Richards Favorite Videos

This speaks to me much more than the original video where the singer just undresses on a snowy cliff and jumps off it.

BONUS: Lady & The Tramp version below if you’re more into the dog thing…

Featuring Clips from:
Once Upon A Wintertime from 1948’s “Melody Time”

Featuring Clips from:
Pluto’s Christmas Tree (1952)
Bambi (1942)
Peter Pan (1953)

Featuring Clips from:
Peter Pan (1953)
The Clock Watcher (1945)

Featuring Clips from:
The Sword In The Stone (1963)
Cinderella (1950)

Featuring Clips from:
The Night Before Christmas (1933)

Brave Little Tailor (1938) is a one-reel animated cartoon short subject in the Mickey Mouse series, produced in Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions, and released to theatres on September 29, 1938 by RKO Radio Pictures. It was produced by Walt Disney, directed by Bill Roberts, with principal animation by Fred Moore and Bill Tytla. It was nominated for the 1938 Academy Award for Best Short Subject: Cartoons, losing to Disney’s own Ferdinand the Bull. In 1994 it was voted #26 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.

The story is based upon the Grimm fairy tale “The Valiant Little Tailor”, and revolves around a medieval European village, which is being constantly terrorized by an evil giant. The king and his princess (Minnie Mouse) have been seeking a warrior to kill the giant, but no one is brave enough to step up to the job. In the village, a young peasant tailor (Mickey Mouse) kills seven flies at once while at his work, and accidentally interjects several other peasants’ discussion of the problems with the giant to brag loudly about his accomplishment:

Peasant (to his friends): Say, did you ever kill a giant?
Mickey (interjecting unwittingly): I killed seven (flies) with one blow!

Gossip that Mickey has killed seven giants with one blow quickly spreads around the kingdom. The king summons Mickey, and asks if he really “killed seven at one blow”. Mickey goes into an elaborate re-telling of how he killed the seven (flies, not giants as the king believes), which impresses the king enough to appoint Mickey “Royal High Killer of the Giant”. Upon learning the misunderstanding, all of Mickey’s confidence disappears and he attempts to stammer his way out of the assignment. The king offers Mickey both vast riches and the hand of Princess Minnie if he can kill (or at least subdue) the giant. Smitten with the princess, Mickey proclaims that he’ll “cut [the giant] down to my size]”, and sets off for the giant’s lair.

After only a few minutes, however, he is ready to turn back and give up, but the townspeople and Minnie are counting on him. “Gosh,” Mickey sighs to himself, wondering what to do. “I dunno how to catch a giant.”

Just then, the giant appears, forcing Mickey to scramble for a place to hide. The giant sits down to eat a cart of pumpkins(as if they were grapes), then a drink of water (using a water well as if it were a thermos) and a smoke (rolling a cigarette from a haystack Mickey was hiding in and lighting it with an oven). Mickey is caught in the giant’s cigarette, and gives his hiding place away by accidentally sneezing. The angry giant attempts to squash the tailor, who quickly produces sewing thread and a needle and bounds the giant’s limbs. With needle and thread, Mickey swings about the giant, sewing him up and causing him to fall and knock himself out. The giant subdued, Mickey returns home and is hailed as a hero. An amusement park is built on the site of the battle (powered with wind power from the snoring giant). The short ends with the king and a newly married Mickey and Minnie enjoying a ride on the carousel.

Note: This was the second to last Mickey Mouse cartoon to feature his original design; he’d be given smaller eyes with pupils, for his next films (The Pointer and Fantasia) by animator Fred Moore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter or the story of the curious oysters…
Without question, the best depiction of this story within a story.
The Walrus and the Carpenter are the titular characters in the poem, which is recited by Tweedledee and Tweedledum to Alice. Walking upon a beach one “sunny” night, the Walrus and Carpenter come upon some oysters, four of whom they invite to join them – however, to the disapproval of the eldest oyster, many more follow them. After walking along the beach, the two titular characters get hungry and eat all of the oysters. Afterward, the Walrus regrets his actions and cries, mostly because now there are no more oysters for him to eat.

In the movie Dogma (directed by Kevin Smith), a fallen angel named Loki explains his theory that the poem is really an indictment of organized religion (despite Carroll being an Anglican clergyman), with the Walrus representing Eastern religions (either Buddha or Ganesha) and the Carpenter referring to Jesus and Western religions in general. Loki chides them for eating the innocent oysters, which represent the masses under their sway. A further twist to this satirical episode is that Loki, who uses this interpretation specifically to undermine and test the beliefs of a Catholic nun with whom he is speaking, knows these beliefs to be right through his own first hand knowledge of God. Loki states he does this to the clergy to “keep them on their toes” implying he does this to test their faith and later strengthened it should they recover.

The complete Unbirthday/Mad Tea Party scene From Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney - 1951). For all its short comings and missed opportunities, it still remains the most entertaining, well paced and well constructed adaptation of Lewis Carols original.

It was released on January 1, 1943 as anti-Nazi propaganda for the American war effort. It places Donald Duck as a German soldier who works in a munitions factory.

This Silly Symphony short is a cute look at how half-babies, half-fish celebrate a circus under the sea.

The prospects were grim for the Mudville Nine that day, but all might change with CASEY AT THE BAT…

The famous poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is given a lively spoof by the Disney folks in this little film which was originally a segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946). The animation is colorful and full of good humor and the boisterous musical recitation by radio comic Jerry Colonna is a tremendous asset. Our baseball hero would return in the cartoon short CASEY BATS AGAIN (1954).

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt’s older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt’s imagination, ensuring Disney’s immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey’s screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt’s growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt’s genius was unbeatable. Mickey’s feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt’s grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

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Part 2:

Disney’s 1948 production marvellous animation.
The story of the life of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed.With a tin pot for a hat and the Bible at his side, Johnny set out into the wilderness to do his own part in helping the western march: plant apple trees all over the countryside to help feed the pioneering settlers. As evident in this sweet, gentle classic, he proved that one need not have great size or strength to make a difference.