and as irresponsible as the day is long. His destructive hi-jinks have put at risk his stately mansion, Toad Hall, the showplace of the shire. His friends Rattie and Molie commiserate with the responsible MacBadger who tries to pull Mr. Toad back from the brink of financial disaster. Before Mr. Toad can seriously consider reforming, he is tantalized by the latest invention: the speedy motorcar. He won’t rest until he can possess one.

Mr. Toad finds himself in serious legal trouble when he’s accused in court of trying to sell a stolen car and winds up in jail. His pals help him escape and clear his name, and he goes after his accusers who have stolen Toad Hall out from under him. You’ll enjoy the scenes with the unscrupulous Weasel Gang whose characters were later borrowed by the creators of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Cinephiles will appreciate the funny stunt where four weasels simultaneously club each other, a moment that eventually found its way into the work of John Woo and Quentin Tarrantino. Suffice to say, all turns out well for Mr. Toad, but the new, reformed Toad doesn’t stay static for long. But we really didn’t want him to reform, did we?

Bing Crosby then takes over the narration, speaking up for “the colonies.” Ichabod Crane was a lanky, eagle-beaked, itinerate schoolteacher who finds his way to the town of Sleepy Hollow, New York, seeking more than just a job teaching school. He’s manipulative and ambitious in his way, and wouldn’t mind making a comfortable marriage for himself. Bing Crosby also lends his voice to Ichabod, so when Ichabod sings, the ladies of Sleepy Hollow swoon like 1940’s bobby-soxers. Ichabod didn’t figure on falling head-over-heels for the flirtatious Katrina Von Tassel, who just happens to be the daughter of the wealthiest man in town. Local he-man Brom Bones considers Katrina to be his claimed territory, but Ichabod gives Brom a run for his money. It’s made fairly obvious that Katrina enjoys playing one man off another, and is most likely using Ichabod to make Brom jealous. And it works. If I were to fault this tale, it would be that none of the lead characters—Ichabod, Katrina, or Brom—is particularly likable, but they are faithful to the satirical, stinging prose of Washington Irving who deflates every stuffed-shirt in Sleepy Hollow.

Fed up with Ichabod, Brom Bones (also voiced by Crosby) sings the frightening tale of the Headless Horseman at the Van Tassel Halloween ball. Ichabod has a harrowing ride home, imagining the Horseman around every bend, eventually sharing a laugh with his horse at his own silliness. And then, the Headless Horseman appears, flaming Jack-O-Lantern in hand! The Horseman chases Ichabod to the safety of a covered bridge, where he tosses his “severed” head at him. As in the Irving story, it’s left a mystery as to whether Ichabod safely fled or was “spirited away” by the Horseman; though Disney heavily weighs it toward the former, showing Ichabod with a plump wife and a table-full of eagle-beaked children. And any idea that Katrina was left broken-hearted is dispelled when we see her enthusiastically kiss Brom Bones on their wedding day.

All told, Ichabod and Mr. Toad is a fun, lively, sometimes scary feature that’s just right for kids but will appeal to parents as well. I personally prefer Mr. Toad to Ichabod, as the attempts to freshen up the Ichabod story with pop references—like the girls who swoon at Ichabod/Bing’s singing—actually make the piece seem a bit dated. And I could do without an unnecessary scene at the Halloween ball where Brom tries to trick Ichabod into swapping his dance partner Katrina for a short, overweight gal, but chalk it up to 1940’s sexism. I’d describe Mr. Toad as the more timeless, universal piece. But both are delightful, perfect for the transition from Halloween to the winter holiday season. You can see Ichabod and Mr. Toad in its entirety (in chapters) on YouTube.

Have you seen Ichabod and Mr. Toad? Share your thoughts here.

Why Can’t We Be Friends? Disney’s “Saludos Amigos”

Disney's Sixth Animated Feature - 1942
The year was 1941, before our entry into WWII, and the Department of State commissioned a goodwill tour of South America for Walt Disney and his creative team. Already popular in Latin America, Disney seemed a good choice to counteract the Nazi ties forming with several Latin American governments.

