ANTHOLOGIES ATTACK! Fantasia

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Dark Destinations by fatherm Alone at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.

We welcome back to midnight Viewing Anthologies Attack. I am your host, Father Malone, and with me as always director

Hey, their father Malone, how are you?

I'm doing well. I'm excited for the conversation we're having. We like to tack all kinds of anthologies here.

I know, right back to the animation though, I'm pretty excited about that.

Yeah, and you know, delving back into this one, like it made me realize just how many of them are out there, and yeah, we're going to have to We're going to have to go a whole hog. In fact, I think the next episode we do will have to be the answer to this particular choice. We're doing a bona fide classic tonight, all the way back from nineteen forty. In fact, this was released November the thirteenth, nineteen forty, distributed by RKAO Radio Pictures, but one thousand percent produced

Again, the incomparable motion picture. Walt Disney's Fantasia, more fantastically exciting, more magically in tune with today than ever before. Here is the majestic milestone of art in which great music comes to life through animation Beethoven, Stravinski, Tchaikovsky and others, interpreted by thousands of Disney craftsmen. See Mickey Mouse become legend as the Sorcerer's Apprentice and Leopold Stukovski conducting the

RKO put The distributed this really so like Disney didn't have a distribution arm at that point.

The other ones like that JO No, not for a while.

So basically Disney started out pretty much pixared it, its own independent little studio animation production house that had distribution from a big Hollywood studio.

But immediately got into live action as soon as so yes in the fifties.

As soon as they did, they started putting up those live action movies.

Well in the forties, you know, it was the experimental period with like Song of the South and like live action animated hybrids that sort of generally genuinely eased them into the full on live action things that we got like with in nineteen fifty. I think the sort of.

Yeah they did, what was it Like? There was Song of the South, which I think I saw as a kid's like at summer camp on a video tone and it's just as if I remember correctly, was just as bad as.

And I actually watched that about a year ago.

Oh really, and it's outrageous.

Yeah, look, it's no doubt racist, But what I did come away with is it felt as if it were the film's heart was in the right place, if that makes sense. It doesn't seem like it was some piece of film that needs to be hidden away because it had this agenda of like anti black kind of sentiment. It's not a birth of a nation, No, it's but it's a celebration of a time and place that is iffy at best in American history. So is therefore immediately suspect.

Yeah, that's interesting. I just I remember that. I remember the cartoon Parrot or than Uncle Remus, I remember a Rabbit, and I also remember the tarb eighties stuff and all that other crap.

Yeah, it's I didn't say it's a sin. I just said I don't think it was intending to further a racist agenda.

That's all less less meat and racist and more unintentional aids the nineteen forties and we all forget it.

Yeah, that's kind of casual racism, which tends, in my mind be the worst kind of racism. So I should be condemning it harder. But you know, as a piece of entertainment, it isn't it doesn't seem to have a mean intent.

I remember we watched a little of Birth of a Nation in a film class school man. That was horrendous.

That one's real, real bad.

All right, Wow, But I know in the movie we're going to talk about now Fantasia, they there's one or two things they cut out since you know its original release. I know that I know one of the one of the little the nymphs. Is it one of the nymphs?

Yeah, and attending to the white sense.

And yeah, cleaning her feet and yeah. I know it's old and these guys didn't know what they were, but you know, you should still watch this stuff because it's history. You like learning. You're looking at this stuff and you're learning what how are some's evolved in the last you know century from being going you know, back in the day when it would be more a malicious racism or like catal racism. You're talking about or just the blindness to the fact that other people's country has evolved a

Yeah, you know from my rewatch of this, I actually watched it on the Disney Plus app did I And yeah, because the disclaimer comes up at the beginning, and once they started doing that, there was a big fiora over and it's it. They make you read it for fifteen seconds and it really sort of gently and even handedly sort of explains, look, there's some shit in this movie. It's fucked up, we can learn from it. Let's not censor.

It was weird, Like I think Disney gets this like a lot of like flag. I know there's a segment of the population well getting political, but it's a segment of population it really hates Disney doing this and doing that. I'm just like, Okay, fine, but I don't ever remember Disney ever doing anything really malicious other than being a creepy corporation. Fine, all corporations are greedy bastards, but like, for the most part, all I know Disney's ever put

I'll tell you the problem with the Disney Corporation. They fostered this notion that lemmings like to jump off of cliffs, and that is just simply not true. You know, that's you know, yeah, like they filmed they had heard that rumor, but then found that lemmings didn't actually do that, but then actually forced a bunch of lemmings off of a cliff,

Which is weird because Mickey Mouse is eight years old of that one.

Is it just they I know that was found in twenty three, but they did they hadn't necessarily landed on Mickey as the guy at that point, right.

Yes, Steamboat Willie is nineteen twenty eight. There was some Oswald shorts.

So that's like saying, you know something that pop up in that's look saying John Wick is, we've got to reinvigorate John Wick.

Well, if you notice how quickly they rebooted Spider Man from Toby maguire and Andrew Garfield to Tom Holland.

I think part of that's the rights issue, though. I think that's like we need to hold on with us with both fucking hands. Make it up right now. So Walt de science he's going to make a bit of a lavish short. That marrying classical music two short animated films is nothing new. I mean, Disney had a segment of films called Silly Symphonies. You know Mary it off with Mary Melodies. Yeah, so that concept isn't new. That innovation is not really an innovation in Fantasia in general.

That's what I was, like, I've always liked about Walt Disney's like his and their philosophy continues in the imagineering. Part of the companies is plussing it, you know, like I've already got one thing as well, let's just make it bigger. I always love that idea of like with art and industry and stuff, you've got something and it works, what can we do with it? Well, shit, let's just

It does seem like the question is always, well, what could be better? Right here? Well, okay, well I guess we're gonna have to do it that way.

What more can we do? Yeah? And it's and what I liked about that young Disney his willingness to spend everything he's got on his company on technological advancement, advancement in storytelling and and an advancement of cinema, Like he really, now, fuck it, We're going to take this huge financial risk so we can experiment. And who does that? You know, Jim Cameron does that. George Lucas does that. That's a rare thing, I think, and I always I've always really.

Did having When they finally decided to make the film, proper, which I was not called Fantasia for like the concert film. Did you happen to see the cinematographer for this film?

