Tag: Walt Disney

The Origins of the Looney Tunes

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Welcome the first official Looney Tunes month over the next few weeks I will be discussing the origins of Looney Tunes, the first three Looney Tunes Movies and three Looney Tunes videos games.

I will admit that is only scratching the surface of Looney Tunes media but in the future I might do more parts depending on how popular this one is, so with out further ado lets get into some of this rather complicated history.

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It all stared with Rudy Ising and Hugh Harman ex animators for Walt Disney in the 1920’s, when Disney’s animation studio moved to California Ising and Harman stayed behind in Kansas City where they attempted to start their own animation studio.

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Unfortunately this plan failed leaving them to work for Walt again on his Alice comedies and their biggest star at the time Oscar the Lucky Rabbit.

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Not long after this Disney’s Producer Charles Mintz (Pictured on the Right) left the studio and took Oscar the Lucky Rabbit With him, along with Ising and Harman who did a lot of work on the previous Oscar shorts, a few very successful shorts came from this decision but ultimately it all went down hill when Universal Pictures who owned the rights to Oscar the Lucky Rabbit started their own animation studio replacing Charles Mintz and leaving Ising and Harman unemployed.

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Ising and Harman in desperation to continue their dream of animating funded a live action- animation hybrid short about a black character named Bosco, this short paid off and got the animators working with Warner Bros.

Eventually Bosco starred in many of his own shorts under the name of Looney Tunes and as well as this the animators also made other various shorts with Warner Bros under the name of Merrie Melodies a name that was a parody of Disney’s popular shorts Silly Symphonies.

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After a disagreement on their contract Ising and Harman left Warner Bros and kept the rights to Bocso.

After losing Bosco Warner Bros made a new character to star in the Looney Tunes named Buddy.

Buddy was not as popular as Bosco was so Warner Bros hired new directors to help increase popularity in the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes  shorts.

Tex Avery, Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett where chosen and together they helped to make some very memorable shorts including what I consider to be one of the most important animated shorts of all time “I haven’t got a hat” this short introduced us to Beans the Cat and other animal friends including the first ever appearance of Porky Pig.

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Beans the Cat, Porky Pig and the other animal friends went on to star in their own shorts and while these were all very good, Porky Pig remained a fan favourite and the others were very soon forgotten about.

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In 1936 Mel Blanc was hired to voice some new Looney Tunes Characters that became popular between 1936 and 1944, these included Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck as well as others that became popular and beloved over the years. As the years went by more characters were added to the Looney Tunes family such as Sylvester the Cat, Tweety Pie, Wile Coyote, Road Runner and others.

These characters boosted the Looney Tunes to immense popularity making them a serious rival to Disney at the time, four of their shorts are now included in the national film registry which means that they will always be preserved and protected, these films are Porky in Wacky Land, Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening and my personal favourite Looney Tunes short What’s Opera Doc.

While these characters kept up their popularity and went on to win many academy awards this is the brief history of how they originated and in the future I might discuss the more unique variations of Looney Tunes that came decades later but for now I will leave you some YouTube links to Looney Tunes compilations to check out and I will see you for the next part of Looney Tunes month where I will be tackling one of their many video games.

I hope you enjoyed this look into the origins of the Looney Tunes

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Walt Disney’s Mickeys Once Upon a Christmas (1999) Review

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Mickeys Once Upon a Christmas was a massive deal when it came out in 1999 and I fondly remember my mother fighting her way through our local Tesco’s (Our version of Target for you Americans) to get it for me so we could watch it together on Christmas Eve that very year.

By the way this is not the Christmas Carol with Disney Characters, that movie came out in 1983, this is an anthology of three Disney cartoons which all share a similar Christmas theme and have slightly altered morals for the kids to learn from

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The first cartoon titled Donald Duck stuck on Christmas is a holiday classic. Huey, Dewey and Louie wake up on Christmas morning and act like little dirt bags throughout the day, they open their presents before the family arrive, they go outside on their new sleds without reading the card from Uncle Donald and Aunt Daisy and when the family sings Christmas carols they play with their toys instead, later on that night the boys wish upon a star that it could be Christmas every day, their wish is granted and a massive time loop begins where they are repeating the same Christmas over and over again until they eventually learn to stop being so selfish.

