Cartoon a Day: Ferdinand the Bull

Ferdinand the Bull
1938
Directed by Dick Rickard (uncredited)
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Disney Rarities

After a long day at the puppet festival in Lancaster, PA yesterday, I had to head back to Philadelphia and ended up at a hotel with no internet connection. So, I was unable to blog about yesterday's entry in bullfight week, "Ferdinand the Bull."



This is a much different short than the others we've looked at so far this week. Though it has it's funny moments, this is not really a comedy. This is a children's story brought to the screen by the Disney artists. There aren't many gags, but it is a beautifully animated short.



Ferdinand is a bull who has no interest in heading off to the bullfights like the other bulls. He'd rather sit and smell the flowers under a cork tree. But he ends up being taken of to the bullfights when his behavior after being stung by a bee convinces some men that he is really ferocious. Ferdinand ends up causing a lot of frustration for a matador when he would rather smell the flowers than fight.

The design of the human characters is one of the really great elements of this short. They don't seem to fit into any one mold. Some are very exaggerated and comical, while others are quite realistic and beautiful (especially the young ladies who toss flowers to the matador). This short does kind of fit into the "cutesy" category that is often associated with Disney, but still, this is really well drawn. It's interesting to note that this is only 1938...only about 10 to 15 years removed from Disney's Alice shorts. It's amazing to see how much the animation advanced in such a short period of time.

Cartoon a Day: The Winged Scourge

The Winged Scourge
1943
Directed by Walt Disney & Bill Roberts (both uncredited)
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - On the Front Lines

I originally said that this whole "Cartoon a Day" mission was to bring a little more laughter into my life. So including a short like "The Winged Scourge" doesn't really seem to fit. This film was one of many educational shorts produced by Disney during World War II. It's about how mosquitoes spread malaria, kind of gross. But it's not just the humor of cartoons that makes me smile, it's the enjoyment of the art, so that means occasionally we'll look at a film that's not a comedy.

"The Winged Scourge" starts off with a look at how mosquitoes spread disease and the ruin this causes the folks who can no longer work to support their families when they get sick. There is actually little animation in this segment, but there is some pretty impressive art. The paintings of a destroyed farm are pretty graphic.

Things lighten up a bit in the second half of the film as the seven dwarfs demonstrate different things you can do to stop mosquitoes from multiplying and to help safe guard your home. Some scenes are somewhat cringe worthy as we see the dwarfs spraying chemicals all around the forest and even pouring oil over the pond to kill the mosquito larva. The animation of the dwarfs is excellent, though, on the same level as they appeared in "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." That's the beautiful thing about Disney in those days, there was no difference in the quality between features and shorts. Not like the difference we see between feature animation and television today.

"The Winged Scourge" deals with some pretty unpleasant subject matter, but it's nice to see the dwarfs back in action. They really were well designed characters that had such a wide range of movement and expression.

Cartoon a Day: Runaway Brain

Runaway Brain
1995
Directed by Chris Bailey
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Mickey Mouse in Living Color Vol. 2


For a long time I've wished that studios would start showing cartoons before the features again. It just helps complete the whole moving going experience to me. Every now and then Disney will create a new animated short that runs with one of their features. "Runaway Brain" was a new Mickey Mouse short with "A Kid in King Arthur's Court" in 1995, but I first saw it during it's re-release along with "George of the Jungle" two years later.


This is unlike any other Mickey short you will see. It's essentially a horror movie parody in which Mickey's brain is swapped with that of a giant Frankenstein's Monster type version of Peg-Leg Pete. The doctor doing the experiments is one Dr. Frankenollie, named in tribute to Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. One quick shot even parodies the famous poster image from "The Exorcist."

The pacing is quick and the characters are animated in a stretchy style similar to that used in the successful Roger Rabbit shorts the studio released between 1989 and 1993.

Check out the unique shape and posture of Dr. Frankenollie in the above screen capture. This style can be seen throughout "Runaway Brain" and it gives the movements of the characters some extra visual punch.


Some might be taken aback by the sight of sweet lovable Mickey Mouse as a snarling monster, but the film is still very funny. There is a lot of attention paid to humor that works on many levels. There are plenty of inside jokes, such as a photo of Mickey from the "Steamboat Willie" days in his wallet, and Mickey whistling the same tune he whistles in that classic film. Mickey playing a "Mortal Kombat" style video game in which Dopey and the old hag from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" battle it out is also a great gag.

Mickey purists may not go for this one, but I enjoyed it. So hear this Disney...more animated shorts please!

