Melody Time is the fifth package film from the Wartime Era. It is similar to Make Mine Music where there are many short segments played after each other with no narration in between. There are seven segments that make up Melody Time; Once Upon a Time in Wintertime, Bumble Boogie, The Legend of Johnny Appleseed, Little Toot, Trees, Blame it on the Samba, and Pecos Bill.
Premiered: May 27, 1948
Directed by:
Clyde Geronimi
Wildfred Jackson
Jack Kinney
Hamilton Luske
Produced by: Walt Disney
Sequels: none
Cast:
Roy Rogers
Dennis Day
The Andrews Sisters
Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians
Freddy Martin
Ethel Smith
Frances Langford
Buddy Clark
Bob Nolan and the Sons of Pioneers
The Dinning Sisters
Luana Patten
Bobby Driscoll
Directing Animators:
Eric Larson
Ward Kimball
Milt Kahl
Ollie Johnston
John Lounsbery
Music by:
Eliot Daniel
Paul Smith
Ken Darby
Academy Awards: none
The Story:
The opening credits are shown in the form of a music book with the song “Melody Time” playing. Afterwards, an art easel, blank canvas, and paint set appear and the paintbrush starts to paint different drama masks that continue to sing “Melody Time.” The paintbrush paints the name of the titles and performers for each segment on the canvas.
First Segment: Once Upon a Wintertime sung by Frances Langford.
Snowflakes are falling outside a window. There is a desk in front of the window with two pictures on top of a man and a woman who are in love. The couple from the picture, named Joe and Jenny, are on a sleigh ride and ride past people ice skating. They go ice skating themselves on a secluded frozen pond. There are bunny couples and bird couples tagging along with Joe and Jenny. Joe shows off and covers Jenny with ice shavings, which makes her really upset. She skates away from him and Joe sadly skates in the other direction. One of the bunny couples copy Joe and Jenny’s exact behaviour. Jenny and the female bunny head onto thin ice but do not notice. The ice starts to break apart and the two end up on a piece of ice, floating down the steam. Joe and the male bunny try desperately to save their loves and succeed with some help from the other forest critters and the sleigh horses. Joe and Jenny and the bunnies leave on the sleigh and the scene ends back with the pictures on the desk and the snow falling through the window.
Second Segment: Freddy Martin and his orchestra play Bumble Boogie
A confused little bee tries to escape from an instrumental nightmare. He wards off flowers and other insects that are shaped like the instruments playing.
Third Segment: Dennis Day portraying the characters of the old settler Johnny Appleseed and Johnny’s Angel.
A book flips through pages showing American folklore symbols of greatness such as Paul Bunyan’s axe, John Henry’s Hammer, and Davy Crockett’s rifle. The book then stops on a picture of a tin pot hat, a bag of apple seeds, and the Holy Book. These items belonged to John Chapman who became the legend of Johnny Appleseed.
The story starts in 1806 with Johnny living near the town of Pittsburgh. He is singing “The Lord is Good to Me” and picking apples. He spends his days tending the apple trees but one day he sees a group of pioneers leave town and sing about heading west. He imagines himself going west as well. An angel comes and encourages him to follow his dream but Johnny does not think he is strong enough to head west. His guardian angel convinces him that the apples are very important and that they need to be grown out where the pioneers are as well. He also tells Johnny that he already has everything he needs for the journey with his tin pot hot, bag of apple seeds, and his Holy Book.
Johnny then heads off on foot and battles the elements. He walks until he finds a good spot to plant some trees with plenty of space and good soil. The forest animals are wary of humans and want Johnny to leave. A skunk comes along and the other animals think that the skunk will be enough to scare Johnny off. But Johnny just starts petting the skunk and treats him like a pet cat. The other animals decide that he is friendly and befriend him since Johnny has no knife or gun.
Winter comes and then spring time again. Johnny plants apple trees all around for the pioneers and he also shares his kindness, courage and faith. He eventually grows old and becomes an angel as well. Johnny then plants apple trees in heaven resulting in many apple blossoms in the sky (the clouds).
Fourth Segment: The Andrews Sisters singing Little Toot.
