Melody Time
Encyclopedia
Melody Time is a 1948 animated feature
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...

 produced by Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. Made up of several sequences set to popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

 and folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

, the film is, like Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....

before it, the popular music version of Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

(an ambitious film that proved to be a commercial disappointment upon its original theatrical release). Melody Time, while not meeting the artistic accomplishments of Fantasia, was a mildly successful film in its own right. It is the tenth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the sixth package film
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...

 following Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

, Saludos Amigos
Saludos Amigos
Saludos Amigos is a 1942 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures. It is the 6th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It is the first of six package films made by the Disney studio in the 1940s...

, The Three Caballeros
The Three Caballeros
The Three Caballeros is a 1944 American animated feature film, produced by Walt Disney and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The film premiered in Mexico City on December 21, 1944. It was released in the United States on February 3, 1945...

, Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music
Make Mine Music is an animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on August 15, 1946. It is the eighth animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series....

, and Fun and Fancy Free
Fun and Fancy Free
Fun and Fancy Free is a 1947 animated feature produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures on September 27, 1947. It was one of the "package films" that the studio produced in the 1940s...

.

Film segments

Melody Time has seven segments:

This segment features Frances Langford
Frances Langford
Julia Frances Langford was an American singer and entertainer who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and also made film appearances over two decades.-Birth:...

 singing the title song about two romantic young lovers in December. The boy shows off on the ice for his girl, and near-tragedy and a timely rescue ensues. Like several other segments of these package films, Once Upon a Wintertime was later released theatrically as an individual short, in this case on September 17, 1954. This short is also featured in Very Merry Christmas Songs. which is part of Disney Sing Along Songs
Disney Sing Along Songs
Disney Sing Along Songs is a series of videos, laserdiscs and DVDs with musical moments from various Disney films, TV shows and attractions. Lyrics for the songs are displayed on-screen with the Mickey Mouse icon as a "bouncing ball" Disney Sing Along Songs is a series of videos, laserdiscs and...

, as a background movie for the song Jingle Bells
Jingle Bells
"Jingle Bells" is one of the best-known and commonly sung winter songs in the world. It was written by James Lord Pierpont and published under the title "One Horse Open Sleigh" in the autumn of 1857...

.
Bumble Boogie This segment presents a surrealistic nightmare for a solitary bumble bee as he tries to escape from a visual and musical frenzy. The music is courtesy of Freddy Martin
Freddy Martin
Frederick Alfred Martin was an American bandleader and tenor saxophonist.-Early life:Martin was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Raised largely in an orphanage and with various relatives, Martin started out playing drums, then switched to C-melody saxophone and later tenor saxophone, the latter the one...

 and his orchestra (with Jack Fina
Jack Fina
Jack Fina was a bandleader, songwriter, and pianist.Known as "The Ten Most Talented Fingers On Radio", Fina was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and educated at the New York College of Music and was a student of August Fraemcke and Elsa Nicilini...

 playing the piano) and is a swing-jazz variation of Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

's Flight of the Bumblebee
Flight of the Bumblebee
"Flight of the Bumblebee" is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900. The piece closes Act III, Tableau 1, during which the magic Swan-Bird changes Prince Gvidon Saltanovich into an insect so that he can fly away to...

, which was one of the many pieces considered for inclusion in Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...

.

The Legend of Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed (film)
Johnny Appleseed is a bio-fiction animated feature from Walt Disney, using the nickname of Johnny Appleseed, a real-life American frontiersman born as John Chapman.-Synopsis:...

This segment is a retelling of the story of John Chapman
Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed , born John Chapman, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois...

, who spent most of his life roaming Mid-Western America (mainly Illinois and Indiana) in the pioneer days, and planting apple trees, thus earning his famous nickname. Dennis Day
Dennis Day
Dennis Day born Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty, was an Irish-American singer and radio, television and film personality.-Early life:...

 narrates and provides all the voices, except for the angel, who is voiced by Dallas McKennon (uncredited). This segment was released independently on December 25, 1955 as just Johnny Appleseed.

Little Toot

This segment is based on the story also titled Little Toot
Little Toot
Little Toot is a children's story written and illustrated by Hardie Gramatky in 1939. It tells the story of Little Toot, an anthropomorphic tugboat child, who thought that work was a joke, and preferred to play around making figure 8s, and other games, that irritate the other tugboats, who call him...

by Hardie Gramatky
Hardie Gramatky
Bernhard August "Hardie" Gramatky, Jr. was an American painter, author, and illustrator. In a 2006 article in Watercolor Magazine, Andrew Wyeth named him as one of America's 20 greatest watercolorists...