No, who was it?

It's James Wong how WHOA Yeah, so you know Yankee Doodle Dandy's Strawberry Blond. You know Tom saw Adventures of Tom, started The Prisoner of Zenda James Long how.

Because I was noticing that, you know, maybe because I've never seen it like in four K before or whatever. Their transfer that lighting and is gorgeous. I've always had a you know, I got that VHS in nineteen ninety no obsess with this movie in high school. You never saw all those rich colors from the halo lighting and stuff, which it's not just a silhouette. It's a silhouette, but it's got a red halo on one side, a purple one on the other one, or a blue one on the other it's really nice.

Yeah. The color is just fucking incredible. The filmmaking on display here in general incredible. This movie was very well received when it came out too. It was hailed for you know what it is, which is kind of a landmark. This is a more than two hour movie where it's as anthology as you can get. It's vignettes from famous classical pieces that have been reinterpreted or interpreted for the first time by the Disney animate and.

It's an intellectual piece and it's not a car family cartoon or anything like that. This is for grown ups, for smart grown.

Up and it's something that Disney, like when it came to picking the musical pieces, sort of sat back and said, I don't know enough about this, and that, to me is the perfect reason that the movie is getting made. If Disney, who, if you know, probably more cultivated or cultured than the average citizen at that moment, feels that he's deficient in his knowledge of the arts, like his reaction is, well, let's as I learned, let's help everyone else learn too, and do it in a very entertaining man.

Yeah, I did. And again I like the advancements they made in movie making. Surround sound pretty much invented it for this movie. You see some of the footage of our photos and stuff of like their early premieres and early screenings and installing speakers around you know, the movie theater. Not that's commonplace now, but in nineteen forty that's heard of and the multiplane camera stuff at this too, which is really evident in the Ava Mariasik at the end.

You know, they had some real trouble with their multiplanes.

Because the room wasn't big enough, right.

There were multiple problems, like there were situations where they hadn't lined up the plates correct. No, that the lens on the camera was too wide. So not only were they getting the frames of the animation, but they were getting the stand and they were getting like you know, workers or like animators, you know, snaps of them in the background. So that happened, and then they had to start again. And they got halfway through and realized that there was a fuck up, and rather than risk it,

Crazy, that's insane. I mean you hear people do shit like that nowadays every now and then, Oh I finished cutting to me three days ever, but this nineteen forty they had to go print this day. They gotta go print it, they gotta cut it in and they got to watch it not fucked up.

So in order to make the okay, in order to even choose the segments of music to go, here, Disney on a chance meeting with Leopold Stokowski. He is the conductor for the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra. Very renowned guy who evidently he pioneered the art of conducting without the baton. He only used his hands when Bugs Bunny when they're making fun of Leopold in that one cartoon, like, that's the same guy, that's Leopold Stakowski, because Bugs Bunny adopts

Oh no, was not sheet man spare no expense. But again it always worked for him.

So Stakowski and some of the animators they come up with, and Disney's there, obvious, this isn't done in a vacuum. He had his two cents in. They settle on a number of pieces. Takata Infugen d Minor by Bach, Nutcracker Sweet by Tchaikovsky, SORCER's Apprentice Obvious, The Right of Spring

You don't need him at all. I'm even as a kid, every time he was on screen, I was like, ugh with this guy. Oh oh, I'm Dames Taylor, shut up, you know. And the same goes for Fantation two thousand. Those celebrities. Every time I see like they come all on screen, I'm just.

Like, certainly, certainly, by Fantation two thousand, they should have known that the audience was sophisticated enough to go with the concept. Here in nineteen forty, which is when this movie premierees, it makes a little more sense. The whole idea of this movie is kind of radical when you think about no one had done anything like this, not in the featured length. They were used to shorts, and they were used to shorts making little to no sense

Also and he also just tells you this is what's gonna happen, like in the Night on Bald Mountain. He literally just describes the entire seat and he's, Okay, now watch it.

Thinks that one I actually that I chalk up to the time. And yet because the Night on Bald Mountain sequence is a revel reader and we're going to get to there, but you need to sort of front load. Hey, we're not endorsing all the devil stuff about to occur, but I know it's gonna look cool and it's gonna be your favorite part, and it's the thing you're gonna remember when you walk out of this theater. But we're not endorsing it. There's he calls it the profane.

The picture starts with him kind of explaining what fantasia is, and then he goes into the three types of this kind of this kind of music on a third type, which we call absolutely and I'm just like, okay.

Well here's the thing that I enjoyed that because you like that part too, Yeah, Yeah, there are levels of music, and there are music, you know, obviously composed to tell you a story and you can hear the story occurring, and then there's music of this other variety, and then finally, you know, the sort of just lean back and you know, float away in a reverie kind of music, you know, And I like that the film is sort of staged, at least with the Takata and fugue piece, which, by

Now, had this piece of music been associated with the Phantom of the Opera.

Already by nineteen thirty one is when it actually gained popularity, because it appeared in Doctor Jekylne Mister Hyde as an accompaniment to that silent Oh Wow. That was the first

I do like how the live action kind of like seamlessly becomes the animation though, that's pretty I thought that's really elegant.

It makes you wish we'd just stayed in the animation. I know, I'm complaining from a late twentieth century, early twenty.

Five no, but I mean the introduct the live action introduction I think is acceptable and I think it works, and you're right there, you know, I'm just anxious for the animation. I've seen this, but the transitions because of the silhouette, it really just it really just transforms.

Rather than have you seen this film in a theater?

I did?

I think nineteen ninety release.

Yeah, something like that. I'm pretty sure I did. I saw two thousand on an.

Imax right when two thousand came out.

And the old Imax theater at the Luxor So it was really it was like your distance to the to the screen was really short, and so it was really kind of a vertical seating, so you had to kind of look down to see the bottom of this very loud.

But a true Imax, like now they just throw the largest screen they can possibly find and go, that's an Imax. I shouldn't be able to see the edges.

Yeah, we used to have the Omnium at Caesar's Palace, which was a dome, and the screen filled the entire dome and you were like these inclined seats and you kind of looked up. It's really it was really spectacular. I guess the sphere is the closest to what they have now is close that old Imax theater. Yeah, the camera moved, you felt the motion.

