Make Mine Music

Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on April 20, 1946.

Related Topics:
Animated feature - Walt Disney - RKO Radio Pictures - April 20 - 1946

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During the Second World War, much of Walt Disney's staff was drafted into the army, and those that remained were called upon by the U.S. government to make training and propoganda films. As a result the studio was littered with unfinished story ideas. In order to keep the feature film division alive during this difficult time, the studio released four package films including this one, made up of ten unrelated segments set to music.

Related Topics:
Walt Disney - Package films

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The Martins and the Coys featured popular radio vocal group The King's Men singing the story of a Hatfields and McCoys-style feud in the mountains broken up when two young people from each side fall in love. (NOTE: This segment was later cut from the film's video release due to comic gunplay).

Related Topics:
The King's Men - Hatfields and McCoys

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Blue Bayou used animation originally intended for Fantasia which went on to inspire the name of a restaurant at New Orleans Square in Disneyland.

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All the Cats Join In is one of two segments to which Benny Goodman contributed. An inovative short in which a pencil draws the action as it is happening, and in which 1940's teens are swept away by popular music.

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Without You is a ballad of lost love sung by Andy Russell.

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Casey at the Bat featured Jerry Colona reciting the famous poem about the arrogant ballplayer whose cockiness was his undoing.

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Two Silhouettes featured two live-action ballet dancers moving in silhouette as Dinah Shore sings the title song. Animated backgrounds and characters add to the magic.

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Peter and the Wolf is perhaps the only segment to have any lasting appeal. Sterling Holloway narrates this adaptation of Prokofiev's composition about a little boy who goes out hunting for a mean old wolf.

Related Topics:
Sterling Holloway - Prokofiev

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After You've Gone again featured Benny Goodman and his orchestra as four anthropomoprhic instruments paraded through a musical playground.

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Johnny Fedora and Alice Blue Bonnett told the beautifully comic story of two hats who fall in love in a department store window. When Alice is sold, Johnny devotes himself to finding her again. The Andrews Sisters provide the vocals.

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The Whale Who Wanted To Sing at the Met was the bittersweet finale about a sperm whale with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singing grand opera. But short-sighted impressario, Tetti-Tatti believes that the whale has simply swallowed an opera singer and chases him with a harpoon. Features popular radio star Nelson Eddy as all the voices.

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Make Mine Music proved to be a slight disappointment itself, particularly from Walt Disney's critical view. It was not well received by the critics either. In succeeding years the segments were individually released as short subjects or used in various Disney television programs.

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