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A Very Goofy Christmas is the next cartoon to be shown and whats particularly cool about this one is that its actually a cartoon which takes place in the Goof Troop universe but the catch is that Goofy’s son Max is still a young child here so its actually a prequel to Goof Troops first episode, in the cartoon Goofy and Max are having relationship problems after their neighbor Pete tells Max that Santa doesn’t exist and its up to Goofy to prove to his Son that Santa is real, but Max is so torn up about what Pete told him that he manages to convince Goofy that Santa being real is an impossibility which leads Goofy down a path of pretty major depression and its up to Max to cheer his Dad up, about mid way through the cartoon Goofy makes Christmas dinner for a poor family who could never afford to do it themselves so this segment actually has two messages the first is to always respect and be charitable to those less fortunate than yourself and the other is to quite simply not be a complete arse by telling an eight year old that Santa doesn’t exist, honestly I don’t why Goofy didn’t just pelt Pete in the nose.

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The final segment Mickey and Minnie’s Gift of the Magi is based on the classic short story by William Sydney Porter where a couple go to extreme lengths to get Christmas gifts for each other and both of them even go as far as selling their prized possessions just so they can afford the perfect gift, this cartoon follows that same idea and also has a very similar ending, this may sound like the most boring cartoon out of the three of them but to be honest its probably the best one, its short, simple and it has the most Christmas themed message of them all which is that the greatest gift you can give on Christmas is yourself and you can give that by simply spending time with your family and loved ones.

So is Mickeys Once Upon a Christmas the greatest Christmas movie to be based on classic Disney characters? no its not even close but its still pretty good,  I can’t consider any of the cartoons to be bad but at the same time apart from the last one the first two are not great but they are still entertaining and with voice talents such as Jim Cummings and Bill Farmer involved its definitely worth a watch, even Kelsey Grammer is in this movie voicing the narrator and that in itself makes it worth your time to sit by the fireplace and watch these silly but wonderful Disney cartoons.

Thanks for reading

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

Pete’s Dragon 2016 Review

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petes_dragon_2016_posterOut of every Disney movie that could possibly be remade Pete’s Dragon was one that I never expected Disney to touch again, the original movie was a 1977 musical about a young boy and his pet dragon who are on the run from his abusive adoptive family, the movie is a lot of fun and the songs will be stuck in your head for years after you see it, unfortunately the movie didn’t make a lot of money at the box office and Pete’s Dragon was eventually kicked under the rug by Disney and it was never mentioned again until this year when it got remade.

petes-dragonFor the remake they didn’t take the musical route, they instead tried to make Pete’s Dragon into a Drama which is fine if its still entertaining but the problem is that it isn’t, the film is so boring that I honestly just wanted to walk out of the cinema, the CGI is amazing and Elliot the Dragon looks awesome but the tone of movie really makes the film too slow for you too really care that much about how good the CGI is, I believe that if the film wasn’t about a dragon then it would have been a half decent Drama about a family trying to adopt a little boy who they find in the woods but because its a Disney movie and it really tries to reach that younger audience it just ended up being a film that wanted to be taken seriously but ultimately ended up being trapped inside of a kids film.

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I have to admit that I really liked Elliot in this movie, he wasn’t quite as charming as the quirky cartoon dragon I’m used too but this new version of Elliot more closely resembled an actual animal which was really cool to see, I notice a lot of people complaining that they didn’t like the directors choice to make Elliot act like a big green dog at times but I personally found it gave him a more playful and cuddly personality, I just wanna give him a big old hug.

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The casting is great, I love the cast from the original film but I never really liked the actor who played Pete (Sean Marshall) and in the remake the actor who played Pete (Oakes Fegley) was surprisingly really good at acting,I felt his emotions throughout this movie and I hope that this role pays off for him and he gets to be in a lot more films in the future, the rest of the cast was also very good but honestly the 1977 version had Mickey Rooney and you just cant top that.

Am I saying that the movie is terrible? no but I would be surprised if you don’t end up falling asleep or giving up half way through.

What did you think of Pete’s Dragon?

Do you agree with my opinion of the film?