There was a very similar one in Boston. I grew up in Boston at the Museum of Science. They the Mugar Omnimax theater. There was an omni theater. There was an Omnimax theater. So it's exactly what you're saying. It was so there was nowhere you could look there. There wasn't a film playing. It was fucking amazing.

It was so cool and nothing. But they never had features or anything. All I had was documentaries. The only like narrative piece. They was like a movie Shirley Maclain I think I saw, but it was like a short. It wasn't even a full feature.

Yeah, Boston had a few Boston themed shorts where you know the history of the city, you know, so you get to see the pilgrims and stuff. But like everywhere you look Pilgrim all right, so that you know, the takin of sequence here is it's fine, it's you know, in this day and age, it's nothing. It look it is remarkable because it's hand drawn animation, like I have to anytime I feel like while I'm watching, While I was watching the movie, I kept thinking like, well, you know,

It really is. You go back and you it makes you see what they were doing and how more advanced they were than we are now as far as in animation, because now animation is a real short pipeline. The workflow

By the time hand of Barbara it's I think it's four to one, right, four cells for every one second of films, twenty four frames per second. Prior to that, I think in the fifties, like even the major studios, we're doing two to one by then. But here this is definitely one to one. Yeah, it's this is twenty four dry. This is twenty four pages, and every single

Yeah, the you know, the Asian influence I guess in there is, you know, with a little mushroom.

Bit yes, the mushrooms dancing with their caps. Well, let's face it, chinaman. Yeah, it doesn't really hit home well these days, no, and okay.

But it's very charm I know they're caricatures. There's no reason for them to have slanted eyes. But see, this is.

What I'm saying, like about Song of the South, like it's you look at it and go oof. That hurts. But at the same time, it's you can see that it's coming from a place of let's make an adorable thing that charms people.

Yeah, it's not a malicious you know, it's not a Japanese caricature from later in the decades.

Yea, certainly from this company if you want to see them.

Just a couple of years later, and well in the next year they're doing it. So like that one is a malicious caricature. I mean that wartime whatever, it'll awful and retroflect. Hey they're at war. But I don't think that this is coming from a bad place. It's just again unintentionally racist. This is unintentionally you know, problematic.

And that's why we had a warning at the beginning. Yeah, that's contained the Russian dance sequence here is so fantastic using thistle which just so naturally look like Russian dancers. Anyway, this, of course the official flower of Scotland. I love that goddamn flowers. So I was charmed watching those flowers fucking dance.

And this is the argument again, now argument whatever or the lamenting or the eulogy for the hand and hand drown animation versus three D animal, because an no three D animator is generally gonna do stuff that. How many movies' is picks are put out, I mean, you get one of them that that's that experiment, like Insold, but the other films generally don't. It's pretty. Everything is pretty tactle.

Yeah that's a really good Yeah, Brad Bird all of his Pixar stuff, but that's you know, that's three D. But yeah, but even that movie is a mixture of the thing because, yeah.

A lot of the animation is heavy heavy lifting is done by three D. And that happened all through That started in Beauty and the Beast they started incorporating the three D element.

And that brings us to the centerpiece. Literally the centerpiece here although originally they intended to end the honestly, they put it here in the middle. That is the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

Yeah, it needs the movie needs it at this point, any entertainment because Dems is just morphe every time. He might be interesting in someones, but it's just takes. It takes the wind out of the sales when you tell you something. And the Nutcracker Suite is really cute, but it's not very exciting. And you know, the Takata again exciting. So the Sorcerer Prices gives you like, oh, okay, I'm

You think the children out there who the ghosts one for the children out there who probably know what a viewmaster is, imagine that. It's like a monocle, just one thing and there you'd put a cartridge into it with a crank on the side, like an old movie camera, and then when you put your eye up to it, you could watch the little eight millimeter clips from movie. So yeah, I had I had that Mickey Mouse cartoon, The Haunted House one, that's.

The one I had. Yeah, yeah, I think I might have had a Sorcerer Apprentice. I know that Sorcerer's Apprentice was something that I had seen before.

It showed up a lot on its own, you know, it was constantly being repackaged and shown on Disney Channel or like The Wonderful World of Disney would have some clip show and at least show parts of it. Like it was always kind of out there of the scenes in this movie. That's the one that I think most people kind of it hammered home, but that was the intention of it anyway.

Yeah, and it's Mickey at his best. Micky, for me, works as a cartoon Charlie Chaplin, that's for me. That's what makes the minute Mickey starts talking, I'm like, but the minute. But when he's just like this little guy, you know, is always just trying to do his best, I can see why he was such a hit. But and this is big budget, you know what I mean. This is now Mickey in a feature film, the big time he's got. This is the first time with eyeballs.

Oh jeez, I don't know. I think he had already they'd already read.

That he had to redesigned him because I prefer a little wire me. That's just I love that.

Little but that one had to go away. I'm sorry, Antonia. I agree with you a lot of this, on a lot of this, but wireframe steamboat not even steamboat well, I know you're talking about that sort of proto rant.

Yeah, I love that. It's just so cool. But there's the other My favorite Mickey was Through the Looking. So you know, they're doing trippy at Disney at this point, like there's somebody going to the Opium Deno or got a little bit of of the Marriage Ijuana, because there there's some trippy stuff going on in Disney at the time, so seeing the stuff in Pantasia shouldn't be that surprising because that Through the Looking last cartoon is a trip. Man.

I love that Mickey loses his power as a character once he becomes a leader. He is the de facto leader of the Walt Disney animated characters, but yea necessarily have to be out in front and leading them. He's not bugs Bunny. And now you look at that pantheon of characters and you go, yep, he's the one, you know, and he should be standing in front of them and giving a press conference. But Mickey, I agree with you,

He's a brave little Taylor. Again, that's a chaplain, you know, the chaplain does the great Dictator is a brave little you know like I ah that Mickey's best like that. And this is the best prime example of this hapless Mickey just trying to do his best and fucking everything up.

This segment. I want to say it scared me as a child. That did not. It made me very nervous. Yes, yes, watching this movie as watching this segment as a child is akin to watching After Hours. Now, I just it makes my skin crawl.