Cartoon a Day: Pigs is Pigs

Pigs is Pigs
1954
Directed by Jack Kinney
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Disney Rarities

Well, the last few days we've been doing shorts that don't feature an animation studio's regular characters, so we might as well keep it up with this entry from Disney.


The 50's was an interesting time for Disney animation. There was a lot of innovation going on in the shorts this time. "Pigs is Pigs" has a very unique style. The character design is somewhat geometric in nature. This style is used in other Disney shorts of the time, including one of my favorites "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom" (we'll cover that one in the future). You can look at the characters and see the basic shapes used to created them. The guinea pigs are pretty much just pink beans with faces. This general style has influenced me personally in the way that I design many of the shadow puppets that I have made for some of my programs. The backgrounds and color scheme also really set this cartoon a part.

The film is based on a short story by Ellis Parker Butler. Told in rhyme, it concerns a railway agent who receives a shipment of guinea pigs and is confused by whether to charge the pet rate or the livestock rate (because they're pigs). While the paperwork trying to find out a answer circulates around the corporate offices, the "pigs" multiply and soon overrun the station. It's quite possible that this basic story served as some inspiration for the famous "Star Trek" episode "The Trouble with Tribbles." One has to wonder if there wasn't a bit of commentary going on about the sheer size the Disney company itself had grown to by 1954 in this film as well.


This is a pretty funny short, but it's really the unique animation that makes this film worth a look. People often comment about the "Disney style," yet it's films like this that show he wasn't afraid to let his animators explore and expand their talents.

Cartoon a Day: Water Babies

Water Babies
1935
Directed by Wilfred Jackson
Available on: Walt Disney Treasures - Silly Symphonies


And the award for most bare butts in a Disney movie goes to...you guessed it, the 1935 Silly Symphony "Water Babies."

"Water Babies" is a beautiful color cartoon that still shows some hints of the repetitious, looped style of early animation. However, there are some real advances on display here too, especially in some of the designs used in the boat sequence.


Like many of the Silly Symphonies, this isn't laugh-out-loud funny. It's more cutesy, Anne Geddes has nothing on Walt. A few of the sequences get a little busy, but that doesn't detract from enjoying some beautiful animation.

Hidden Mickeys at Coronado Springs

Well, it was a wee bit depressing to be on the Disney property last week and not get to go to any of the Disney parks. But, I made the best of it by trying to spot some of the legendary "Hidden Mickeys" the are planted around the grounds. In the convention center at Coronado Springs, many hidden mickeys can be spotted in the light fixtures.

At the entrance to the main lobby of the resort you can find a hidden mickey on one of the large wooden doors. See if you can spot him in the wide shot below.

Now here's a close up.

Albino Thumper?

I used to think that 'Star Trek' fans were the most fanatical, but I've decided that the pointy-eared masses have nothing on Disney fans. I started to realize this after I bought my iPod. When I went to load my favorite Disney songs from my CD's, I experienced an example of how far Walt's faithful will go. You know that feature of iTunes where it recognizes your CD's and gives you all the track and artist names? Well, for the Disney CD's I got the name of every obscure Disney voice artist that sang on the songs listed in the artist column...thus giving them another notch in their belt after having been mentioned on a Trivial Pursuit card at some time. Then I encountered the massive number of Disney fan podcasts out there. Some of them are quite good (though it runs a bit long some weeks, I recommend "Inside the Magic"), and others are little more than someone posting an audio recording of their latest ride on Space Mountain.

These Disney fans know their stuff and no detail is too minute for them. Even when the recorded voice that tells you to "watch your step" when getting off the monorail EPCOT is changed...they know it. With all this in mind, I was really surprised the other night when my kids and I were working on a Disney puzzle. It was a picture of all the major Disney animated characters up through the early 70's. The date on the box was 1981, it had been passed down through my wife's family. What surprised me was the way some of the characters looked, they just didn't look quite like themselves.

This albino version of Thumper, for example, had me confused for awhile. Honestly I didn't even know which character this was until I noticed he was standing near Bambi.

The Reluctant Dragon is a bit more obscure Disney character. But he's blue in the film, not green.

Here's the one that I think would make the Disney fanatics throw a tantrum that would rival Donald Duck. Just who is this? Stare at it for awhile, relax your eyes like you would for one of those Magic Eye pictures. It'll come to you.

This...I think...is one of Disney's greatest villains, Cruella de Vil!?! I just find it hard to believe that Disney would let this one slip, even 27 years ago. I guess I get pretty fanatical about Disney stuff too.

So are you a Disney fanatic too? This poor character was the inevitable missing piece of the puzzle. Can you name him?