Melody Time is a 1948 American musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney. It was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. The live-action and animated film is made up of seven segments set to popular music and folk music, similar to Make Mine Music (1946) as well as Fantasia (1940). Melody Time received mixed-to-positive reviews.
Vignettes According to Disney, the film's plot is as follows: "In the grand tradition of Disney's greatest musical classics, such as FANTASIA, MELODY TIME features seven classic stories, each enhanced with high-spirited music and unforgettable characters...[A] feast for the eyes and ears [full of] wit and charm... a delightful Disney classic with something for everyone". Rose Pelswick, in a 1948 review for The News-Sentinel, described the film as an "adventure into the intriguing make-believe world peopled by Walt Disney's Cartoon characters". It also explains that "with the off-screen voice of Buddy Clark doing the introductions, the... episodes include fantasy, folklore, South American rhythms, poetry, and slapstick". A 1948 review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described it as a "mixture of fantasy, abstraction, parable, music, color, and movement".
The seven "mini-musical" stories outlined:
Once Upon a Wintertime This segment features Frances Langford singing the title song about two romantic young lovers on a winter day in December, during the late 19th century. The couple are Jenny and Joe (unlike most Disney cartoons, Jenny and Joe lack spoken dialogue). Joe shows off on the ice for Jenny, and near-tragedy and a timely rescue ensues. This is intertwined with a similar rabbit couple.
Like other segments of these package films, Once Upon a Wintertime was later released theatrically as an individual short, in this case on September 17, 1954.
Bumble Boogie This segment presents a surrealistic battle for a solitary bumblebee as he tries to ward off a visual and musical frenzy. The music, courtesy of Freddy Martin and His Orchestra (with Jack Fina playing the piano), is a swing-jazz variation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, which was one of the many pieces considered for inclusion in Fantasia.
The Legend of Johnny Appleseed
A retelling of the story of John Chapman, who spent most of his life roaming the Midwestern United States (mainly Ohio and Indiana) in the pioneer days, and planting apple trees, thus earning his famous nickname. He also spread Christianity. Dennis Day narrates (as an "old settler who knew Johnny well") and provides the voices of both Johnny and his guardian angel.
The segment was released independently on December 25, 1955, as Johnny Appleseed. The piece has a running time of "17 minutes [making it] the film's second-longest piece". Before being adapted for Melody Time, the story of Johnny Appleseed was "first immortalized around campfires", then later turned into "storybook form".
Little Toot The story of Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky, in which the title protagonist, a small tugboat in New York City, wanted to be just like his father Big Toot, but could not seem to stay out of trouble.
The Andrews Sisters provide vocals. A clip features briefly in the "Friendship" song on Disney Sing Along Songs volume Friend Like Me. It was also featured in Sing Me a Story with Belle.
Trees A recitation of the 1913 poem "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer, featuring music by Oscar Rasbach and performed by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. The lyrical setting accompanies animation of bucolic scenes seen through the changing of the seasons, with an extended break between the sixth and seventh lines of the poem to accommodate a storm scene.
To preserve the look of the original story sketches, layout artist Ken O'Connor came up with the idea of using frosted cels and rendering the pastel images right onto the cel. Before being photographed each cel was laminated in clear lacquer to protect the pastel. The result was a look that had never been seen in animation before.Disney Legend Ken O'Connor
Blame It on the Samba Donald Duck and José Carioca meet the Aracuan Bird, who introduces them to the pleasures of the samba. The accompanying music is the 1914 polka Apanhei-te, cavaquinho by Ernesto Nazareth, fitted with English lyrics.
The Dinning Sisters provide vocals while organist Ethel Smith appears in a live-action role.
Pecos Bill The finale follows about Texas' famous hero Pecos Bill. Raised by coyotes, he became the biggest and best cowboy that ever lived. It also features his horse Widowmaker, who he saved from vultures that tried to eat him. He then goes on to become the most famous cowboy in folklore. It recounts the ill-fated romance between Bill and a beautiful cowgirl named Slue-Foot Sue, with whom he fell in love at first sight, which made Widowmaker so jealous of Sue that he caused her to get literally stranded on the moon on their wedding day. Heartbroken, Bill leaves civilization and rejoins the coyotes who now howl at the moon in honor of Bill's loss.
This retelling features Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan, the former's horse Trigger, and the Sons of the Pioneers telling the story to Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten, all in a live-acted introduction set against animated backdrops before segueing into the animated story. The segment was later edited on the film's NTSC video release (sans the PAL release) to remove all shots with Bill smoking a cigarette and almost the entire tornado scene with Bill rolling his cigarette and lighting it with a lightning bolt. Both the cigarette and tornado scenes were restored when the film was released on Disney+. With a total running time of "22 minutes, [it] is the lengthiest piece".