Oh wow, after Hours referenced. Nice for the young folk out there. You've never seen movie After Hours. It's Martin Scorsese's mid eighties comedy about this dude that meets this crazy lady and they have an evening of adventure throughout New York City. And I don't want to give anyone too much away from him because then I might ruin it. Everything that's going to go wrong is going.

To go wrong, and people think cringe comedy was invented with the office. Oh no, it's simply not the case. But so yeah, and that's the feeling I had from Sorcers's Apprentices Child, because this is effectively the tale of a child acting out or acting beyond their capabilities when their parent isn't around, and fucking everything up, in this case so severely that I could only imagine the punishment

Nicholas Cage doing over there, Oh.

My god, he would be perfect.

He did, he played, They did a movie.

They did a movie, SORCER's Apprentice, a bunch of Oh that's true, but I'm talking about I want to see him in these robes.

These robes. Yeah, that was why that movie didn't work, because he didn't talk about dressed up like it.

Was in like a leather jacket. Yeah, I want Gandalf, Yeah, but.

I want Nicholas Cage's Okay, yeah, yeah, say no more.

I keep that one under your head.

But the fever dream of this is something you know, and again it's anxiety up the butt with this scene or Mickey. But what a great image those brooms and the way that the arms pop out. I always like how they just they shake and pop out and then grab the bucket. Oh, I love it.

It's the joy of animation.

Yeah, it really is. Man.

I particularly like when they've completely filled the place. Just the shot of the first of all of the water effects and are fucking spectacular. We're mentioning how good the animation is. Each segment is its own style, and this one is absolutely gorgeous, Like when they go to that well the first time, just like gazing into that water, so much care and effort. But anyway, when the room is completely filled up, the image of them walking up to the cistern and trying to fill it. It just dumping

But it's and the great thing about it is like animation is two D anime done it I suck at it really difficult. There's a two D animated Bit and Space Detective that I did four frames and I love it at the same time, so long look at that I drew Batman. But the level of artistry here again, I'm like, you know, kissing people's asses, you know, But animation is tough. It's twenty four frames a second and to get it like water fluid and then time to music,

The spence and the like the sort of impressionistic background stuff that I mentioned in the previous segment and nutcrackers. Once the brooms start taking over, we're getting these splashes of yellows and and other things behind them as it becomes more and more of a nightmare. All that I love. But also now Micky lets it get out of hand because he falls asleep and had a dream. But it could also be interpreted that at that moment Mickey is astro projecting and it's nowhere near it because he does

That image of Mickey this is so cool and just commanding the water and just the way the animation goes and the way when it exaggerates on him, and it's just really it's really sublime. It's one of the best pieces of animal.

You know what's funny is up until the moment where he's on the rock and conducting the wave, I thought, God, you know, the animation of the music don't really sink up here. All of that well, and then once that's started having one, Oh, we were just waiting for gotcha.

It's all part of the storytell it's amazing. I've always really admired and it's not my.

Favorite nor mine, but I'm never sad when it comes on. It's never a fast forwarding me.

No, like the next one that takes it the light of spring.

It's gorgeous. And you know what in nineteen forty, no one ever sees yeah as a child dinosaurs? Yeah, good guy. Well, we had Harry House and and stuff, doing the stop motion stuff, but we didn't have anything looking as elegant.

No, it isn't. But to get to the dinosaurs, it takes us.

It does.

But that's all right. I think I just have an ADHD problem. This is definitely a nice palate cleanser after Madness of Mickey Mouse, The Sources Apprentice.

And here's where Demes Taylor is most welcome in My mom His description of what you're about to see is

I'm not even looking at that, right, you're absolutely one out of person. Great, take back everything.

He said nineteen forty. Yeah, wow, here's what happened. There are a bunch of cells. Those divided, and then a bunch of stuff happened, and then then it was teeming with sea life. And then and then one of those brave fish decided I'm gonna go up on land. You'll

Yeah, because I mean I just imagine how, like how that's still an issue now, like that people still don't buy and don't believe it. And I'm like, there's all those evidence in the world, show you this is how it happened.

Yeah, you know, and you know, I know, everything bangers scrutiny.

You know.

That's the great thing about science is it scrutinizes itself constantly, and once you get the same result over and over again, you go, well that's a fact.

Yeah. I mean, it's just I don't get it.

And I love that. I love that the film and the company were as forward thinking as they were then.

Yeah.

Absolutely, here's what's happening, folks. And it's snuck in, or maybe not even snuck in. I think it's just here's where we're at as a society.

It's all handled this, It all straightforward.

To This movie doesn't shy away from religion or spirituality in any way. Just look to the end of this mean, like, originally we're going to end this movie this way with the Sorcerer's Apprentice and the wild effects of magic, and it's a usefulness and instead we get the fucking ave Maria. So I think a little goes a long way there,

Know, yeah, and then of course the piece of resistance, those dinosaurs. Once the dinosaurs show up, all right, I'm into this because they're gorgeous and the animation great, although you know there's always a bigger fish and qui gon. It just loved the casual life that you watch. Yeah, was that.

Casual cruelty on display?

The casual cruelty on display there, but it's so peoplely animated, you know, and just seeing these are their dinosaurs for these and no one has done dinosaurs to this extent. Been some stop motions but and some animated stuff, but they really kind of go to town on it, and these animators are figuring out how these I think.

There was the clown short, right, yeah, like pencil drying or penn drying, you know Withronosaurus.

That's right, And then you know what you saw.

And call again like the three D but you know, and yes, we believe it, but it's still stop motion. We we've certainly never seen it done as as fluidly as what we're getting here as well painted as well, realt.

But it's they're beautiful looking dinas. Interesting now, how you like how science kind of shown us that dinosaur birds and they went feathers and you know, so it's I'd be curious to see what they would do with anime up with that based.

On where where we're at right now in science.

Yeah, and this takes it is to the intermission.

Oh, that's just funny because.

The intermission is the first line you see the title?

Right, Yeah, we get a title card here?

Yeah, how about avant Guard?

Is that that's really yeah? I had never thought of that. Yeah that I just thought of it as an intermission card, but really it's the title card for the film title. Yeah, wow, take that Cohen Brothers. I thought the Raising Arizona, right title card revealed with something that's like what twelve minutes or something? Yeah, I got that beat.

I mean he tells you the title still form of entertaining.