Thanks for reading

you can contact me at ragglefragglereviews@gmail.com

 

A Goofy Movie (1995) Review

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A lot of Disney shows from the late 80’s and early 90’s were very well written and this usually resulted in those shows being turned into a movie at some point a classic example is Duck Tales, Duck Tales was an extremely popular cartoon back in the 90’s and it still is very well known today the show its self was about Uncle Scrooge and his three nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey looking for ancient treasures so they can become rich and the movie followed this same premise making it less like a movie and more like an extended episode of the show.

I watched Goof Troop growing up and it was literally about Goofy being a goof ball, his son Max being in High School and the antics of his grumpy neighbour Pete and his crazy family, so I expected the Goof Troop movie to be the same but longer and yeah it has most of that but it also sends a very important message, the importance of family bonding.

The movie is essentially that Max is a Teenager who wants to move on with his life making his own decisions and learning from his own mistakes, but his Dad Goofy doesn’t want to lose his son so he keeps being over protective while at the same time constantly trying be with Max, Max manages to get in a lot of trouble at school while trying to impress a girl and not long after this the principle calls Goofy and this causes him to organise a camping trip for himself and Max so that they can bond, but the problem is that Max is supposed to be going to a party with a girl he really likes.

Obviously the camping trip Causes Max to have to cancel the date which results in him disappointing the girl, this causes Max to lie to the girl telling her that he is going to be on stage at the rock concert that’s being streamed live over television at the party, the rest of the movie is just a road trip where Max and Goofy attempt to bond and at first things don’t go too well because Max is still mad that he has to cancel his date, throughout the movie this slowly changes and both Max and Goofy start to get along more due to them sharing time together during activities that they both enjoy for example Goofy sits through a vehicle stunt show which he doesn’t like and Max visits a yarn museum which he finds boring but his Dad really enjoys.

things seem to be going really well and then both Max and Goofy fight again, which is great because it shows that these things take time and a few days away together is not going to immediately fix what started off as broken relationship, there’s a really well directed scene near the end of the movie where Max is reading the map and has to decide if he wants to tell his Dad to take a left or a right at a junction where left goes to LA and right goes to the camp site this leaves Max in a difficult situation where he needs to decide what’s more important his relationship with the girl he likes or the relationship between himself and his father, this movie is kind of deep which really surprises me considering that this movie is about Goofy.

I think the plot and the message of the movie is brilliant its not often that we get a Disney movie that isn’t talking about some great danger that’s going to happen, or the murder of someone’s parent or how to become a hero but instead shows an issue that is a reality between a lot teenagers and parents and for that alone this movie deserves a gold medal.

The animation is nothing spectacular but I don’t really expect much considering that this is not a Disney Classic and I don’t think it even went into theatres so this doesn’t bother me too much, the best way I can describe it is that the animation is very similar to that of the original show but with a bit more polish, more vibrant colours, added shadows and shading, more artistic detail and it genuinely just looks better.

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I couldn’t really get into any of the musical numbers as they generally just weren’t that interesting and I don’t feel that this movie needed to be a musical because apart from in the final song where Max and Goofy discuss each others true feelings about their relationship none of the songs did anything to progress or benefit the movie, also I kinda wish that more of Pete’s family were in the movie as they are by far my favourite characters from the show and I always felt the Pete and his family were the cause of a lot Goof Troops greatest moments, apart from that this is surprisingly a really good film that spreads a very important message that I believe will benefit both adults and their children.

If you haven’t yet seen A Goofy Movie go give it a shot as it may leave you pleasantly surprised.

Thank you for reading my review of A Goofy Movie

By Padawan

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Walt Disney’s Bambi Review

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Released in 1942 by Walt Disney, Bambi really is one of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. Just looking at the first few frames of the movie really helps show the amount of effort Disney put into Bambi and the animation they produced really helped bring the movie to life. 

ImageBambi is about a young fawn (Baby Deer) called Bambi, The whole movie is pretty much the story of Bambi growing up but the movie really does make the audience feel like this is a real wild animal and before you complain that the movie is too cutesy at the beginning I have only one thing to say ITS A BABY OF COURSE ITS GOING TO BE CUTE !!. 

