Toon Talk: Walt Disney Treasures - Disney Rarities and The Chronological Donald V2
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If the first disc is a bit scattershot in quality, Disc 2 certainly makes up for it, starting with the bang of Pigs is Pigs, the hysterically Seussian bureaucratic farce that still stands true today. Pigs was also the Studio’s first endeavor into so-called “limited animation�?, a technique popularized by United Productions of America (UPA) in such shorts as their Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing series, and also seen in here in Jack and Old Mac and A Cowboy Needs His Horse.

Two of Disney’s most popular characters from the mid-50’s, Ranger Woodlore and Humphrey the Bear, are in fine form in arguably their two best shorts, Hooked Bear and In the Bag (which includes the hear-it-once-and-it-is-tattooed-on-your-brain-for-all-time “Humphrey Hop�? song). Goliath II was the first film to be fully animated using the Xerox process, while a rare foray for the studio into stop motion animation is present with Noah’s Ark (highlighted by a scene-stealing lament from Mrs. Hippopotamus).

Stop motion animation also figures prominently into A Symposium of Popular Songs, the biggest treat of the whole collection for me personally, as I had never seen it before now. Paul Frees is at the top of his game voicing the lovable egomaniac Ludwig Von Drake, who here claims to be the inventor of all types of popular music from the dawn of the century up to the present time. With songs written by the Sherman Brothers, Ludwig launches into a retrospective of American music, from ragtime to Charleston to boogie-woogie to rock and roll, with each song springing to life in one stop motion animated showstopper after another. Symposium is a delightfully nostalgic trip for any fan of pop music from the first half of the twentieth century.

An Audio Commentary (a first for a Walt Disney Treasure) for Symposium is included in the second disc’s bonuses, featuring Maltin interviewing songwriter Richard Sherman, who mentions that he and his brother Robert had a lot of fun with the songs for this short as they were visiting styles that their father, Al Sherman, had written in their first time around. A “Bonus Cartoon�? (the very short A Feather In His Collar, a Community Chest commercial starring Pluto that really should have been included in his own Treasures series) and Animation Art Galleries for several of the shorts round out the bonus material.

This is where this collection as a whole comes up short; with the talents of such longtime Disney artists as X. Atencio, Bill Justice, Eyvind Earle, Sterling Holloway and Paul Frees on ample display all throughout this set, the absence of tribute featurettes for any of them is a huge missed opportunity. And of course, we must mention such M.I.A. cartoons as Susie the Little Blue Coupe and It’s Tough To Be a Bird, not to mention The Martins and the Coys, the Make Mine Music segment (released separately as a short in 1954) that was cut from that film’s DVD release but could have very easily (and, with the proper introduction, appropriately) been included here. Plus, there are five more Humphrey shorts (can’t get enough of that bear).

Of course, there is always the possibility of a Volume 2 …