That don't matter. It's they' got a Jim Jena session, Jim going on. They oh, and you know we get the soundtrack bit here can I tell you? So? I know I talk a lot about this, but I was a projectionist at a theater in Santa Monica, and when I was learning to become a projectionist this we had platter systems. This is thirty five millimeters, So we had a platter system where the full print would sit on it. It would play out to the projector that wind back

Hey, they'd picked the back and off of the paras Olympics and everybody lost their shit.

So I don't know how far they got in the animation process. But originally Disney, the Family Friendly Company, had nude centaurs like those were bare breasted women running around and immediately ran into some sort of censorship, which is why now we have the drawn over like you know, yeah, flowers hanging there, some piece of fabric that just seems to adhere to one bit of space hovering over the

You know.

Here Bacchus is just sort of like W. C. Fields. Actually, he's a toned down version of w. C. He's like a vaudeville guy.

You know.

You imagine like Keenan Wynn or ed Wynn doing the voice. You know, it's like, you know, like fill my goblet, Well you young lady, Oh you're lovely. Yeah, I don't know. Like again, this is another example of just gorgeous fucking animation.

Yeah, animation is really pretty. This one's a little it takes its time too, but again, you know, it's Beethoven, and it's funny because it's like pretty Beethoven rather than powerful. But I do really the Zeus zoos is still manages to be an asshole. I just love the way Zeus and Festus are portrayed, and just the animation is really cool when he throws those bolts down.

The problem is we're always more interested in the gods when it comes to yeah, always, and I don't one one turn round the dance floor for the centaurs should have been enough, but that's it. Instead, it's you know, it's a ballet, so there we're getting full on dancing and the dancing is gorgeous. Rewatching that. It is really spectacularly animated. But again I'm with you. I need some Greek gods. I need Helios, yes, racing across the sky. You know, I don't really care what's going on in

It just seemed to be a lot of frolicky.

Yeah, like this should have come before the SORCER's Apprentice. They should have front loaded this in. They should have gotten right from Takata right into to Beto, and that actually makes sense back to Beto and anyway, not that I'm doubting Leopold in.

Any way, Oh bugs, buddy.

Okay, I don't really have any more notes on the.

Pastor yeah, I really don't either it.

However, here we go.

The hours does not fit of the hours.

Now, this is this segment showed up a lot as a kid. I had that. I had the Disney Channel, Yeah, yeah, and it seemed Disney had an entire I forget the name of the show, but they had basically music video e TV, e TV, that's what it was. So they would take random clips from all of the catalogue of movies and shorts and recontextualize them and cut them together to try and make a little story for whatever popular music song, whatever popular song was, you know, on the

And you can't beat the dancing hippos man and the horny crocodile. I mean it's me. They're absolute silliest too. It's great. There's horny too. Dizzy doesn't get to be

Getting away with something here because those alligators are like they can just sort of make the excuse, well, they're trying, they're trying to eat them. Yes, they're not not.

That way at least. The name of the alligator is ben Ali Ruth.

I don't know about that, but I'm sure what elephant sheen the elephant true? Yeah, the hippos do. They have madame Yupanova and the ostriches, cavalcadid zoo animals here, all the funniest.

It's delightful. They kind of mirrord. The sequence in the two thousand with the flamingos amazing, that one with the celebrities kill that fantas of two thousand, But the sequences in it are all pretty good. Rhaps and blues, the one that.

Oh yeah, I agree with you, just because that piece of music. Hearing for me personal hearing a bit of Americana mixed. Yeah, all the classical composts just does my heart proud. And that piece in particular has always screamed out for visualization, and that Hirschfeld right, which be more perfect.

It's just so elegant. So just really meet again to the animation.

Really cool the sequence. The lead animator is gou named John Hench right, and he did not want to participate in the sequence. He didn't know anything about ballet. I think he was really just begging off because he knew how difficult this is going to be.

So the sinking of the animation time.

Of course incredible. WELLT Disney's response was to give him tickets to the Ballet Roos de Monte Carlo and fly him into Europe to like, go watch the go watch. That's quite a punishment, go watch the best of all time. In fact, you know, Disney, we've talked about this before, the idea of Rotoscope about filming live action things for the animators as a guide. Here in this case, there was a ballerina named Irina Baronova. She's the lead for

It's the it's those capes and the hats, the red just popping out and just again screaming horny, that red when they lift up the cape and just flap it around, really menacing and operatically. Yeah, I just I love that out so much.

Everything is working here. All of the animation is fluid and gorgeous, and it's as funny as Disney gets. Disney was never a funny studio, No, not really, but this is sort of in keeping with their wholesome take on on on humor, but the most unwholesome.

Yeah, it's almost there. Is Disney at their most Warner broke.

If you're looking at the placement of the segments here, this one makes sense that from this really horny segment we got into the as they described themselves, the depraved segment of Night on Bald Mountain.

Well, yeah, but like the movie ends with this great golf ray, what are you gonna do?

Yeah, well, I'm just saying this is the perfect entrede. Alligators and ostriches off.

To each other, don't forget but the elephant.

Yeah, and I love that it Not only is this sort of you know, ridiculous ballet we're watching, but they're breaking the fourth wall here because they're definitely on stage. They're breaking sceneer. The last shot in this is that they've performed so well that they've blown the doors off the front of the theater basis.

And this probably played really well or really a cessive scene. I think at it's universal. I think it's probably had the audience and stitches that nineteen forty audience is losing.

Oh I'm sure these alligators and these ostrich fucking hippos, Oh my god, no one, nay. I don't think anyone was prepared for it. And it's great and it's a great sort of denu modd because we're right here at the climax. But I want to jump back to the Flower the right of Spring, No, the Nutcracker Sweet, because there's a wintery segment there, which to me was the

It reminds me of like the Flyses video. To take a couple of Popeye card a live action and the cameras would be panning and and everything. They must have done it either stop motions to animate on the actual or done the or made the blow up and film back and make them the you know when they do the animal.

It's the problem with computer animation that it's not tenable at all. There's nothing tactile about it. There's no boundaries to break, you know, when you've got to put a camera on a tripod and lock it down and get the lights perfect, and put this panel here and then put another thing underneath it, and we're gonna do one

You know. It's like almost like in that argument for shooting on or shooting digital, like I haven't shot, I haven't said. I was a school for a hundred times I've always shot then, but there is something to be said about up that camera, you know, loading the magazine, having to do the math to get the light, which is always my biggest leak.

