Make Mine Music is composed of ten short segments, all of which contain music or poetry. The first segment, The Martins and the Coys was part of the original release but has been taken out of any home media releases in North America for comedic gun use. The DVD I watched for this post only included the other nine segments but I have listed The Martins and the Coys as the first segment for historical purposes.
Premiered: April 20, 1946 in New York City
Directed by:
Jack Kinney
Clyde Geronimi
Hamilton Luske
Bob Cormack
Josh Meador
Produced by: Walt Disney
Sequels: None
Cast:
Nelson Eddy
Dinah Shore
Benny Goodman
Andrews Sisters
Jerry Colonna
Andy Russell
Sterling Holloway
Tatiana Riabouchinska
David Lichine
Pied Pipers
King’s Men
Ken Darby Chorus
Music by:
Eliot Daniel
Ken Darby
Charles Wolcott
Oliver Wallace
Edward Plumb
Allie Wrubel
Bobby Worth
Academy Awards: None
The Story:
The opening credits begin over a nighttime cityscape which pans down to a theatre. The credits are shown to look like upcoming event posters with the title song “Make Mine Music” playing. The doors of the theatre open up and a playbill reads “Program: Make Mine Music” and opens up to a front page reading “A Musical Fantasy, In Ten Segments.”
First Segment: A Rustic Ballad sung by the King’s Men titled The Martins and the Coys.
In a forest are two cabins on top of opposite hills. The cabins belong to two feuding families, the Martins and the Coys. The families are all sleeping when drunken Grandpa Coy sneaks over the Martins’ homestead to steal eggs. A chicken runs away and tattles on him and gunfire ensues. The two families shoot at each other back and forth until their cabins are destroyed. The families are all dead and float up to the clouds as ghosts. Back down in the forest, Grace Martin and Henry Coy are sneaking around and trying to shoot each other with all of the ghosts cheering them on. However, when the two see each other, they instantly fall in love. They have a wedding celebration at the Possum Track School with a country dance. Afterwards they drive off to their own cabin which is located between the two family hills. The two start fighting and carry on the family feud.
Second Segment: A Tone Poem sung by the Ken Darby Chorus called Blue Bayou.
The moon is glowing in the night sky until it is completely covered by the slow moving clouds. The scene drops down into the bayou and then pans onto a waking egret. The elegant bird wades into the water before taking off and soaring over the bayou. The egret lands and the scene then follows the moon’s reflection in the crystal blue water until it reaches another egret. This second egret takes off and flies over to the first egret. The two birds take off and soar around the bayou together.
Third Segment: A Jazz Interlude featuring Benny Goodman and his orchestra. This segment is All the Cats Join In: A Caricature.
A sketch book opens with a moving pencil. The first page shows a juke box and then the pencil flips the page and writes “and a” and draws a cat on the second page. The pencil erases the cat and draws a teenage boy instead. The teenager needs a coin to make a phone call and the pencil draws the phone line all the way to a house where a teenage girl and her little sister race to answer the ringing phone. The boy wants the older sister to join him at the juke box so she quickly gets ready as her little sister tries to tag along. The pencil draws stairs for the teenage girl to run down and a railing for the sister to slid down but she doesn’t make it to the front door in time and it gets slammed in her face. The teenage boy picks up the teenage girl in his car and they head to the malt shop and pick up their friends along the way. The pencil draws the road in front of them and when they get to the malt shop, they all dance. The employee there makes them a giant banana split and giant sandwiches. Someone appears playing the ukulele but the other teenagers are not impressed and throw him out. The juke box ends up exploding into colourful music notes.
Fourth Segment: A Ballad in Blue featuring Andy Russell singing Without You.
The scene is all dark except for a window showing the rainy night. A light is shined in the room and reveals a letter on the desk. The shot slowly focuses on the outside of the window and onto a droopy and sad-looking tree. The focus is then on the starry sky and the animation illustrates the lyrics of the song. Dawn starts to break and the scene pans back through the window and ends in the dark room.
Fifth Segment: A Musical Recitation by Jerry Colonna titled Casey at the Bat.
This segment starts off by showing numerous paintings of people enjoying a city park before heading to the park’s baseball ground. The teams are Visitors verses Mudville and Mudville is losing. There are different players that have a hard time hitting the ball. The crowd wants Casey to come out and so he steps up to the bat. The pitcher is scared of Casey, who is too snobby to even attempt to hit the first two pitches. After the third pitch, the scene changes to show different areas of the park as a way of suspense over if Casey has hit the ball or not. There are birds chirping, bands performing in the bandstand, and children playing. Then it starts to rain over the baseball field. The mighty Casey has struck out! He is so upset that he has destroyed the entire baseball field as he tries to hit the baseball over and over again.
Sixth Segment: A Ballade Ballet featuring dancers Tatiana Riabouchinska and David Lichine. Dinah Shore sings the song Two Silhouettes.
A heart turns into two cherubs who open up a rod iron gate to reveal two silhouettes of ballerinas slowly dancing together. There is animation of fountains, flowers, and leaves dancing around the ballerinas. The cherubs reappear and fly the ballerinas up to dance in the clouds. The shot pans out back to the cherubs who close the gate and turn back into a heart.
Seventh Segment: A Fairy Tale with Music by Sergei Prokofiev and narrated by Sterling Holloway called Peter and the Wolf.
Sterling Holloway explains that each character in the story is represented by an instrument and an example is given to introduce the characters.
