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Rating:  - Another Shot At "Fantasia"
Walt's original dream for "Fantasia" was to keep adding new segments to it, and removing older ones. "Fantasia" was a failure, but other packaged features before this film had been a hit("Saludos Amigos" and "The Three Caballeros"). The best part about this film is that it contains a deleted scene from "Fantasia" set to new music, "Blue Bayou." If you are a "Fantasia" fan, I recomend this film to you. I wish Disney would have not edited it, but I don't understand why they would go through the trouble to delete things from it, but they wouldn't fix the picture and sound.
Rating:  - Let's make mine a complete copy...
The eighth "canon" movie released by Disney, it's easy to see that this was to be a more modern version of Fantasia.
What to expect:
"A Musical Fantasy - Blue Bayou" = This great version of swans in their natural environment was originally supposed to be part of "Fantasia", with the music of "Clair De Lune" by Debussy, but was cut due to length. The new music was added to this short before the theatrical release.
"A Jazz Interlude - All the Cats Join In" = What can I say about this number? It almost seems like it should have been cut instead of the rather cute "Martins and McCoys" segment. Rather dated by today's standards.
"A Ballad In Blue - Without You" = Andy Russell provides the narration and song for this rather charming and sad tale.
"A Musical Recitation - Casey at the Bat" = Jerry Colonna was well cast as the narrator of one of America's finest baseball stories. Well worth watching - especially if one has "Melody Time" and it's sequel to this cartoon, "Casey Bats Again", also voiced by Colonna.
"Ballade Ballet - Two Silhouettes" = Rotoscoped from images of real ballet, "Two Silhouettes" provides an "intermission" of sorts between "Casey" and the rest of the movie. Dinah Shore provides vocals.
"A Fairy Tale With Music - Peter and the Wolf" = Sterling Holloway provides one of the greatest narrations of his career with this fine rendition of one of the only classical musical numbers that is supposed to have a story told with it. Well worth the price of admission alone.
"A Jazz Interlude - After You've Gone" = another intermission?
"A Love Story - Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet" = Oddly enough, this is the other main reason I bought this disk. The story of two hats originally in a haberdaher's shop, the story of love found, love lost, and love regained always will have a special place in some corner of my heart.
"Opera Pathetique - The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met" = Nelson Eddy provides the narration for this segment that ends the movie on a sad note. We are warned at the onset that this will be an oprea in the style of "Pathetique" - and "Pathetique" operas always have rather unhappy endings. However, this segment was one of the two that I originally bought this disc for - the segment of Willy doing "Mephistopheles" is great.
And the remaing cartoons, "Music Land", "The Band Concert" and "Farmyard Symphony" add some real luster and more musical numbers to this disc. I found "Music Land" a charming way to have a transition between Fantasia, with all classical music, and this movie, with more 'modern' (for the time) numbers. "The Band Concert" is Mickey Mouse at his very best, and the Disney animator's finest moment. "Farmyard" adds another Disney classic cartoon to the mix we already have.
But I would have rather they cut all the cartoons, and allowed the "Martins and McCoys" segment to remain. This disc still could have had the original "Martins and McCoys" segment, even as an "additional feature", and will be forever incomplete without it, unless it is later added back in for a "Masterpiece" edition.
Still worth adding to a collection of Disney shorts made into feature films.
Rating: - Wonderful musical shorts entertain my 3-year-old
I read the negative reviews and was very surprised as I thought this dvd was very charming and low-key compared to more recent and popular dvds for children. I like the music, and my 3-year-old watches the Peter and the Wolf segment over and over again. I highly recommend this dvd for the music, the animation, and especially for young children.
Rating:  - Editing for PC reasons insults Disney fans
I purchased this DVD with the expectation of owning an accurate and complete version of one of my favorites from Disney's '40's catalog. Unfortunately, what I got was a butchered version that was missing one entire segment ("Martins and the Coys"). I phoned Disney's video customer service department and expressed my displeasure. The spokeswoman said that the segment had been removed "because of the guns" (!). I advised her that the segment was only a comic spoof (albeit based on a real hillbilly feud) and that that episode had been shown many times on the old network Disney show as well as the Disney Channel. I likewise advised her that I was a gun owner (although not a hillbilly one) and that Walt Disney himself had been a gun owner. I noted that firearms were featured in a number of other Disney films (e.g., "Davy Crockett") and those films had not been censored upon release to the home market.
I almost returned the DVD for a refund (and probably should have) but decided to keep the thing for what content it has. I feel all Disney fans, especially those who purchase this DVD, should give appropriate input to Disney. This release is certainly not the only example of censorship (e.g.,editing in "Melody Time", withholding of "Song of the South" from the US home video market, etc.) by today's Disney Company.
Also, for what it's worth, the video transfer quality is not all that great on this one either.
Rating: - Disappointing edits
Apparently Disney bowed to political correctness when they edited out so much of this classic. It saddens me that they did this. There's no way I can recommend this since Disney cut the heart out of it.
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