Walt Disney’s animation department was so prolific producing a lot classic cartoons during its golden era. By the time of the 50’s and 60’s the studio was producing many cartoons by route. It’s easy to lose sight of the many shorts that were memorable during this time frame as well. Disney’s animators continued to push boundaries looking to contemporaries to challenge their own animation and storytelling styles. Many of the one shot shorts were memorable and groundbreaking. This collection gathers up those odds and ends produced from 1920 through the 1950’s making them available for the first (and presumably only) time on DVD as part of the “Walt Disney Treasures Collection”. Gatering almost as much wheat as chaff, this set is memorable not only for the classics included but even those that misfired or haven’t aged all that well. Cartoons such as “Paul Bunyan” and “Pigs Is Pigs” reflect the UPA aesthetic with the use of flat backgrounds, angular background and character designs as well as unusual color choices. “Ferdinand the Bull” and “Noah’s Ark” are both at other extremes; “Ferdinand” uses the classic Disney animation style of the late 30’s while 20 years later “Noah’s Ark” embraces the stop-motion animation style that became popular in shorts with George Pal’s Puppetoons from the 30’s and 40’s. In the case of “Noah’s Ark” however the director uses common found objects to create the characters and tell the story. Told in rhyme it’s a clever short. It’s a truly wonderful short visually undone only by the vapid songs although I’ll dmit they are occasionally charming. Also included are the classic series of “Alice” shorts that Disney made early in his career based around “Alice in Wonderland”. ---

Image & Sound:

Many of these shorts look exception although there’s still quite a bit of dirt, dust and scratches. Nevertheless these look extremely good with nice robust colors and image quality that is remarkably sharp. The mono sound is clean with minimal distortion and dialogue that comes across crisp and clear. Although the music tends to sound a bit flat at times, that’s due more to the original source recordings than to the transfer itself.

Extras:

We get extensive galleries for many of the classic cartoons included here. One thing that the Disney Studios has been great at has been saving their original artwork and designs over the years. There’s also a Community Chest short featuring Pluto called “A Feather in His Cap” and A Symposium on Popular Songs” with audio commentary by songwriter Richard Sherman and Leonard Maltin. Maltin also talks with “Alice” star Virginia Davis who was 4 years old when she first started shooting these shorts. We aso get “From Kansas City to Hollywood” that provides a timeline of Disney’s silent era and we get introductions by Leonard Maltin providing context for many of these classic shorts. Aside from being a film critic and historian Maltin also wrote one of the definitive books on animation “Of Mice and Magic” (which sadly is still out of print).

Final Words: