Heretofore
(I love using that word, as it makes me sound like a super smarty pants. As
opposed to someone who uses phrases like ‘super smarty pants’) I haven’t really
been able to share my Mickey love, because he’s only made on other (much too
brief) appearance (in Fantasia). But
I’ll say it loud and clear now: I L-O-V-E M-i-c-k-e-y M-o-u-s-e (I was actually
singing that, FYI). In case reading songs isn’t your thing, I’ll even say it
again: I love Mickey Mouse! Surprisingly, I didn’t know that Walt himself—yes,
THE great and powerful Walt Disney—voiced Mickey Mouse up through Fun and Fancy Free. F&FF is actually the last time Walt does Mickey’s voice. And in
the special features, there’s even a video-in-video showing Walt voicing and
Mickey talking. It’s crazy cool.
F&FF
is another package film of the 40’s. I both like and dislike these films. I
like them because they are very clearly from the 40’s, and I love the 40’s
(obviously not the war aspect, but the music and culture of America during that
time of transition). I also love that
the package films are what financed Cinderella,
which I loved when I was little (the mice probably reminded me of Mickey). I
dislike the package format itself. I like flow and transitions, and the first
of the package films (Saludos Amigos,
Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music) don’t have the stellar transitions that
would make them really shine. The individual segments are good, but the way they’re
linked together isn’t. I’m glad the package films were made, because otherwise we
wouldn’t have these snippets of what were supposed to be feature films in their
own right before the war.
F&FF
definitely improves on the transitions. The stories are told in
the frame format—there’s a beginning intro, the story, an intermission that
leads the intro for the next part, and it finishes back with the frame. In
other words, the story within the story is framed by a story. I totally just
won a how many times can someone say
story in one sentence and still make sense contest. If such a thing
existed, that is. Anyway, moving on. Bongo the circus bear.
As
someone who’s been in a couple circuses, you’d think I’d be sick of hearing circus
stories. Wrong. I loved Dumbo for
being set in a circus. When Bongo was on a trapeze, I got super excited. Then
he juggled plates and fruits and who knows what else while upside down on a
tight-wire, and I was like, pshah, I’ve
so done that! (To be honest, I totally haven’t. But I have done tight-wire).
I didn’t love how mean the handlers were to this incredibly talented bear. So
when he breaks free and escapes into the (clearly Alaskan) wilderness, I was
happy for him. But I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t take his silly circus
clothes off. I’d also like to educate the animators about the size difference
between brown bears (aka grizzly bears) and black bears, because so far every black
bear in Disney animated films (okay, the only other one so far is Brother Bear) is larger than the brown
bears/grizzly bears, and that’s just not true. Also, not all bears can climb
trees (it’s another divide between black bears and brown bears). But LuLu Belle
(best.name.for.a.bear.ever.) is a tiny brown bear, and she can climb the tree. Yet
Bongo, also a tiny brown bear, can’t. It’s just inconsistent.
James laughed at me every time I pointed out
a bear inconsistency. Here’s the thing: when we first moved to Alaska, I was
convinced we’d see bears all the dang time. So far, we’ve only actually seen
one. In Denali National Park. And he was… going number two, so to speak, and so
wasn’t that scary. Anyway, I was rather afraid of them (this has now downgraded
from debilitating fear to healthy fear—because it’s silly to NOT be afraid of a
bear in the wild), and so I learned pretty much everything I could about them. I’m
not this way with my other fears (crabs, spiders). But how you handle a bear
encounter depends on the kind of bear, so knowing their differences is
important. Since I’m not Dwight Shrute, I will not educate you on the differences
between bears.
Back to Bongo. It was a cute story, and
who doesn’t love bears showing their feelings by slapping each other? (This came
in handy later. Wait for it). But other than being cute, it didn’t really stay
with me. I didn’t really see a lesson, other than standing up to bullies and
being aware of cultural differences. But even those are pretty buried.
Jiminy Cricket brings the audience back into
the non-framed portion of the story and commits a felony. Don’t worry, it’s a
cricket-sized one: he reads someone else’s mail. And it’s already open. And just
lying around, begging to be peeked at. So basically, the cricket is human. Jiminy
takes us across the street to this weird ventriloquist, whose mouth you can
always see moving when his creepy dolls talk. Apparently he was famous, as were
his dolls, but the version I remember seeing on Disney Channel of Mickey and
the Beanstalk was without the creepy puppets, and my non-puppet-scarred childhood
is thankful for that. There’s a reason Mickey and the Beanstalk was re-released
twice and the puppets were omitted both times.
The puppets are weird and slightly
inappropriate, and seeing live action coupled with animation always kind of
weirds me out. To answer your question (I’m also a mind reader; didn’t you know
that?) no, I haven’t seen Mary Poppins.
Please close your mouth, I’m aware it’s atrocious. I’m a bit busy watching the
Disney animated films though, so it’ll have to wait. I’ve also never seen any
of the Star Wars movies. And you
thought my lack of Mary Poppins was
bad.