And you know that it's there's you have a finite amount of time. Yeah, you get it right. And you know I said that, there's that some Spielberg like give meme kind of thing going around where you're saying, like, you know, digital is a perfect sort of photographic process, but you know, film was a magical chemical process, like the grain. When you see in film, it's moving, like even a still is moving because of the way that

Yeah, there's a certain that God, you're you know, you're depending on providence to get you. Yeah.

Well, speaking of providence or lack thereof, here we go. It's everybody's favorite. Oh God, Yeah, So it's not I'm ball. It's just it's not only is it absolutely gordeous, it's like the thing we were all waiting for all of us little horror kids, you.

Know, yeah, and even me who wasn't kid. This is still always what I was always waiting. I think I came across first, saw this sequence and probably a Disney Halloween Special or something like that.

That's okay, The Disney Halloween Treat is what that.

That's what it is, Disney HALLOWEENA I remember that noll oh.

My goodness that played on Disney Channel a lot, but originally was I think like The Wild World of Disney or the whatever, the Wonderful World of the Wild World of Disney. It's a whole lot. It's like Ralph Box, She's very that No, the Wonderful World of Disney on Sundays, and I had recorded that on VHS, that the Disney Halloween Treat. I've seen this segment a lot because they don't have the full segment in it, like they cut around a lot. So seeing it again in its actual

I like, I noticed that today because it was the last building too, especially like it was a church. Really just here you really get sucked into. It's really nice. I like those static egos that are like distorted by a lens, the way they kind of float through the scenes.

And oh, he's a thing of beauty and he's ripped man.

I had read that like on the internet that the bell Lagos had posed for it.

And there is footage or rather there I think stills of him from his session there, but and you can see it in some of the facial expressions for Turnabog. You can see some lagos here, but it's my understanding that the head animator on that was unsatisfied with Lugosi's performance overall and just had his assistant take off his shirt and they filmed him doing all the moves that you're seeing.

That's great man. Oh no, the director of yeah, the animators still that's kind of neat to oh yeah.

Yeah. It adds another element of wonderful Chernibog mythos because.

There's some of those facial expressions if you look.

At that kind of look like both oh yeah, mouth his mouth when he's upset. Yeah, in particular, and my god, like what performance from Churnabog. You know, he goes through all the emotions delight to to disdain.

When I'm especially fond of the hand when he's picking

Hands are a trouble for a lot of artists. So honestly, it was this rewatch where I too noticed those hands, I think for the first time, because my attention was always fixated on all those little demons. First of all, it's this is a Disney movie, and we get little naked fire women. We then turn into little creatures who then turn into even worse creatures before being smushed out.

Yeah, it really works. It's almost like pain, almost like in a meta homage to Leopold, the way he conducts with without baton, and he's all hands and turner body is up there like a conductor conducting symphony of.

The I noticed that that every dead person is participating in this party. Every grave, a ghost comes. Yeah. There's a castle with a little pool beside it. Half a dozen ghosts come out of that water.

Yeah, and one of those on a horse. It's every little creature's guys on little backstor.

I loved that one of the ghosts comes out of the grave and like Shinny's its way through a noose that's hanging on a on a scaffold, like I remember this.

Yeah, it's really sweet, man. I know that every single viewing I've ever.

Had of the just waiting it's a rave for demons. Yeah, it's you're just having a good time.

Yeah. The animation it's just so gorgeous and the design is just so wonderful. I mean, it's just a real mountain they're basing this on or something. Because it's it's mesmerizing. I can't. Like. I watched it again this morning, just when every where we started, I watched that sequence gets me every time.

Then, Yeah, I had watched the movie again last night, and then just prior to recording, I put it on thinking I'm just going to watch a couple of seconds and then watch the entire sequence. I found myself just standing there mesmerized by this. Sam.

I love this music. I intend to use it at some point in a horrific sequence or something, just because of this movie of what it's you know, this kind of influence, and I feel like a lot of what I think is cool looking in you know, a lot of what I think is cool about horror. It kind of comes from this. This is what I like. I like Demon Monston and the Devil, you know me looming over you and my I's got At the same time, this is formative for me.

And as much as I'm a fan of dancing in general and a fan of the classical forms of dancing ballet clearly on display here, it's not until we get to the fucking Demon sequence that we get a sampling of modern dance. All those little demons are dancing in a modern jazz style. Man and only notice that for the first time, but was down for it.

Yeah, no kidding.

Then's fucking great.

Yeah, and they're and like when they're the ones a little bit in his hand too with the little naked fire women. Oh yeah, absolutely is. I guess modern jazz dancing.

Is either you know it?

You know it? How did this was the really played well too? I am? The movie was well received when it came out, Yeah.

Very well received. There were some critics, mainly composers and conductors, who disagreed with Leopold's arrangements.

Oh that's some toity toity.

That's some great criticism right now, right, dare you use a bassoon?

But did it just kind of disappear from memory?

I guess here's what happened as well as the as well as it did critically, It basically came out right before the war. Oh yeah, and it was road showed. Okay, so they start in November of nineteen forty and they're road showing it across the United States. This isn't an open wide kind of thing. And as soon as the war happens, there's no chance that it can build an audience the way that the other Disney that.

Makes sense, that does because I mean, does it play in the cinema again in the fifties or something.

Or yeah, there are some revivals of it. Yeah, well, it got re issued in nineteen forty six as soon as the war. But in nineteen fifty five, that's when no, okay, nineteen sixty three. In fifty five, they noticed how deteriorated the print was becoming, and they began restoring it, and then in nineteen six they re released it in super scope.

Whoa, And then you know it's that they butcher that up.

I don't know. His budget ended up being two point two eight million, which is right around where that initial one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars was in modern day. Wow, that's better to think where the actual Fantas budget ended up being.

So on here online that they put it out in the sixties again they.

Put oh okay, so they put it out in the early sixties. They put it out in sixty nine, they put it out.

That must have been up.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, what Ollie Johnson, one of the animators, said that point everyone thought we were all on acid because they were all on acid watch in the movie. And then they re released it again in seventy seven, which is interesting because that's the year Stakowski Leopold, that's the year he died. And then you know, then it sort of ends starts ending up on video basically no again in eighty two that there was a fiftieth anniversary issue.