The resulting film was 1942s Saludos Amigos, or Hello, Friends. It was the first Disney “package film” made up of a series of shorts. The film includes documentary footage of modern Latin American cities with skyscrapers and fashionably dressed residents that contributed to a changing impression of Latin America. Film historian Alfred Charles Richard, Jr. commented that Saludos Amigos “did more to cement a community of interest between peoples of the Americas in a few months than the State Department had in fifty years.” We also get to see Walt Disney himself, cigarette in hand, con-fabbing with Latin American artists. You’d never suspect that back in the U.S., Disney was struggling with labor unrest, including a strike that was underway at the time the goodwill journey began.

A voiceover narration attempts to illuminate the Disney team’s creative process from inspiration to sketch to finished animated product. All but one of the shorts features the immensely popular characters Donald Duck or Goofy. Donald visits Lake Titicaca and meets some locals, including a small boy who controls his llama with his flute. This inspires the requisite jitterbug and pop culture jokes. Likewise, the sequence where cowboy Goofy is transformed into an Argentinean gaucho is peppered with jokes that had whiskers on them in 1943.

In the short Pedro, a tiny “little boy” airplane from Chile makes a hazardous mail run because his “parents” are incapacitated. The film has little to do with Latin culture and the Chilean backdrop seems grafted onto the story. Annoyed at this, cartoonist René Ríos Boettiger (Pepo) was inspired to start one of the most famous Latin American comic magazines, Condorito, in part because of his disappointment with Pedro as the image that the outside world had of Chile.

The film does feature some wonderful music, including the song “Aquarela do Brasil,” written by Ary Barroso and performed by Aloysio De Oliveira and an instrumental version of “Tico-Tico no Fubá,” written by Zequinha de Abreu. “Aquarela do Brasil” did not achieve much success when it was released in 1939, but after appearing in this film, it became an international hit. It was the first Brazilian song to be played over a million times on American radio.

The film introduced the animated parrot Joe Carioca voiced by José Oliveria (Zezinho). He star-trips Donald Duck and promises to show him “the land of the samba” in what is the best segment of the film. Donald drinks and gets a little tipsy. The artist dips his brush in the liquor and paints musicians and instruments in appropriately hot colors as Donald dances. Flamingoes dance and orchids sing back-up as a bunch of bananas morphs into a bunch of toucan beaks. What the Disney team attempted to do for classical music in Fantasia, they succeeded in doing for Brazilian music in Saludos Amigos, and the modern music video was born.

Joe Carioca was popular enough to come back (with his pal Donald) in the film, The Three Caballeros, which we will examine here soon. Ultimately, Saludos Amigos is outdated as travelogue and not terribly scintillating as animation. We see the artists’ inspirations and their sketches, but it all seems a bit self-congratulatory for what is ultimately the least compelling Disney feature to date. A more complicated and involving narrative could have been a better route to creating a film worth seeing year in, year out. There simply wasn’t an engaging story here, and the product suffers for it. But oh, that music.

It’s “Bambi” Versus Time. And “Bambi” Wins!

Disney's Fifth Animated Feature - 1942
Short and sweet, Walt Disney’s 1942 animated feature Bambi is a magnificent film, well worth your time, energy, and dollar.

But nothing this good is simple. Even if you’re never seen Bambi you probably know what happens to Bambi’s mother. That’s how potent and memorable this film is. Bambi is hands down one of the best if not THE best Disney animated feature. But is your child old enough for Bambi? Answer me this: does your child know that all living things die—including animals and humans? If so, they’re old enough for Bambi. You don’t need me to tell you that your child should not find out that living things die in a movie, any movie.

Having said that, Bambi does touch upon important life lessons that relate to growing up, as the film follows the character of the fawn Bambi from birth through adolescence to first love and completes the cycle with the birth of his own offspring. What’s interesting here is that aside from the expected animated conventions that place this story in the world of talking animals—a peaceable kingdom where an owl is a friend to a rodent, not a predator—the story makes an effort to obey the rules of nature in the life of deer. Young Bambi is raised by his mother with his father a distant presence in the forest and in his life. I like the way Bambi’s father is called “great prince” because he earned the right by wisely managing to live longer than any other deer in the forest. He isn’t born into royalty; he’s earned his title. And I like the way Bambi’s mother raises him alone, a lovely depiction of an unconventional family (though not unconventional for deer).

