Disney Treasures Review: Disney Rarities - Celebrated Shorts, 1920's - 1960's

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Lots of entertaining shorts that wouldn't be collected any where else

Cons: A few educational shorts that aren't entertaining

The Bottom Line:

Mainly for DisNerds

Some shorts dated or boring

Still, glad I could watch

Rarities Provides a Mixed Bag

While Disney is famous for his animated movies and series starring such staples as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, he also produced a lot of one-time cartoons over the years. Disney Rarities, a set in the Disney Treasures series, collects many of them.

Disc one actually opens with the shorts I most wanted to see from the set, the Alice shorts. These were Disney's first series of cartoons, produced in the twenties. They starred a real life girl who had all kinds of adventures in a cartoon world. While he did this more famously in Mary Poppins, these first attempts at the mixing live action and animation are quite fun and Disney fans will love getting to see them for the historical value. The effects are decent for the time, but obviously laughable by today's standards. We only get seven of the Alice shorts here, but they are enough to give us a feel for the series. The early ones feature Alice in the real world and Cartoonland, while the later ones begin to focus more and more on the cartoons, leaving the real world (and at times Alice) out of the picture.

Disc one then proceeds to give us eleven more shorts, taking us to 1953. Highlights include Oscar winner "Ferdinand the Bull" about the bull who doesn't want to fight in the arena, "Chicken Little," a World War II retelling of the fable that starts off funny but ends with a serious lesson about listening to gossip, we watch "The Brave Engineer" do everything he can to keep his train on schedule, and football practices of years gone by are compared to contemporary strategies in "Football Now and Then." Closing out this disc is "Ben and Me," Disney's retelling of Robert Lawson's fun tale on the real wisdom behind Benjamin Franklin's success, his mouse Amos.

Disc two picks up in 1954 and contains thirteen shorts that take us all the way to 1962. It opens with the hilarious "Pigs is Pigs" that shows what can happen when bureaucracy gets out of hand. Ranger J. Audubon Woodlore and Humphrey the Bear are featured in "Hooked Bear" and "In the Bag," a couple shorts about life in a national park that remind me of Yogi Bear (one of his creators worked on these characters). Cars are put on trial for lousy driving in "The Story of Anyburg, USA." And some of these shorts begin to get experimental. "Noah's Ark" features stop motion animation and animals made out of everyday objects to retell the Bible story. "A Symposium on Popular Songs" features stop motion animation of various styles to accompany the collection of song styles from the century.

And fans of children's picture book author Bill Peet - take note. During his years working for Disney, Mr. Peet often turned his story ideas into shorts. Three of them are collected here, "Morris, the Midget Moose" tells the story of Morris as he tries to overcome his ant size to fit in with the heard. "Lambert the Sheepish Lion" is about a lion that is accidentally left with a bunch of sheep by the stork. Finally, "Goliath II" is about a 5-inch tall elephant trying to live up to his father's expectations. Any fan of Bill Peet's books will recognize the themes used for these shorts. They are entertaining for all, but especially for those familiar with his books.

The problem with the set comes with some of the more musical shorts. To be brief, they aren't entertaining. Disc one includes two Adventures in Music. "Melody" and "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom" are ok, but certainly not worth watching more then once. Even "The Truth About Mother Goose," which explains the stories behind such nursery rhymes as "Little Jack Horner" and "London Bridge is Falling Down" isn't especially entertaining. They are more teaching then entertainment, and come across as such. My other complaint is milder. The shorts range from seven or either minutes to over twenty minutes each. With that wide a range, it's hard to plan how many you can watch if you just want to sit down for a few minutes.

The bonus features are interesting as always. Leonard Maltin gets the fun job of introducing each disc. Unlike other collections, he doesn't pop up to give the PC spin on any of the shorts here. He does get to interview Virginia Davis, however. It was fascinating hearing the original Alice talk about her time working for Disney and how she almost got the job of Snow White. Disc two features art galleries and an audio commentary on "Symposium of Popular Songs" by Richard Sherman, one of the composers. The commentary really helped put the short in context and helped me appreciate it more.

While all the shorts don't live up to their potential, there are still plenty of entertaining shorts here to make Disney Rarities a worthwhile purchase for Disney fans.

Shorts included in this collection:

1923 - Alice's Wonderland

1924 - Alice's Wile West Show, Alice Gets in Dutch

1925 - Alice's Egg Plant, Alice in the Jungle

1926 - Alice's Mysterious Mystery

1927 - Alice the Whaler

1938 - Ferdinand the Bull

1943 - Chicken Little

1944 - The Pelican and the Snipe

1950 - The Brave Engineer, Morris, the Midget Moose

1952 - Lambert the Sheepish Lion, The Little House

1953 - Adventures in Music: Melody; Football Now and Then; Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom; Ben and Me

1954 - Pigs is Pigs, Social Lion

1956 - Hooked Bear, Jack and Old Mac, In the Bag, A Cowboy Needs a Horse

1957 - The Story of Anyburg, USA; The Truth about Mother Goose

1958 - Paul Bunyan

1959 - Noah's Ark

1960 - Goliath II

1961 - The Saga of Windwagon Smith

1962 - A Symposium on Popular Songs