It's not the prettiest recording.

No, and the visuals, you know, it's it just feels like a Lenny reefinstall thing. You know, we're just like watching you know what I mean, We're like watching torches in a mountain. You know, just didn't I'm not trying to besmirch the fine name of Disney or anything with Lenny Reefin style there, but you know, you know what I'm saying, it's just this weird pastoral of you know, making grand what is you know, ordinary kind of rural behavior.

The only thing I can think it was just meant to be the counter counterpoint to Night on Bald Mountain.

I could have done so much more, so much, something much more interpretive. And you know, it's.

Such a pretty song, was such pretty music.

Yeah, you know, I don't know, like it could have been an impressionistic dream here, like it began with an impressionistic kind of thing, like they could have taken that to the limit here. Let the animators do whatever the fuck that whatever images you're getting for these three seconds, put that here.

It looks like that little bit the other the shot of the monks with the lanterns was very Tolkien vibe.

Yeah, like the elves or that led Zeppelin.

Or the led Zeppelin.

That's a we're taking away from demons and but yeah, the only.

Thing I think of is, Okay, we're going to be holy here.

I don't know the only thing we have to be holy?

Yeah, we have to be holy.

We just had a fucking jamboree of of demons and creatures. Everyone was having a really good time, and it just.

You know, it looks like they're going to come back tonight.

So it's yeah, I wonder how often that party goes on.

Man, it's it's on it.

Yeah, Dems comes out to telling us that during his the Dichotomy of the Sacred.

And the Profate, it that's like a Halloween type.

Yeah, the German equivalent of Halloween.

I'm should have a lot of you know, they also have pumpish not.

Too hey man, any chance to celebrate the.

Right now you're speaking of Germans and stuff. I think there's a similar demon and in Hackson.

Oh yeah, they're kind of is but in a way that demons all look like demon Yeah, but.

With the big the thing with that the big wings ship.

I don't really remember him having wings. I just remember who who's Yeah, and we don't really get a chance to see turner Box's feet here.

Oh no, he's part of He lives in the mountain or is the mountains?

I love Mickey gives a good performance in this turn Bog gives the other good performance there. Yeah, well steals it, Yeah he does. He's so he's just so put upon when the bell starts this again.

But when yeah, knock.

People with here, Yeah.

Because it's not painful.

It's that's what I love about it. Yeah, it's like him having to wake up to go to work. Yeah, no, love me some churn Bog he too, And oh well we talked about a man. That's pretty much the end of this.

Yeah, it's the end of that. Maybe they just figure people are gonna start walking out. Maybe's you meant to walk out or anything. I don't know.

I would I hereby encourage everybody to end the movie once the bell starts, right.

Yeah, really, the I don't like the choir and it's to that choir sounds very well. It sounds like the beginning of every Disney movie in the fifties, whenever or whatever they would have that. Oh my god, that's what it sounds like.

He loved his vocal group.

Yeah, there's a version of a by Sarah Brightman. It's just hurt. Oh my god, these guys don't really well.

It's part and parcel with the segment that it's not really well thought out.

But again, the multi playing camera thing is gorgeous when they do it, it's really fascinating. And it's the technologies.

I believe the Maria sequence, the sequence that they up until the last moment, uh didn't have before the premiere, Like they had to refilm at four different times.

Yeah, you were saying that earlier.

Yeah, so that only makes that should have been a hint from God end this with But.

Can you would they be able to end it with no?

If that were the case, it would have to go from Chernibog to The Sorcerer's Apprentice, where Man has at least some control.

Of darkness.

In fact, that actually makes sense. They should have ended.

Yeah, maybe Good triumphs over Evil.

Yeah, it's kind of but not the direct answer.

Yeah, now the end when we just like Good puts, let's evil take a nap.

This film did spawn a sequel, but its original intention was to be sequalized every couple of years, not necessarily sequel, to be re released in the in the genius Disney marketing. Even from the first day. It was to be re released with segments pulled out with replaced with newer si So every couple of years they'd basically just make a new short, a new silly symphony, but like highbrow, and they would say, pull out the dance of the sugar Pump fairies, you know, and put in some newer people.

Was it is that related to what they were worked on with Dolly at one point for a little bit.

No, absolutely, yeah, that was going to be a segment. And I think there there are a couple of segments I can't really access at the moment, but a couple of segments did get made just as their own sort of standalone pieces, not part of because they abandoned the

No, and the two thousand it was Sorcerer's Apprentice was still in there, and night on Bald Mountain was still in there, and then everything.

Else was new, so a little closer to Walt's original idea, but really just cherry picked the best ones. Yeah, we're being honest.

Yeah, they sure did it. They had one where the graduationsng with Donald Duck as Noah, which is in the arc, which is kind of good. Was actually nice because I like Donald and the Rapist in Blue is the best. But there was also singing with the blue Whales.

Yeah I'm flying and it was computer generated.

Yeah, and of course the Flamingos, which, yeah, the Flamingos are funny, but it's all like celebrity celebrities of the time, kind of doing the Dean.

That are not fit to hold teams baton. Yeah, he has one.

It really dates it, I.

Think, yeah, because it's all the it's all the same celebrities that Disney was just dealing with at that time anyway.

Yeah, oh, here it's Bett Miller and pen here comes Steve Martin.

Where can WHOOPI Goldberg be exactly? Robin Williams good in there. I think he was mad at the company at that point.

Yeah, that's right.

Oh, Mickey only has three fingers because so he doesn't have to sign a check.

They end up giving him like a casso or something.

Yeah, yeah, to lure him back.

Yeah, but no, you know, if this is a really neat thing, it's I wish they did revisit it. Disney could stand to do with something a little on guardy, but they'd like to play it safe.

Yeah, but like they have everything there, just yeah reasonable. You know, it's always great when you let a bunch of creative people just do what the fuck they want. And I know that it's such a lockdown world, the world of animate these days. You know, everyone's following the formula, whatever formula that they've decided is the one for them. But it's good to let them cut loose every once in a while and give us something fucking bananas.

Yeah, it's just a cost. I don't know. It's Disney. Man. They spend one hundred million dollars on a Pixar movie, I think they can spend twenty million bucks on experimental piece.