This peaceable kingdom is not without its dangers, and the greatest threat to the deer of the forest is—you guessed it—man. Bambi’s mother makes the threat plain to her young son, and it easily translates for any child to their own lives and the dangers of crossing a street or speaking to strangers. The message is clear: listen to your parents; they can help keep you out of harm’s way. The threat here is not mystical or magical; they’re not going to be kidnapped and turned into donkeys, as in Pinocchio. The threat here is a real, live hunter/predator who demands attention. As I mentioned earlier in this piece, Bambi’s mother is shot and killed by a hunter. We only hear a gun shot. And we never see any humans in this film, but we see evidence of their destruction, not only in hunted animals but in a carelessly abandoned campfire that leads to a forest fire.

Speaking of the forest fire, Bambi contains sequences such as the fire, an April shower, and Bambi’s first visit to a meadow that are Fantasia-worthy stunners. The film is slower-paced than today’s cinema and the music sounds corny and a bit dated, but the slower pace allows viewers to really savor all the clever and beautiful details the animation team created by hand. Respect.

Bambi’s pals, Thumper the rabbit and Flower the skunk are a jolly and supportive pair of pals, charmingly voiced by real children. We see Thumper and Flower grow up, too. As teens, the “lads” vow that they’ll never be interested in girls about two seconds before they’re all smitten. When Bambi reconnects with Faline, a gal he first met as a young fawn, it’s love at first sight. But as with real deer, Bambi must fight another young buck for the right to be with her.

No small thing, this is the first Disney feature that is absent of any ethnic stereotypes or overt racism, which makes it unique for 1942. You don’t have to make apologies for this film. This film is about life in all its shades of glory and sorrow. Like the four seasons—prominently featured in this film—there is a time for everything. And it may be time for you and your kids to enjoy Bambi.

Disney Goes To War
Also made in 1942, the Disney animated short, Der Fuhrer’s Face answered the call for anti-Nazi propaganda, and did it with humor and snap. It won the 1942 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film and rightly so. The film, which takes place in Donald Duck’s nightmare, was held back from general release for decades due to the Disney Corporation’s squeemishness at the sight of Donald Duck in a Nazi uniform. It’s now available on dvd, but can also be seen in its entirety on YouTube. Also on YouTube, Spike Jones and his City Slickers, famous for their parody songs, recorded the title song and can be seen here at a WWII bond drive, giving their own version of the Nazi salute.

The Flap Over Disney’s “Dumbo”

Disney's Fourth Animated Feature - 1941
When I was a little girl, my parents put up wallpaper in my room. It was decorated with characters from Disney films. As I think back on that wallpaper, the image of one character in particular jumps out at me: Dumbo. Actually, I should say it’s the image of two characters—the lovable baby elephant and his best buddy, Timothy the mouse. I have no memory of my first viewing of Dumbo, but I know that as an adult, I can only watch it every few years; it takes me a while to recover from the emotional strain.

I guess I’m not supposed to take the film so seriously, but let’s face it: Dumbo is insanely adorable. The central character of Disney’s fourth full-length cartoon is way cuter and more helpless than his predecessors in Snow White, Pinocchio, and Fantasia. Granted, those dwarves are charming, and like Dumbo, Pinocchio is an unhappy child (albeit a wooden one). But the talking puppet can, at least, talk. Poor Dumbo is not only mocked for his overlarge ears, he’s also mute, so he can’t even speak up for himself. His emotions are expressed entirely through his body language, his facial expressions, and the large tears that flow down his face in several scenes.

I myself am reduced to tears at least twice during Dumbo: once when the unlucky protagonist is cast in a humiliating role in a clown act, then again when he goes to visit his mother, who has been locked up for “attacking” (spanking) a naughty boy who is tormenting her baby. The “Baby Mine” sequence (so called because of the lullaby that plays as Mrs. Jumbo caresses and rocks Dumbo with her trunk through the bars of her cell) is probably the scene folks remember most fondly from the film. Another highlight is, of course, “Pink Elephants on Parade,” a four-minute explosion of weirdness depicting the hallucinations Timothy and Dumbo experience after accidentally drinking water spiked with champagne. This scene may be evidence of widespread pot smoking among Disney’s animators, as are several parts of The Three Caballeros.