A little tugboat in the harbour of New York City wants to be a big tugboat just like his dad. Right now he is only pulling paper boats with sleeping seagulls on them though. But he has a hard time keeping out of trouble and likes to do figure eights around the ocean liners. Little Toot is a disappointment to his dad because he is so rambunctious. On day, he tries to help his dad with a big ocean liner but ends up spinning the ship around and around. This causes chaos all throughout the harbour and the ocean liner ends up on the shore of the city. Little Toot gets arrested and is banished out to sea past the 12 mile line. His dad then has to tug garbage barges. During a storm, Little Toot sees an SOS flare and tries to rescue the helpless ship nearby. After much struggle, Little Toot is able to bring the ship safely into the harbour and finally makes his dad proud.
Fifth Segment: Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians present their arrangement of Trees.
This is a simple tribute to a tree. There are deer frolicking around trees while the lyrics of the song say that there is nothing as lovely as a tree. There are squirrels living in the tree and a storm makes other animals use the tree for shelter. The sun shines and the leaves start to turn colour and fall to the ground. Winter brings snow onto the bare tree branches and then the spring rain melts the snow. The segment ends with the sun shining through the rain.
Sixth Segment: Blame it on the Samba starring Ethel Smith and the Dinning Sisters.
Donald Duck and José Carioca are walking around and are very blue. They go to Café do Samba where the Aracuan bird is there as a waiter. The Aracuan bird seats them and hands over a menu. The music starts to pick up and the Aracuan bird rips up the menu and starts to play different instruments instead. Donald and José brighten up and start to dance the Samba. There are live action shots of Ethel Smith playing the organ with Donald and José dancing on top.
Seventh Segment: Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan and the Sons of the Pioneers tell the tall tale of Pecos Bill.
The opening shot pans through a desert and shows the different wildlife that lives there. The shot lands on a live action scene of a cowboy campsite. Uncle Roy Rogers is telling a story to Luana Patten and Bobby Driscoll.
The story is about Pecos Bill, the world’s greatest buckaroo. Bill’s horse is named Widowmaker and they are best pals until a beautiful girl named Slue Foot Sue enters the scene. There is a map of Texas in the sand which turns back to animation.
A prairie wagon is heading west with 16 kids in the back. One child, named Bill, falls out and the parents do not notice he is gone. A mama coyote finds him and raises him with her own pups. Bill learns skills from other animals as well and becomes better than them at their own ability. Then a sad and dehydrated horse comes crossing the desert, being stalked by buzzards. Bill comes and rescues the horse which is the start of their friendship. Bill grows up and becomes a cowboy, the toughest cowboy who is not scared of any man or beast.
Bill is responsible for creating the Gulf of Mexico because he brought storm clouds from California to Texas to end a drought. One day, he lost his way across the desert and was desperate for water. He grabbed a stick and used it to dig up a whole river. He shot all the stars in the sky except one and that is how Texas became known as the lone star state. Bill also invented the one man rodeo by hitting heads with a buffalo.
Pecos Bill spies Slue Foot Sue one day and it is love at first sight. Widowmaker thinks that she is trouble and feels left out when Bill and Sue go on dates and then decide to get married.
For the wedding, Sue wants a new bustle and she wants to ride Widowmaker down to the church. Widowmake is not impressed with this plan and tries to buck her off. He succeeds and she keeps bouncing up and down on the ground because of her spring bustle. Pecos Bill tries to save her with a lasso but Widowmake steps on the rope and does not let him rescue Sue. Finally Slue Foot Sue bounces so high that she lands on the moon. Bill is heartbroken and goes back to live with the coyotes. He howls away his pain every night and that is why coyotes howl at the moon.
Trivia:
- The working title of this film was All in Fun.
- This was the last film to feature both Donald Duck and José Carioca until Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988.
- Luana Patten and Bobby Driscoll also acted together in Disney’s Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1949).
- “Bumble Boogie” is a swing-jazz version of “The Flight of the Bumblebee.”
- Disney produced a live action film in 1995 titled Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill.
Representation in the Disney Parks:
In Frontierland in Magic Kingdom there is Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe, a quick service restaurant with Mexican food. There is also a Pecos Bill Cafe in Westernland in Tokyo Disneyland.
The very first show at the Golden Horseshoe in Disneyland, which was an opening day attraction in 1955, was titled Slue Foot Sue’s Golden Horseshoe Revue. Pecos Bill and Slue Foot Sue were long time characters at the Golden Horseshoe.
Some of the background music in Mickey’s Toontown is from Melody Time.
Check out the other films of Disney’s Package Era:
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