Melody Time (1948) on Netflix

NR19481h 15mAnimation Family Music

Seven musical stories unfold to popular and folk tunes. Among them are a small tugboat who wants to be like his father and a pioneer planting apple trees across the frontier.

Netflix3.4/5
IMDb6.1/107,994 votes
Rotten Tomatoes75%

Trailer

Plot summary

Seven segments, each set to popular or folk music, make up the film. Jenny and Joe spend a December day on the ice, alongside a rabbit couple. A lone bumblebee battles a rush of instruments and shifting shapes in a swing-jazz version of Flight of the Bumblebee. John Chapman wanders the pioneer Midwest, planting apple trees and earning the name Johnny Appleseed. Little Toot, a New York City tugboat, longs to be like his father Big Toot. The poem Trees is read over countryside through the seasons. The Aracuan Bird draws Donald Duck and José Carioca into the samba. Pecos Bill, raised by coyotes, becomes folklore's greatest cowboy, saves his horse Widowmaker from vultures, and falls for the cowgirl Slue-Foot Sue.

Cast

Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Melody Time (1948)

Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.

For the Trees segment, layout artist Ken O'Connor had the pastels of the original story sketches rendered directly onto frosted cels, each laminated in clear lacquer before it was photographed. The result was a look that had never been seen in animation before.
Controversy over Pecos Bill smoking led Disney to heavily edit the segment for its 1998 VHS release: the cigarette scenes were cut, which removed almost the entire tornado sequence and left Pecos Bill with odd hand and mouth movements.
After hearing Ken Darby's music for the Johnny Appleseed segment, Walt Disney scorned it as "like New Deal music"; Darby was enraged and told Disney it was "just a cross-section of one man's opinion". Darby stayed at the studio only a short while after the incident.
Melody Time was the last Disney feature film to include Donald Duck and José Carioca until the 1988 Touchstone Pictures film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Melody Time was the last film the Andrews Sisters took part in; they sang throughout its 10-minute Little Toot segment.
Melody Time took 50 years to reach home video, remaining one of the few Disney animated features not released on videocassette until 1998.
Melody Time is considered the last anthology film made by Walt Disney Productions; the studio's next release was The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which told two stories.