Cast The cast is listed below: Roy Rogers – Himself; Narrator; Singer (Pecos Bill) Trigger, the Smartest Horse in the Movies – Himself Dennis Day – Narrator; Singer; Characters (Johnny Appleseed) The Andrews Sisters – Singers (Little Toot) Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians – Singers (Trees) Freddy Martin – Music composer (Bumble Boogie) Ethel Smith – Organist (Blame It On the Samba) Frances Langford – Singer (Once Upon a Wintertime) Buddy Clark – Singer; Narrator Bob Nolan – Himself; Singer; Narrator (Pecos Bill) Sons of the Pioneers – Themselves; Singers; Narrators (Pecos Bill) The Dinning Sisters – Singers (Blame It On the Samba) Bobby Driscoll – Himself (Pecos Bill) Luana Patten – Herself (Pecos Bill)
+CastOnce Upon a WintertimeBumble BoogieJohnny AppleseedLittle TootTreesBlame It On the SambaPecos BillFrances Langford (Singer)Freddy Martin (Music composer)Dennis DayThe Andrews Sisters (Singers)Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians (Singers)Ethel Smith and the Dinning Sisters (Singers)Roy Rogers (Singer), Sons of Pioneers (Singers), Bob Nolan (Singer)
Music
The songs in Melody Time were all "largely based around (then) contemporary music and musical performances". "Blue Shadows on the Trail" was chosen by the Western Writers of America as one of the top 100 Western Songs of all time.
Production In late 1947, Disney announced he would be releasing a "regrouping of various cartoons at his studio under two titles, Melody Time and Two Fabulous Characters", to be released in August 1948 and 1949, respectively. Melody Time ended up being released a few months earlier than planned, in May.
Melody Time is considered to be the last anthology film made by Walt Disney Productions (the next film to be released was The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which featured two stories). These package features were "little-known short-film compilations that Disney produced and released as feature films during and after World War II". They were "financially (and artistically) lightweight productions meant to bring in profits [to allow the studio to] return to fairy tale single-narrative feature form", an endeavour which they successfully completed two years later with Cinderella. While the shorts "contrast in length, form, and style", a common thread throughout is that each "is accompanied by song[s] from musicians and vocalists of the '40s" – both popular and folk music. This sets it apart from the similarly structured Fantasia, whose segments were set to classical music instead. As opposed to Fun and Fancy Free, whose story was bound to the tales of Bongo and Mickey and the Beanstalk, in this film "Walt Disney has let his animators and his color magicians have free rein".
Melody Time was the last film The Andrews Sisters took part in. They sang throughout the 10-minute segment known as Little Toot. Andrews Sisters member Maxine said: "It was quite an experience. On the wall at the studio they had the whole story in picture form. Two songwriters played the score and Walt Disney explained it to us. It was a new thing for Disney. We sang the narrative. It was very exciting to work with Disney—he was such a gentleman".
Favorite Disney juvenile actors Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten, who also starred in Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart, appear in the last sequence as the two children who hear the story of Pecos Bill.
Melody Time was the last feature film to include Donald Duck and José Carioca until the 1988 Touchstone Pictures film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Release The film was originally released in USA, Brazil, and Argentina in 1948, in 1949 in Australia and in 1950 in Mexico and Uruguay. From December 1948 (UK) to 15 September 1954 (Denmark) the film was released across Europe. The film was known by a variety of names including Време за музика in Bulgaria, Mélodie cocktail in France, Musik, Tanz und Rhythmus in Germany, and Säveltuokio in Finland.
Disney later released a package film entitled Music Land, a nine-segment film which "recycled sequences from both Make Mine Music and Melody Time". Five selections were from Melody Time while another was the short Two For the Record, which consisted of two segments produced under Benny Goodman's direction.
Melody Time was unusual in that, until 1998 (50 years after its initial release), it remained "one of the handful of Disney's animated features yet to be released on videocassette". Some of the segments "have been re-released as featurettes", and Once Upon a Wintertime has "been included on other Disney video cartoon compilations".
Home media Melody Time was first released on January 25, 1987, in Japan, on Laserdisc, and then on VHS on June 2, 1998, under the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection title. This THX certified VHS was the first American home video release of the film itself, premiering in time for its 50th anniversary.
Prior to its 1998 home video debut in the US, in part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, Once Upon A Wintertime was featured on the VHS, A Walt Disney Christmas, Little Toot on Storybook Classics, Blame It On The Samba on The Wonderful World of Disney: Music for Everybody and Pecos Bill on the American Heroes VHS paired with Paul Bunyan.
On June 6, 2000, Melody Time was released on VHS and DVD as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. However, in the Region 1 DVD release all scenes of smoking were digitally removed in the Pecos Bill segment while the Region 2 release in Europe leaves those scenes unaltered. The movie was left uncut, with smoking scenes intact, when it was included on the Disney+ streaming service. It was released on Blu-Ray, exclusive to the Disney Movie Club, on November 2, 2021, also uncut and unaltered.
Marketing RKO supported the film's release with a nationwide promotional campaign that included radio promotion, newspaper and trade-paper advertising, and theatrical publicity. The film's New York engagement at the Astor Theatre was accompanied by additional music-oriented promotion in Times Square, including broadcasts of songs from the film and cooperation with local record stores. Contemporary promotional material emphasized the film's seven musical numbers and performers and advertised its Astor Theatre engagement.