, in which the title protagonist, a small tugboat, wanted to be just like his father Big Toot, but couldn't seem to stay out of trouble. The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...

 provide the vocals.

Trees

This segment is a recitation of the famous Alfred Joyce Kilmer
Joyce Kilmer
Alfred Joyce Kilmer was an American journalist, poet, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his religious faith, Kilmer is remembered most for a short poem entitled "Trees" , which was published in...

 poem by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians
Fred Waring
Fredrick Malcolm Waring was a popular musician, bandleader and radio-television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing." He was also a promoter, financial backer and namesake of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric...

 with the lyrical setting seen through the seasons.

Blame It on the Samba

This segment has Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...

 and José Carioca
José Carioca
José Carioca is a Disney cartoon character drawn as an anthropomorphized parrot from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil . José was created in 1943 for the movie Saludos Amigos as a friend of Donald Duck, described by Time as "a dapper Brazilian parrot, who is as superior to Donald Duck as the Duck was to...

 meeting with the Aracuan Bird, who introduces them to the pleasures of the samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...

. The accompanying music is the 1914 polka Apanhei-te, Cavaquinho by Ernesto Nazareth
Ernesto Nazareth
Ernesto Júlio de Nazareth was a Brazilian composer and pianist, especially noted for his creative tango and Choro compositions.Ernesto Nazareth was born in Rio de Janeiro, one of five children. His mother, Carolina da Cunha gave him his first piano lessons...

, fitted with English lyrics. The Dinning Sisters provide the vocals while organist Ethel Smith
Ethel Smith (organist)
Ethel Smith was an organist who played primarily in a pop style on the Hammond organ.Her recording of Tico Tico was her best-known hit. It reached No. 14 on the U.S. pop charts in November 1944 and sold over one million copies worldwide. She also recorded it for the 1944 film, Bathing Beauty...

 plays the organ.

Pecos Bill

The film's final segment is about Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

' famous hero
Pecos Bill
Pecos Bill is an American cowboy, apocryphally immortalized in numerous tall tales of the Old West during American westward expansion into the Southwest of Texas, New Mexico, Southern California, and Arizona. Their stories were probably invented into short stories and book by Edward O'Reilly in the...

, the biggest and best cowboy that ever lived. It also features his horse Widowmaker, and recounts how Pecos was brought back down to earth by a woman named Slue-Foot Sue. This retelling of the story features Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers
Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...

, Bob Nolan
Bob Nolan
Bob Nolan was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers, and composer of numerous Country music and Western music songs, including the standards "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds." He is generally regarded as one of the...

, and the Sons of the Pioneers
Sons of the Pioneers
The Sons of the Pioneers are one of America's earliest Western singing groups whose classic recordings set a new standard for performers of Western music. Known for the high quality of their vocal performances, musicianship, and songwriting, they produced finely-crafted and innovative recordings...

 to Bobby Driscoll
Bobby Driscoll
Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company's most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South , So Dear to My Heart , and Treasure Island...

 and Luana Patten
Luana Patten
-Career:Patten made her first film appearance in Joel Chandler Harris's Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll, and they both appeared in Song of the Souths sister film So Dear to My Heart. She appeared again with Bobby Driscoll in the Pecos Bill segment of Disney's Melody Time...

. This segment was later edited on the film's NTSC
NTSC
NTSC, named for the National Television System Committee, is the analog television system that is used in most of North America, most of South America , Burma, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, and some Pacific island nations and territories .Most countries using the NTSC standard, as...

 video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

 release (but not the PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...

 release) to remove all scenes of Bill smoking a cigarette. The entire scene with Bill rolling the smoke and lighting it with a lightning bolt was cut and all other shots of the offending cigarette hanging from his lips were digitally removed.

Cast

  • Roy Rogers
    Roy Rogers
    Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye , was an American singer and cowboy actor, one of the most heavily marketed and merchandised stars of his era, as well as being the namesake of the Roy Rogers Restaurants franchised chain...

     - Himself; Narrator; Singer (Pecos Bill)
  • Trigger
    Trigger (horse)
    Trigger was a palomino horse, made famous in American Western films with his owner/rider, cowboy star Roy Rogers.-Pedigree:...

