Scary Tales
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Scary Tales
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.....Despite a reputation for pleasant (and, depending on who you talk to, bland) family entertainment, the Disney Studios have long enjoyed a string of darker themes in many of their cartoons. The Scary Tales volume of the Cartoon Classics collection reflects this, collecting six of Disney's "horror" shorts. While crippled by standing company policies ("Hell's Bells" and "The Mad Doctor", two celebrated black and white shorts, were on Disney's suppressed distribution list at the time), this volume was a great primer for that "dark side" of the Disney staff. This volume was condensed for the second Cartoon Classics series into "Donald's Scary Tales," which featured the three Donald Duck cartoons from this cassette. Running Time: Approx. 43 Minutes
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Introduction - Obviously, we've got the customary copyright stuff, which looks pretty nice compared to the one in the Limited Gold series. The Walt Disney Home Entertainment fanfare is cut off with some horribly '80s-ish video effects to produce the very Las Vegas-like Walt Disney Home Video logo and slogan ("The magic lives on..."? Yeah, when Roy comes back in '84 with the not-yet-evil Michael Eisner). The Cartoon Classics logo is equally Vegas-esque, although it actually works. The ditty that plays over the cartoon footage is happy and joyful-so much so, that it easily could have been a theme for Pluto in another life. And if you think the logo for this tape looks cheesy, the words "Scary Tales" flash. Yes, the birth of video editing was a dark time. |
| "Donald Duck and the Gorilla" - A much superior re-imaging of the "escaped gorilla" motif that was first used in 1930's "The Gorilla Mystery" (a creepy, though somewhat poorly aged Mickey Mouse short), this cartoon really shines in the chase sequence towards the end between Donald and the gorilla, which is an exercise in exaggerated graphic design. Also worth laughs is the radio announcer with all the answers at the right moment, who ends every statement with a nonchalant, "Breckenridge." |
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"Duck Pimples" - Without a doubt the most surreal and effectively creepy Disney short I've ever seen. This short, much like Tex Avery's classic MGM short "Who Killed Who?" (which predates this short by about two years), spoofs radio murder mysteries of the era, right down to the organ music. The "dame" in this short, Colleen, is eerily reminiscent of Jessica Rabbit, implying not only a further Tex Avery influence on this cartoon, but a possible second inspiration for Jessica (who was famously inspired by Avery's famed cartoon dream girl, Red Hot Riding Hood). The short ends quite abruptly as the video editor for this cassette cut off the end credits save a couple of frames. |
| "The Skeleton Dance" - Easily the main selling point of the tape, "The Skeleton Dance" looks fairly decent here despite the rather dicey transfer (which, since "The Skeleton Dance", like most all Disney shorts from 1928 and 1929, is zoomed in a bit too much because it's aspect ratio is about 1.27:1 versus the standard 1.33:1 ratio of TV sets and most other Golden Age films). That's not to say that the print is perfect, though-the film is marked with tons of scratches. Unlike the recent DVD release, this is not a reissue print, as the opening is silent (as opposed to the DVD, which opens with an audio sample from "The Mad Doctor"). All in all an excellent choice for this tape. |
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"Haunted House" - This Mickey short is presented in a near-pristine reissue print (which also qualifies as the earliest-produced Disney cartoon that I've seen with the original opening titles stripped), and is certainly a perfect companion piece to "The Skeleton Dance". It's also very short as far as Disney cartoons go, but very good, and very indicative of the character Mickey was quickly becoming. |
| "Donald's Lucky Day" - The third and final Donald cartoon on the tape is the oldest of the lot, and the one where the horror (the bomb that Donald is supposed to deliver) is the least explicit for most of the short. Additionally, much attention is spent on superstitions-a key aspect of the "horror" motif, but one that is almost always invoked humorously in film and television. |
