is off. Oh, also: the main reason it's been so long since the last Watchin' Disney is because I owe the library some late fees and was trying to figure out a way to rent this DVD for free without paying it. The solution: just not pay the late fees! They didn't ask about it, and what am I going to do, offer?Previous relationship with movie: I think a preview for it was on one of the old Disney Singalong VHS tapes I used to have.
So I watched it: First of all, the censorship NAZIS at Di$ney have done it again, and the first segment of this movie is removed from the version of the DVD that I saw. It was called The Martians and the Coys and was removed due to gun violence and I guess Leonard Maltin was too busy to come record a disclaimer so they had no choice but to delete it. It's unfortunate because it causes this movie to start out with a deathly boring sequence called Blue Bayou, which is about storks flying around. A stork flies around, meets another stork, and they fly around together as actual lullaby music plays. It's the most boring possible thing. I was afraid the whole movie was going to be like this, and I was sure I would die watching it. I honestly stopped the movie after this for 40 minutes and then came back, I couldn't possibly take it.
But then, let me tell you, THEN this movie hits a home run with a sequence called All the Cats Join In. I knew I was in for a treat when the subtitle says "a caricature" WITH CAT HIGHLIGHTED. Almost unimaginably, the whole sequence goes by without one cat, AND IT STILL RULES. It's a fun, breezy animated sequence set to jazz music about teenagers in the '40s doing things like riding convertibles, going to a malt shoppe, and having a sock hop. Holy cow, I love this sequence. It's fun, funny, stylish, cartoony and legitimately hip even by today's standards. All throughout the sequence there are pencils drawing the action as it happens, such as a part where A PENCIL DRAWS A GIRL WITH A BIG ASS AND A BOY WON'T DANCE WITH HER. THE GIRL GETS MAD, AND THE PENCIL ERASES THE ASS. I was laughing too hard to call the boy a fool. An A+ sequence, 10/10, look it up on youtube (yeah right!). Even if that sequence was the only thing I liked about this movie Make Mine Music would still be worth watching.
Which is fortunate, because it pretty much is. Well that's not fair, nothing in this movie is particularly bad, it's just that most of it was very obviously made as a stand-alone short and not as a segment of an anthology movie. Such as the sequence Casey at the Bat, which is probably the most famous segment of this movie (I mean at least, I've heard of it) is more dialogue-driven than music-driven. Also, Casey at the Bat has shockingly bad pitching and bat-swinging animation. Not terrible or anything but much worse than you'd expect from Disney. Even Mike Judge was able to make more lifelike baseball animation back when he had three dollars and a frog to his name. Also there's the Peter and the Wolf segment, which is not terribly interesting, but is the screenshot for this article. How do you like it?
Oh yeah, another thing I kind of want to bring up, this movie has no framing device between segments at all. The title cards are in the same font and that's it. Totally amateur, Disney.
Best part of the movie: In the teenager sequence I loved so much, when the older sister is getting ready for the night of teenage debauchery and she takes a shower. That's my favorite part that can possibly be in a movie, btw.
Up next: Fun and Fancy Free. Mickey Mouse is on the DVD cover so let's hope for the best.