Yeah. I get a bunch of fucking animation students, you know who would be your interns, and instead pay them a workingman's salary. All they do eight hours a day is come up with fucking something crazy and cool.

You know, I feel like they do the animation that just kind of died down. You know, American animators are in the Union. They find the cheapest creo that they could they can find, and then what they get back is that you want. That's not saying Asian animas are bad. That's just saying that when you're you know, you're buying essentially Kmart brand. It's an animation house and to get it out quick and get it out.

And Disney ought to be encouraging the next generation of two D. I mean, they don't need to help three D. That's what everyone's going to school for. Yeah, not necessarily come work for them, just because that's where everyone's going. So somebody needs to be fostering the old hand to drawn gorgeousness.

And it's weird because you know, one of my one of the grad schools I wanted to go to with the school, I dropped out of school at some point and then I went back and got my degree after COVID. But when I was there the first time, I wanted to go to cal Art and that's the Disney found and fund and everything, and that's where you know all those great anime animators and directors, sim Burton Gate, Brad

I think Kennedy Tarkowski came out of yeah somebody.

He was doing a Popeye mod's sakes and they canceled it. Really you that I was making a pop Eye movie that you guys Hi Anyway, I don't know why. I mean, like I said, Disney has their own college. I did the two D movies. Just stop making money and that's what it was.

Or Yeah, I think I don't think that it's not they stop making money. I just don't think it has to be a bottom line issue, like two D costs this much, three D costs this much. They both earned this much. We're doing three D.

Yeah, yes, I just wish they'd, you know, give it a shot because the last time they tried it was what Princess and the.

Frog and even that's gonna heaping helping of a lot of Yeah.

They were doing they started using that in Great Mouse.

That's the first teacher for the cogs in the clock. Yeah, it was startling. Then now I don't like it.

I always hate a siege shows up in the two DN and like now they've gotten they do three D anime that looks like two D like that X Men ninety seven.

I think absolutely it was and Blue.

Eyed Samurai and Netflix, which, by the way, having everybody in the world to watch one of the finest animated things. That being said, it's clearly three D animate and then cell shaded looks hand. So we're at a point not like you can get away with it, yeah, but it's like I draw it at least.

I mean, look, there's some you gotta have. I don't know, there's no answer for it. Bring back two D, like somebody out there wants to do it, let them do it.

Because even though like I mean watched I always have Warner Brothers at least the Superhero Park two D at least, and they looked great. And now they're just that cell shaded c you know it looks like a cut seer a PlayStation. Yeah.

As much as I'm enjoying all the new stuff, it does seem a little too computer.

Yeah, like their Watchmen. I can't wait to see it, But it does look like a Telltale game.

Oh I watched it.

It was it good?

Yes, yes, I question its relevancy, but it's certainly the full story. Okay, we got some good performances in there too.

It does it seem like we're just trying to hang on to the rights or something.

Absolutely, the parent come the rights. I don't know what's going on with it.

I don't know why their disaster over there at Warner Brothers.

Yeah, there's they got bigger problems than the relevancy of a Watchman remake.

But yeah, they announced that they were like wanting to put like eight billion dollars in Las Vegas Valley for a movie studio where they gonna get eight billion.

I wondered that.

Canceling as ride offs were they gonna get eight billion bucks?

I thought they were eight billion in debt, Like I thought that was the reason they brought onzas Lap. Now they're committing to a studio here.

And they've been back on negative credit.

Walk Sony's coming here too, you know, not.

To you know, get off topic, but the only that's ever going to happen because unless the legislature like changes the tax credit for filming here, it's not gonna happen. And you know, like they gave half of that way would Elon Musk showed up Tesla. So I don't think we're ever going to get money back. And you have to have a million dollar budget in order to even qualify for it. It's really complicated. It's basically what it

But these are studios they're talking about. This isn't there a single production this is but that.

That would apply to everything they made would still fall under that tax credit, So everything they would make it be.

Cheaper, right. I keep hearing there are plans for the studio and that studio and that studio all to come here, but it's all contingent upon that, Yeah, the legislature, And.

They only mean every couple of years. Yay. So I don't know what that if that that's going to happen anytime. You know, I'd like to have make my life a lot easier.

If they know what suned their bread is buttered on exactly. That's that legislation and get fucking like four movie studios here in Evana will become new Hollywood.

It'll be more like new Atlanta. Though.

Yeah, that's fine by me, man.

It was like Hollywood too funny. I'm like, you know, they got Atlanta. It's gonna be places too filmed. The bosses are still going to live.

Work autus good.

But at the same time, it's just going to make traffic.

You know what, Let's have an exit, a mass exodus of lost from Los Angeles to here, and then we'll go there.

Oh yeah, really beach fun Yeah.

Man, the studios are still there.

Yeah man, it's a good talk. Though. I appreciate the going deep dive into the history of cinema with with an old picture like this that's been around forever and has influenced generations of cartoon maker and filmmaker. I think basically has helped introduce all people to classical music. All my education for classical music as a kid, came from anime, came from this, and came.

From Warner Brothers back when created. We're attempting to expand your mind while making giggle like an idiot.

Yeah, basically now they just want to get you to giggle like an idiot, which I don't get it, because if stuff was really well done and expanding your mind, people would tune in more.

I don't like that's up and under them, such as Fantasia.

Right, those are the thoughts that kept me out of the really.

Good fan Fantasia actually naturally leads us into what's going to be our next topic. We're gonna be looking at an Italian film from nineteen seventy seven called a Legro non Tropo. It is a one for one parody of Fantasia. It is spectacular. Can't wait, but until.

Then where it's Italian?

Oh my god, I can Oh my god. Yes you're going to dig it. But until then, Antonio, where can people find you? If they're looking for you?

You can check out my work at Swampmedia Group dot com and watch my movie Space Detective Space detectivemovie dot com.

As for me, you're here on Weading Way media where all amost of stuff that I do, but keep tuning into midnight viewing. We're twice a week show days and Fridays. Every Monday is the Father Malone Weekly round Up with with my co host my pug Ripley Gene and every Friday alternates between the Horror Anthology Podcast, where we are currently looking at Tales from the dark Side and this show Anthologies Attack, where we look at every anthology no