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"Pluto's Judgement Day" - The final short (which is incidentally the first Mickey Mouse short to my knowledge that was distributed by R-K-O Radio Pictures) in this collection is unfortunately the one most in need of a restoration as presented on this cassette. The colors are heavily faded, the transfer is fuzzy and inaccurate, and the soundtrack cuts out a number of times, most noticeably during the opening image of Mickey. There's also a splice in the cartoon, as a substantial portion of the animation where Pluto's feline jury leaps down from the jury box is missing-a moment likely caused by a break in the film (and backed up by the telltale tape splice that's perceptible when using the slow motion setting at this point). The film nearly breaks while the flames eat away at the rope that stands between Pluto and his final punishment, and the short ends with the film breaking. So you can certainly imagine my horror at seeing this short after being so used to the wonderfully restored version on the Mickey Mouse in Living Color DVD. |
| Walt Disney Home Video Promotional Ad - Dear lord. Granted, I have a promotional catalog that was packaged with the Limited Gold Edition series in 1984, but there's nothing like actually seeing parts of the films Disney had available for sale in 1983-1984. Ranging from impeccable prints ("Thru The Mirror" and The Watcher in the Woods) to atrocious ones ("Boat Builders", Mary Poppins, "Lonesome Ghosts", and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea), this ad is a stunning surprise to all but the most jaded of present day viewers. Firstly, most of the material seen is from live action Disney films and TV shows-the whopping majority of which was produced between 1967 and 1982. For reference, the titles listed at the end of the ad (mostly in a series of stills taken from '60s and/or '70s era theatrical trailers) are: The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, The Watcher in the Woods (which was one of a number of '70s Disney films released on DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment before Disney themselves released the films on the format), Gus, Treasure Island, Dumbo, The Shaggy Dog, Davy Crockett and the River Pirates (a feature film version of the final two episodes of the Davy Crockett TV series), Condorman (see the guy with the wings?), The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band (???), The Devil and Max Devlin, The Absent-Minded Professor, Goofy Over Sports (a 1981 video featuring 6 Goofy shorts), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Herbie Rides Again (which was quite a big deal in the '70s and '80s, it should be noted), Pete's Dragon (which was available in the edited form that was prominent until the 1990s), A Tale of Two Critters, The Black Hole (which was also relegated to an Anchor Bay DVD, mainly due to its toxic reputation), The Sign of Zorro (a compilation of episodes from the Zorro series), The Love Bug, Pollyanna, Escape To Witch Mountain, Old Yeller, Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier, Darby O'Gill and the Little People, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Alice in Wonderland, The North Avenue Irregulars (which must exist simply to break up a stretch of some excellent Disney films in the ad), A Dream Called Walt Disney World (a now extremely obsolete video detailing the sites in and around Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom), The Apple Dumpling Gang, A Day At Disneyland, Hot Lead and Cold Feet, A Walt Disney Christmas (the first of many Christmas compilations from Disney), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (which was paired with some shorts at this time instead of with The Wind in the Willows), Amy, Swiss Family Robinson, and Snowball Express.
*whew* OK, new paragraph. Anyways, there's a lot of truly bizarre stuff here on display, at least when you consider that this amounted to the entire spectrum of the Walt Disney Home Video catalog at the time. The promo is also subject to primitive video editing techniques (such as the last screen grab, which is of Tigger), and the simulated computer footage (lifted from The Black Hole) looks suspiciously like it was scrunched to fit TV screens (thereby distorting the image). There's also hype given for the humor, drama, and suspense in Disney films, as well as an appalling attempt to sell the infamous Disney villains which puts classic villains like Treasure Island's Long John Silver on par with Big Mack from The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again (which was intended to be more of a comedic role, anyways). Not to insult the late Jack Elam, but his role as Big Mack isn't in the same league as Robert Newton's Long John Silver-and it was never meant to. Basically, the promo provides perfect proof of just how clueless Disney was in the days before Roy Disney brought in Michael Eisner and the late, great Frank Wells. |
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