MELODY TIME (1948)

This collection of short musical cartoons, introduced by a gigantic paint brush, feels very much like a reboot of FANTASIA, except with pop songs rather than classical pieces. Like FANTASIA, there is no real overarching connection between the segments, and some of the cartoons are fairly abstract, though the two longest films—both about 20 minutes—have strong narratives. "The Story of Johnny Appleseed," sung and voiced by Dennis Day, tells the folkloric story of John Chapman, who planted trees throughout early 1800s America. The short subtly stresses religious faith with the constant presence of a Bible in his (non-seed throwing) hand and the finale where Johnny falls asleep under an apple tree and an angel escorts him to heaven so he can keep planting trees. The other, "Pecos Bill," combines live action footage of Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers with the animated adventures of the fictional cowboy. Both of these were released as stand-alone short subjects. Another shorter segment, "Little Toot," sung by the Andrews Sisters, is a story about a brave little tugboat and was the inspiration for a character later featured in some Disney comic books. 

But for me, the more interesting segments are the abstract ones, presented at the beginning of the film. "Once Upon a Wintertime" looks and feels the most like a Fantasia short, with its focus on a season and its telling of a story that juxtaposes nature and humans, complete with a threatening storm like the Bacchus section of Fantasia. "Bumble Boogie" is a jazzy, surreal bit with a bee being chased by giant piano keys, scored to Rimsky-Korsakov’s "Flight of the Bumblebee." Joyce Kilmer's famous poem "Trees" is read out loud with more lovely pastel scenes of nature (and a storm)."Blame it on the Samba" is reminiscent of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" in that it features a popular Disney character, Donald Duck. He interacts with a live-action organist, Ethel Smith, and an animated South American parrot named José Carioca, to not much effect. Overall, I couldn’t help but see this as a dumbing-down of Fantasia. The animation is great, as one expects from Disney, and the print playing on Disney+ is beautiful. Apparently, in an earlier DVD rendition of this, the Pecos Bill segment was edited to remove multiple instances of the character smoking, but this version includes the cigarettes. There were other cartoon compilations between Fantasia and this (Make Mine Music, for instance) which I haven't seen, but if they are like this one, I'm not sure I need to. [Disney+]