Originally written May 31, 2017

One day I decided that I need to watch more Disney movies. I have fond memories of a lot of them, but I don’t remember much of them, and there’s also others that I haven’t seen. So, I decided where better to start than the beginning right? I wasn’t sure what the first Disney film was, but you can imagine my surprise when I looked it up and learned that it was something I had never heard of before…Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons. What the hell is that? It sounds more like a TV special than it does a movie.

While it is considered a movie, I find that label a bit disingenuous, because it’s actually more of a collection than anything. See, this movie came out in the same year as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the first “true” Disney movie. So, Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons came out as sort of a promotion for Snow White, and is a look back on some of the earlier Disney shorts that came out before Snow White. The movie consists of five shorts, which are apparently bridged together by some narration in its original format, but I wasn’t able to find any copy like that, so I just saw the shorts.

Since there’s only five, I’ll just briefly talk about each of them. The first short is “Flowers and Trees” (1932), and is probably my least favorite of the shorts. It’s more or less what it sounds like, just a bunch of flowers and trees kind of dancing around to music. While there is some semblance of a plot to it by the end, it’s kind of pointless for the most part. It’s pretty to look at, but that’s about it.

“Three Little Pigs” (1933) is the second short, and it’s exactly what you think it is. We all know the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf, and this is just a cartoon representation of that. It’s honestly pretty cute, and I really like all of the songs in it. It might be my favorite of the shorts, but it’s kind of tied for me with the third short, “The Tortoise and the Hare” (1934). This is another short that is just a cartoon representation of a classic children’s story that we all know, where a tortoise is beating a cocky hare in a race by being patient and persistent. This one was really well done and fun to watch.

The fourth short, “Three Orphan Kittens” (1935), isn’t based off of anything familiar, at least to my knowledge. This is more like the “Flowers and Trees” short, but a lot better in my opinion. It features three kittens stumbling into a new house and interacting with their new surroundings in a fun way. It’s just pure, cute fun.

The fifth and final short, “The Country Cousin” (1936), is probably the least memorable one to me. It was a little too similar to “Flowers and Trees” and “Three Orphan Kittens” for me, where it was basically just two mice dancing around and interacting with their surroundings (mostly consisting of “giant” food nearby). I didn’t think it was bad or anything, just not my favorite.

I should also mention that this movie had a 1966 re-release, in which four additional cartoon shorts were also included. I did watch these as well, but I don’t feel the need to go in-depth with them, since to me they’re more of like the additional scenes in an extended version, or the deleted scenes in the special features of a movie. The reason being is that like I said, this movie was basically a promo for Snow White, and these four extra shorts all came out after Snow White, so it’s kind of defeating the original purpose and context of the movie. However, just for the record, the four shorts are “The Old Mill” (1937), “Ferdinand the Bull” (1938), “The Ugly Duckling” (1939), and “Lend a Paw” (1941). The only one I didn’t really care for was “The Old Mill.” “Ferdinand the Bull” is a lot of fun, but if you’re gonna watch these, the real treats are “The Ugly Duckling” (again based off of a very familiar story that we all know and love) and “Lend a Paw” (which features Mickey Mouse and Pluto!).

All in all, I think it’s worth watching Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons only if you care about the history of Disney. For me, it was interesting to watch some of their cartoons that preceded their feature films that we’ve all come to know and love from them. They’re maybe a bit of a mixed bag, but they’re mostly pretty fun. I think they’re enjoyable and worth watching, but 80 years later I think it’s mostly for the diehard Disney fans as opposed to anyone else.

4/5