Then there’s “When I See An Elephant Fly,” the song performed by a chorus of crows as Timothy attempts to teach Dumbo to use his large, wing-like ears to soar above the petty world that pulls him down. I remember being taken aback when a high school teacher I admired told me she would never allow her daughter to watch Dumbo because of the way in which this scene perpetuates racist stereotypes. This woman was, like my mother, a black woman born in the 1940s; indeed, she and my mom are the same age. Yet it had never occurred to my parents to shield me from Dumbo; I don’t think they ever even noticed the elements that caused my teacher (and others) such offense—or, if they did, they didn’t think that I would notice them … and they were right.

When my mother was growing up, she watched The Amos n’ Andy Show on TV and found it hilarious. Unlike the original radio program, the television version actually used African-American actors, but this didn’t keep the NAACP from protesting it constantly until its cancellation. My mom—just a little girl at the time—saw the characters as hapless everymen getting into funny situations (like, say, Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton), not as representations of an entire racial group. White people may have seen them that way, but that wasn’t her problem. One can say, well, she didn’t know any better … but who, exactly, was more ignorant in this scenario?

Dumbo’s crows are clearly modeled on a certain type of African-American character familiar to movie audiences: all but one are voiced by black actors, and that one, the leader, is called “Jim Crow” in the script (though, thankfully, not in the dialogue. By the way, he’s played by the same guy who voices Jiminy Cricket. Wrap your mind around that one). I can’t say what kids of the 1940s would have thought about them, but I’ll wager that kids of the 2010’s have no idea that these birds are supposed to be analogous to any particular ethnic group. It is obvious that they are unsophisticated, speaking in country accents with lowbrow grammar—but then, so is Timothy, except that his accent is Brooklyn, not Alabama. Where’s the chorus of complaints about the stereotyping of fast-talking city slickers? I’m not arguing that the Disney Company wasn’t racist in 1941 (let’s be honest: everyone was racist in 1941), but that it’s okay to enjoy things that are otherwise pleasurable even if they have some potentially offensive content. For heaven’s sake, people still produce The Merchant of Venice, don’t they? And hey, the crows may be raucous and unrefined, but compared to Dumbo’s snooty fellow elephants, who shun him, the birds are all right.

There are a lot of reasons Dumbo could have failed to achieve the classic status it currently enjoys. The studio was reeling from the financial disappointment of Fantasia, so Dumbo was made on the “short and simple” plan, clocking in just over one hour. Disney’s animators went out on strike in the middle of production, and World War II was looming over the as-yet uninvolved United States. But the silent baby pachyderm with the sail-like ears ultimately achieved what Pinocchio and Fantasia could not—turning a box-office profit. The passage of time has redeemed those other movies, while Dumbo’s mid-20th-century ethos now has to contend with early 21st-century values. It may not pass with (ahem) flying colors, but, all things considered, the young and young-at-heart should be tickled as pink as those parading elephants.

Regina Robbins is a theater and film artist. She has worked with several New York City stage companies, including Manhattan Theatre Source, the Looking Glass Theatre, UTC #61, and the Directors Company, and her films have been screened at venues in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Chicago, Asheville, and NYC. She also teaches kids how to write and perform, and is a four-time champion on the game show Jeopardy!

Disney’s “Pinocchio”? Proceed With Caution

Disney's Second Animated Feature - 1940
I’ve shared my thoughts on Disney’s first animated feature, Snow White and found it still has a lot to say to today’s kids. In this installment, I look at Disney’s second feature, Pinocchio, released in 1940 and based on the 19th century Carlo Collodi tale of a marionette who becomes a real boy. I can sum up my reaction with a 19th century nursery rhyme: when it’s good, it’s very, very good. When it’s bad, it’s awful. This is not for young children, at least unsupervised. By today’s standards, I’d give Pinocchio a rating of PG-13 at least.

Why this stern warning? It's because there are segments in this film so scalding and dark, they’re disturbing even to an adult audience. And there is no kid-friendly, understandable context for characters’ evil actions nor is there any justice or comeuppance for the wicked. Call me the one-woman Hayes Commission of children’s film, but it’s no wonder to me that this movie failed to find an audience in its day, even though it was released on the heels of the mega-hit Snow White. To its credit, Pinocchio is at times adorably wholesome with its charming, child-voiced main character, Pinocchio and its crowd-pleasing cricket, Jiminy. It features several wonderful and memorable songs, like “Give a Little Whistle,” “An Actors Life For Me,” and “I’ve Got No Strings.” And it features the most famous Disney song of all, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” that has become the Disney corporation’s theme song. Its animation is particularly stunning, especially the under water sequence when Pinocchio battles the whale Monstro to bravely save his father, Gepetto.