Peter by the string quartet
Sasha the Bird by the flute
Sonia the Duck by the oboe
Ivan the Cat by the clarinet
Grandpapa by the bassoon
Gunfire by kettledrums
The Wolf by horns and cymbals
The first scene shows that the setting is very snowy. There are wolf footprints in the snow and the scary wolf is creeping around. The scene then shows little Peter’s house. He leaves his home to go capture the wolf with his pop gun but Grandpapa catches Peter and brings him back inside. Peter thinks that he is a great hunter and is very disappointed at being kept inside. Grandpapa then falls asleep so Peter grabs his pop gun and sneaks out again. Sasha the bird comes out of his little bird house in the forest and joins Peter. He is very excited about the hunt! The wolf’s shadow appears but it turns about to just be Sonia the duck. Sonia wants to join the party but imagines the wolf attacking back and gets scared. Ivan the cat sneaks through the grass and pounces at Sasha. Peter stops Ivan and rescues Sasha. Now Peter and the three animals set out to find the wolf.
They find the wolf and are all very scared! The animals stay very close to Peter and Peter shoots his pop gun at the wolf….which does nothing. Peter runs off with Sasha and Ivan but Sonia is too slow and gets caught by the wolf. The rest are all up in a tree and crying. Sasha works up the courage and attacks the wolf but lands in the wolf’s mouth. He just manages to escape but the wolf eats his hat. Sasha gets overconfident and knocks himself out by flying into a tree. Ivan then comes to the rescue and ties up the wolf’s tail to a rope and pulls him away from Sasha. The wolf then tries to attack Ivan and Peter at the other end of the rope.
Peter and his friends hear and then see some hunters approaching. Sasha has woken up and goes to get them. He points them in the direction of the wolf. There are prints in the snow that make it look like the wolf has gotten Peter and Ivan but when the hunters arrive, the wolf has been tied to the tree.
The hunters and Peter parade the capture wolf through the town. Little Sasha is still in the forest is sad about Sonia but then Sonia comes out of a tree. He wasn’t eaten after all. They both race off to town to catch up with their friends.
Eighth Segment: Features the Goodman Quartet: Cole, Weiss, Wilson, and Goodman singing After You’ve Gone.
This segment features six anthropomorphized instruments. There is the clarinet, bass, piano, bass drum, snare drum, and cymbal. The instruments run up and down sheet music.
Ninth Segment: A Love Song sung by the Andrews Sisters titled Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet.
At a Bonton Shop in New York City are two hats on display in the front window. They fall in love and dream of a beautiful hat box for two. But then Alice is bought at $23.94. She is packed up in a hat box and leaves the store. Johnnie is left all alone and is very sad. He is then sold as well and is very happy to venture out of the store. Johnnie is looking everywhere for Alice around the city. He hears her song in a crowd but can’t actually spot her. He leaves his owner’s head to get caught in the wind and flies to where Alice is getting on a trolley. Johnnie does not reach her in time and goes through many mishaps. He is picked up by a homeless man and goes to a saloon where a fight breaks out. He is then left by the trash and a wind blows him across town and through the different seasons. He returns to his department store in the spring but is swept down the road and almost into the storm drain. He gets caught just in time and his new owner cuts out holes in his brim to fit over a horse’s ears. Johnnie sees that beside him is Alice and they can then be beside each other for years and years on horses that pull an ice truck.
Tenth Segment: An Opera Pathetique presenting Nelson Eddy. He does all of the voices for the tragic story of The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met.
The scene opens with newspapers blowing in the wind and focuses on articles about a mystery voice singing at sea and a singing whale has been spotted. Everyone is reading these articles and talking about the singing whale. The experts and biologists do not think that a singing whale could be possible.
Professor Tetti-Tatti is trying very hard to figure out the mystery and comes to the conclusion that the whale must have swallowed an opera singer. He goes over his other famous discoveries and decides to try to rescue the opera singer. He gathers up lots of publicity and heads out to sea. A friend of Willie the Whale’s, a gull, misinterprets Tetti-Tatti’s expedition and thinks that he is looking for Willie to audition him for the opera. Willie is singing and entertaining seagulls, seals, and pelicans. The gull finds him and brings him to Tetti-Tatti’s boat. Willie decides to sing “Figaro” for his “audition.” Tetti-Tatti tells the sailors to shoot the whale and Willie is so engrossed with his singing that he does not notice. The sailors are captivated by the singing and don’t want to shoot him. Willie can sing in tenor, baritone, and bass so Tetti-Tatti thinks that he has actually swallowed three opera singers.
A sequence follows of what it would be like for Willie to actually sing at the Met. He stars in many sold-out shows. Back in the stormy ocean, Tetti-Tatti shoots the harpoon and kills Willie. Willie then only sings in heaven as an angel.
Trivia:
- The Blue Bayou segment was originally created to accompany the song “Clair de Lune” for Fantasia.
- As a whole, this film has never been theatrically rereleased.
- All the Cats Join In is a reference to the term Hepcat, meaning someone associated with the jazz subculture of the 1940s.
- Casey at the Bat received a sequel in the 1954 stand-alone short Casey Bats Again.
- The visiting team Mudville is playing in Casey at the Bat is Burbank, which is where the Walt Disney Studios are located.
- The Martins and The Coys is based on the historical Hatfield – McCoy feud.
Representation in the Disney Parks:
Casey’s Corner is a quick service restaurant on Main Street at the Magic Kingdom and Disneyland Paris. Also at Disneyland Paris on the Les Pays des Contes de Fées attraction is a scene for Peter and the Wolf.
A restaurant at Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland shares the same name as the Blue Bayou.
Some of the background music in Mickey’s Toontown is from Make Mine Music.
Check out the other films of Disney’s Package Era:
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