    , the Smartest Horse in the Movies - Himself
  • Dennis Day
    Dennis Day
    Dennis Day born Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty, was an Irish-American singer and radio, television and film personality.-Early life:...

     - Narrator; Singer; Characters (Johnny Appleseed)
  • The Andrews Sisters
    The Andrews Sisters
    The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...

     - Singers (Little Toot)
  • Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians
    Fred Waring
    Fredrick Malcolm Waring was a popular musician, bandleader and radio-television personality, sometimes referred to as "America's Singing Master" and "The Man Who Taught America How to Sing." He was also a promoter, financial backer and namesake of the Waring Blendor, the first modern electric...

     - Singers (Trees)
  • Freddy Martin
    Freddy Martin
    Frederick Alfred Martin was an American bandleader and tenor saxophonist.-Early life:Martin was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Raised largely in an orphanage and with various relatives, Martin started out playing drums, then switched to C-melody saxophone and later tenor saxophone, the latter the one...

     - Music composer (Bumble Boogie)
  • Ethel Smith
    Ethel Smith (organist)
    Ethel Smith was an organist who played primarily in a pop style on the Hammond organ.Her recording of Tico Tico was her best-known hit. It reached No. 14 on the U.S. pop charts in November 1944 and sold over one million copies worldwide. She also recorded it for the 1944 film, Bathing Beauty...

     - Organist (Blame It On the Samba)
  • Frances Langford
    Frances Langford
    Julia Frances Langford was an American singer and entertainer who was popular during the Golden Age of Radio and also made film appearances over two decades.-Birth:...

     - Singer (Once Upon a Wintertime)
  • Buddy Clark
    Buddy Clark
    Buddy Clark was a popular American singer in the 1930s and 1940s.-Life and career:Clark was born Samuel Goldberg to Jewish parents in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He made his Big Band singing debut in 1934 with Benny Goodman on the Let's Dance radio program. In 1936 he started to perform on the...

     - Singer; Narrator
  • Bob Nolan
    Bob Nolan
    Bob Nolan was a Canadian-born American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers, and composer of numerous Country music and Western music songs, including the standards "Cool Water" and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds." He is generally regarded as one of the...

     - Himself; Singer; Narrator (Pecos Bill)
  • Sons of the Pioneers
    Sons of the Pioneers
    The Sons of the Pioneers are one of America's earliest Western singing groups whose classic recordings set a new standard for performers of Western music. Known for the high quality of their vocal performances, musicianship, and songwriting, they produced finely-crafted and innovative recordings...

     - Themselves; Singers; Narrators (Pecos Bill)
  • The Dinning Sisters - Singers (Blame It On the Samba)
  • Bobby Driscoll
    Bobby Driscoll
    Robert Cletus "Bobby" Driscoll was an American child actor known for a large body of cinema and TV performances from 1943 to 1960. He starred in some of The Walt Disney Company's most popular live-action pictures of that period, such as Song of the South , So Dear to My Heart , and Treasure Island...

     - Himself (Pecos Bill)
  • Luana Patten
    Luana Patten
    -Career:Patten made her first film appearance in Joel Chandler Harris's Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll, and they both appeared in Song of the Souths sister film So Dear to My Heart. She appeared again with Bobby Driscoll in the Pecos Bill segment of Disney's Melody Time...

     - Herself (Pecos Bill)
  • Dallas McKennon
    Dallas McKennon
    Dallas Raymond McKennon , sometimes credited as Dal McKennon, was an American actor, with extensive work as a voice actor, in a career lasting over 50 years.-Career:...

     - Himself; Narrator; Character (Johnny Appleseed)

Home video

Melody Time was first released in Japan on laserdisc on January 25, 1987, and on VHS on June 2, 1998, under the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection
Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection
The Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection was a line of VHS videos and Laserdiscs released by Walt Disney Home Video from 1994 to 1999. The Spanish counterparts began selling in 1995. Limited issue DVDs also have the same cover art....

 title. The Japanese laserdisc is uncut during the Pecos Bill segment. Its latest release was on June 6, 2000 on VHS and DVD under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection
Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection
The Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection was a line of videos and DVDs released by The Walt Disney Company which ran from 2000 to 2001. It was preceded by Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, which ran from 1994 to 1999. All titles were released in VHS and DVD formats, except the DVD version of Toy...

.

External links

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