Where did this story go wrong? Italian satirist Carlo Collodi’s original story of Pinocchio was a slapstick tale, heavy on the slapping. The moment Collodi’s child-hating Gepetto finishes carving Pinocchio’s feet, the puppet starts to kick him, an ironic statement on the “joys” of parenting. The original character of Pinocchio was an obnoxious wild child who played many thoughtless, nasty pranks and was punished harshly in return. It’s a perversely comic 19th century time capsule reflecting a world where children (and adults) were often unfairly and savagely punished for misdemeanors and felonies alike. Compare this to Snow White, whose script took great pains to show how twisted and wrong the Evil Queen’s choices were, the Queen eventually paying the ultimate price for her wrong doing. There certainly is drama in Collodi’s source material, but when Disney’s Pinocchio team created a main character too similar to Collodi’s tough, willful wooden boy, Walt Disney himself had them revamp him into a sweeter, more innocent Pinocchio, which is probably where everything started to go wrong. This soft kid can’t fend for himself like Collodi’s wise-guy. The audience naturally feels protective of this softer, more vulnerable Disney Pinocchio and rightly so.

In Disney’s Pinocchio, a con-artist fox, J. Worthington Foulfellow, has only a chance at meager profit as his reason to betray and sell Pinocchio to puppet show impresario Stromboli, a rather chilling character motivation. And the smarmy way he tricks the hapless boy is just this side of sick-making. When sweet, innocent little Pinocchio is led away by the Fox, it reads like a modern toddler abduction. In contrast, the Wicked (would-be murderous) Queen in Snow White makes her jealousy and evil intentions clear, but the Fox, Stromboli, and an evil Coachman are malevolent for reasons that are never made clear, except for a suggestion that they’re “in it for the money.” Yet they behave more like characters who enjoy being evil for its own sake. These scenes are good illustrations of why children should NEVER talk to strangers, but there’s got to be a better way to teach that lesson.

And don’t get me started on the perverse sequence of the “bad boys” on Pleasure Island or as I see it, Entrapment Island. They’re spirited away by an evil Coachman (with the help of the Fox again) and actively encouraged, even enabled into misbehaving. They are then punished for their misdeeds by being morphed into donkeys as their pathetic, frightened cries for “mother” disappear into brays. Then they’re stripped of their clothing and tossed into crates marked with signs suggesting faraway destinations like “sold to salt mine.” As the boys’ crimes were smoking, drinking, and playing billiards, the sarcastic message seems to be, “You REALLY have to wait until you’re twenty-one to do these things or—trust me—you won’t like the consequences.” But in truth, it again feels more like every parent and child’s worst nightmare of abduction and permanent disappearance, the boys literally silenced as they weep for mother and plead for mercy. Once more, the context and circumstances of the abuse are allegorical, deeply cynical, and not easily understood by a child. Even an adult could find these scenes haunting. And the appearance of the Blue Fairy with the power of life and death neither honors nor negates religious belief; it merely confuses the issue. Simply put, a child should not approach this material alone.

There are some wonderful sequences in this film, too. And the animation is nothing less than stunning. The Disney creative team took the techniques they pioneered during Snow White and pushed them even farther to create a visual masterpiece in Pinocchio. But when I find myself using the word “perverse” to describe a cartoon, I suppose what I’m really saying is what I said up front: proceed with caution. Adults and older kids will find an ambitious, sometimes sweet but often dark piece of animation. If you’re okay with that, you’ll find a visual and emotional stunner in Pinocchio. But parents should see to it that younger kids give this a pass.

“Snow White”—Disney’s First Feminist?

Disney's First Animated Feature - 1937
Does Disney’s Snow White hold its own among today’s “girl power” films? It seems unfair to expect a film made in 1937 to communicate modern, empowered themes, but Snow White actually delivers timeless and positive messages to today’s girls.