On to Mickey! He gives a stellar performance
in Mickey and the Beanstalk. Goofy is hilarious, especially in the gelatin
scene. I can only ever understand fifteen words Donald says in any movie, so I
can’t really comment on his performance. But he does act crazy really well.
Mickey and the Beanstalk was slightly
interrupted by a Google search. James had this distinct memory of having seen
Mickey and the Beanstalk before, and repeatedly, but he’d never seen F&FF and knew no creepy puppets were
involved. He was also convinced I didn’t believe him, and so he kept telling me
random plot points from Jack and the Beanstalk. I totally did believe him,
because I’d seen it before too, but it was much too fun to watch him catapult
through childhood memories trying to remember where he saw it. Also, every time
I tried to tell him it was on Disney Channel in the 80’s and 90’s, he’d
interrupt me because he thought I didn’t believe him. His face was priceless
when the puzzle was solved (via Wikipedia, which I in no way endorse because I
could go on and say pink elephants live in trees and then some second grader
would always be looking for pink elephants in trees and that’s just wrong,
folks). Mickey and the Beanstalk was re-released in the 60’s, sans creepy
puppets. Then it was released via T.V. on the Disney Channel in the 80’s. Which
means those of us with VCRs recorded it on VHS tapes and watched it over and
over again because it’s so dang awesome. James had it on VHS, I didn’t, so he
watched it repeatedly and thus remembered it more than I did.
So yeah. Mickey and the Beanstalk was my
favorite, because it has Mickey Mouse and Walt’s voice and who can beat that? Sadly
for me, my Wikipedia search led me to Walt’s page. I knew he had died young (65
is young, peeps) and that it was fairly sudden and the sun shone a little less
bright for a while after he died. I didn’t know he had died of lung cancer. I
kind of want to sue the tobacco companies for killing Walt Disney and making
the whole world a lot sadder. Mostly because it many photos and videos of him,
he’s smoking. And that makes me sad. Imagine what we could have today if his
imagination and ambition was around for longer.
I also finally realized that Walt wasn’t
just talented, creative and an imaginative genius; he had the ambition to realize
those dreams. If you can dream it, you can do it. So now I’m going to try and
be more like Walt in the ambition department.
I was being all sad about Walt as James
and I were going to sleep last night. To get my mind off my sadness, we started
talking about Mario. Specifically, Super Mario Galaxy 2 (for the Wii, because
it’s awesome and I love it and if Nintendo ever reads this, you seriously need
to make a Lion King game for Wii. I totally endorse Nintendo. If the company
were a person, and not a famous one but a normal one, we’d totally be BFF). But
here’s my beef with Mario Galaxy 2. The ‘World’ (level) is full of galaxies
(stages within the level). Each galaxy has multiple planets, so it’s clearly
properly named. However, the term World does not include multiple galaxies. My
idea was that it be called levels, but James said it had to be space related,
since the whole thing takes place in space. So then I said galaxy was right for
the stages, but the worlds should be called universes.
James:
There’s only one universe. Uni- one, verse. One verse. (Mr. Fancy-Shmancy took
Latin in high school and occasionally it comes out to haunt me).
Me:
Um, I’m pretty sure there are multiple universes. For reals.
James
(laughing derisively. Or maybe just laughing): No, there’s not!
Me:
Okay, fine. I’ll prove it.
James
(knowing my distrust of Wikipedia): Okay, but no Wikipedia (in his defense, I doubt every piece of
information he’s ever gathered from this source and refuse to let him use it,
so I earned this comment. I had it coming).
Me
(pulling out iPod): Fine by me, their liars anyway. (scrolling through Google
search results). Aha! NPR! Hahaha!
James:
(I’m fairly certain a curse word slipped out and his face paled considerably,
but it was dark (we were supposed to be sleeping, after all)).
Me:
(I don’t actually remember what I said, but I quoted the NPR article, which was
interviewing a physicist who has written a bunch of books, and proved me right talking
about parallel universes and calling it a multiverse (take that, Latin!)).
James:
Okay, so here’s how I’ll prove you wrong—
Me: I
am so not done. (Continues reading evidence that supports my claim which I made
up and am really glad I was somehow right about)
James:
(a long time later, as I was trying to talk about physics and string theory so
much he would just fall asleep. Clearly I forgot he’s a) trying to prove me
wrong and b) interested in science) Okay, so here’s how I’ll prove you wrong—
Me: I
am so not done. (I think you can see what my plan was here. I was just going to
keep doing this).
James:
Ok-so-here’s-how-I’ll-prove-you-wrong: If the universes are parallel they are
still a part of this universe, meaning there is only one universe.
Me:
(I begin to give some final quote on quantum physics and string theory (still
not sure what exactly that is, to be honest), when he starts tickling me. I grab
his hands and stop him, then say: How do bears say I love you? With a slap!
(and gently touch his face, as I’m not a monster and don’t slap my husband).
Thankfully
he laughed and our debate ended. For about thirty seconds. Then he said
something else about it, to which I replied, “This is supposed to be my quiet
time! How the heckfire did I end up reading about quantum physics and string
theory at 11:37 at night?!”
And
that, folks, is how you end up in a debate about quantum physics from already
debating the proper names for Mario levels.
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