Fantasia

11/18/2018

Disney Character Profile: Mickey Mouse

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Today marks the 90th anniversary of the premier of “Steamboat Willie”, which Disney marks as the birthday of one Mickey Mouse. Mickey is a bit hard to write about, because what do you say? Walt was very good at writing a story, and his story about Mickey is more or less the story of the company itself. With Mickey as the company mascot, the two are so entwined that to tell the history of one precludes the other.  Mickey is such an iconic symbol he is recognized across the world, as recognizable as the Buddha, Jesus, and the Coca-Cola logo.

But he’s also a character.

He’s been in shorts, in films, on TV, on radio, in comics– if Disney could make it, Mickey was on it. Lunch boxes. Toothbrushes. Gas masks. There is a definitive character to him, a distinctive “Mickeyness” that he has no matter where he is.

So let’s delve into that.

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03/04/2017

The Best Songs of Disney’s Golden Age

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The Walt Disney Company is responsible for some of the most recognizable music of the 20th and 21st centuries. From “When You Wish Upon a Star” to the recently Oscar-nominated “How Far I’ll Go”, they’ve put out so many great albums, and have more platinum albums (20, according to the RIAA search function) than Led Zeppelin (18), Madonna (17), or Bob Dylan (15). Kids around the world learn the lyrics to their favorite songs, from their favorite movies– every girl knows the feature song for their favorite princess, at least.

And that is what we’re talking about.

In this series, I am going to go through every Disney soundtrack that accompanies each of the Disney Animated Canon– currently, 56 films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and going to Moana— and pick the best song out of each album. I will be breaking this series up by era and releasing them over the next couple of months, with other stuff in between so that this doesn’t just turn into a Disney blog. This week, we focus on the Golden Age of Disney. This era includes Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, and Bambi. These first five movies are all classics, made in quick succession within the span of 6 or 7 years. These movies put the Disney company on the map as a movie studio, establishing the tropes that they continue to use, and setting the standard for family entertainment for years to come.

So, like, no pressure, right?

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01/25/2017

Disney’s Top 15 John Williams Moments

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The Walt Disney Company is responsible for some of the most recognizable music of the 20th and 21st centuries. From “When You Wish Upon a Star” to the recently Oscar-nominated “How Far I’ll Go”, they’ve put out so many great albums, and have more platinum albums (20, according to the RIAA search function) than Led Zeppelin (18), Madonna (17), or Bob Dylan (15). Kids around the world learn the lyrics to their favorite songs, from their favorite movies– every girl knows the feature song for their favorite princess, at least.

But that’s not what we’re talking about.

A John Williams Moment is a moment in a film that is carried by the music. The last time I talked about these, I talked about the man himself, and that was easier to some extent. That’s because John Williams moments are generally not musical numbers (there will be some exceptions in the list, but bear with me for now). Disney, on the other hand, is the champion of the movie musical, more so than most other studios. This means that many moments of high emotional impact are sung– “Let it Go”, for example, or “Part of Your World”. That’s not a John Williams moment. Luke looking out at the binary sunset contemplating his future and dreams, that’s a John Williams moment. But given this is Disney, some of the following “moments” are more full scenes/sequences. Here are what the rules will be:

  1. It has to be something that Disney put their name on. This list will not have PIXAR (they deserve their own list), LucasFilm (kinda covered that in the last post), Marvel (they don’t really have great scores), or Touchstone pictures.
  2. If there is singing, it will not be by a named character (that is, one named on screen), at the very least. Disney has some great choral scores and I want to recognize that tradition.
  3. There will be some live-action, a lot of animation, and one from the park. That’s not really a rule, more of a statement.

As before, this will be in chronological order, because my brain hurts just picking only 15.

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