Bambi provides its audience with some beautiful background work and some very good character development all the animals really do seem like their real animals for example Bambi has two main friends in the movie A rabbit called Thumper and a Skunk called Flower which turned out to be a dude which was a big surprise. Thumper is very similar to an actual rabbit because of the way he acts and because he thumps his foot just like a what an actual rabbit does when feeling certain emotions such as excitement or fear. Flower is very shy and hardly comes out to play, as you may know skunks are not very sociable creatures and feel threatened very often so its not often that a skunk will come out of hiding, Disney decided to make the skunk very bashful I guess this was so that children watching the film didn’t feel like the skunk was afraid or upset.

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At the moment the movie may seem very girly but I can assure you that by the second half the movie really starts to pick up with some very well designed action sequences. This mostly happens after that infamous scene which made children all over the world cry

By far apart from the animation my favourite part of Bambi is most definitely the music, The character Bambi actually has music for everything it does as if the music is part of Bambi himself as a baby the music is very soothing and almost comical but as Bambi grows up Bambi’s music changes to a more intense level and this helps show the changes that Bambi has to make in order to survive by himself in the wild. Even the rain and the wind has its own music my particular favourite is the song little april showers which plays during the raining scene, each drop of rain is a new note in the song and this helps give of a really cool and rather clever effect. 

Bambi is beautiful movie but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone only to people who can appreciate cinema for other things other than story. Don’t get me wrong Bambi has a great story but I feel that everything else deserves more appreciation from the critics because of how well it is all executed. You can clearly tell that this is a Disney movie and personally I think its one which is definitely worthy of being called a classic

Hope you enjoyed this blog

This blog was written by Dan (Padawan)

Walt Disneys Snow white and the seven dwarfs review

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As well as being the first animated movie by Disney Snow White and the seven dwarfs is also the first full length animated movie to ever be made so it only seems right to pay tribute to it.

Released in 1937 Snow White and the seven dwarfs is the story of a young princess called Snow White (named for having skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony). The Evil Queen gets told by her mirror that Snow White is pretty than her and the Evil Queen is not having this so she hires a hunter to kill Snow White and bring back her heart. In the mean time Snow White falls in love with a prince who quite literally only has a few lines in the whole movie and most of those lines are sung, any way the hunter finds Snow White but he won’t kill her because apparently she is to pretty and so he tells her to run away and instead he brings what I believe is the heart of a pig to the evil queen. It isnt long until the Queen finds out that Snow White is still alive and shes decides to kill Snow White herself the Evil Queen poisons an apple and takes the form of an old hag before hunting for Snow White

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Snow white finds 7 Dwarfs (Happy, Sneezy, Grumpy,Sleepy,Bashful, Dopey and Doc) and she hides out in their cavern, the Dwarfs go to work in he mines and The Evil Queen finds snow white in her hag form and she offers her he apple.

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Snow White takes a bite out of the Apple and she dies, the Queen takes off not realising that Snow White can be brought back to life with a kiss from her true love.

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For a film that came out in 1937 I have got to say I’m impressed the animation is spectacular for the time, the film has some very delightful songs and as a whole its a very enjoyable film. I recommend seeing this one not just because its a good film also because it is Walt Disneys first animated movie making it a very important part of animation history.

Saturday animated movie review: Walt Disneys Tarzan

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Tarzan was the first movie I ever saw in the cinemas as a kid and it was also the first disney movie I had ever seen.

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Tarzan is the story of baby who lived in the jungle with his family and at the same time some gorillas also had a baby. Sadly a cheetah kills the gorilla baby and it also kills baby Tarzans parents, the mother gorilla finds baby Tarzan abandoned and so she takes baby tarzan to her gorilla partner Curshak but sadly he dosent like Tarzan as much as she does. Later on the movie skips ahead a few years and we see that tarzan is now a young man, the movie than skips ahead a few more years and Tarzan is now an adult. This is where the movie kicks in as Tarzan meets the british love of his life Jane.

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Jane had come to Africa with her father and the soon to be villain of the movie Clayton (I don’t know if their is any relationship between Clayton and Janes family) to see the Gorillas.

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Like I said Clayton is not straight away the villain until we find out that he dosent just want to see the gorillas and he actually wants to shoot them so he sell their heads and fur for money and the lenghts he goes to, to try and suceed in this.

Tarzan may not have a bad ass villain song but it does have a bunch of amazing tracks by none other than the music legend Phil Collins, some really smooth and rather impressive animation  and in my opinion one of the best story lines in disney history. If you have not yet seen Tarzan then I reccomend that you watch it.