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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

WDTC:YOUR HOST WALT DISNEY

Since it's Walt Disney's Birthday I figured it be nice to review something from the Walt Disney Treasure Collection. Now you're probably wondering what the Walt Disney Treasure Collection is? The Collection is hosted by one of my Favorite Film Historians Leonard Maltin and the Collection has old Disney cartoons, TV Specials, Behind the Scenes Footage and a whole lot more.




"Your Host Walt Disney" is a two Disc DVD filled with TV Shows and TV Specials hosted by the Man himself Walt Disney. Since this DVD has different Programs, I'm gonna review each one of those Programs individually.


DISC 1

DISNEYLAND: WHERE DO THE STORIES COME FROM?

The first Program is an Episode from the Show Disneyland. Now I'm sure a lot of you know the theme park, but I'm sure a lot of you have never seen or heard of the show before, so before I review the episode I'm going to give you a quick background on the Show. Disneyland is a show hosted by Walt Disney with four different Worlds. The First World is called Frontierland, which talks about history and tails from the past. The Second World is called Tomorrowland, which talks about future ideas. The third world is called Adventureland, which talks about real life adventures with nature. The last world is called Fantasyland, which shows Disney Cartoons, Silly Symphony’s and behind scenes stuff with Disney Animators. Every week when the show came on it would only show you one of the four worlds.


 


The episode "Where Do The Stories Come From" takes place in the world of Fantasyland and Walt explains to the viewer’s where the ideas for his cartoons come from. I found this episode to be very inspiring because Walt doesn't just mention that the ideas don't just come from a story, it can also be from other things like from a song, nature, history, and as he talks about the ideas, they show the viewer a cartoon to show their example. Now I'm not going to review the cartoons because the cartoons are shown on the other volumes of the collection. My favorite is when Walt shows his example of ideas coming from a hobby. The reason why is because he talks about the hobby he loves which is modeled trains and some of the footage he shows to express his example are his home videos. After when he talks about his example he then shows a cartoon starring Donald Duck and Chip & Dale called "Out of Scale" which is about a modeled train set. Other Cartoons featured in this episode are "Crazy over Daisy"; "R'Coon Dawg"; "Donald gets Drafted"; and "Fall out, Fall in”. For People who are looking to be either story tellers or Animators I recommend you see this episode.

RATING 5/5

DISNEYLAND: THE FOURTH ANNIVERSARY SHOW

Image result for disneyland 4th anniversary show


The Second program is another episode from "Disneyland", only this episode is the 4th anniversary for the show. The episode features special guests like The Mousekeeters from the show "The Mickey Mouse Club", Fess Parker (Who played Davy Crockett), Guy Williams as Zorro and more. What I love about this episode is it starts out as a regular episode, there's no talk about the shows anniversary (Except in the Title). Walt just goes on and talks about the topic, which is music. He talks about how he made the cartoon "Peter and the Wolf" by showing the audience behind scenes footage, then he shows the cartoon (Once again I'm not reviewing the Cartoons) and just when he was going to talk about "Fantasia" the Mousekeeters interrupt the show and the celebration begins! This episode is full of dancing, singing, and laughs! All I can say about this episode is...WHAT A CELEBRATION!!!!!!!!!! OK...OK, I was disappointed by the fact that this Episode didn't take place in any of the four Worlds, and I was also disappointed that the Mousekeeters didn't sing their “Goodbye Song”, but the episode was still good! Oh and not give a lot away, but Walt reveals some of his future plans. Want to know...WATCH THE EPISODE!

RATING 5/5

KODAK PRESENTS DISNEYLAND 59


The third program isn't an episode from the show “Disneyland", it’s actually a RARE hour and half TV special at The Disneyland Theme Park. The Special was as exciting as the 4th Anniversary show only 10 times better! The special is full of wonderful of surprises such as a short documentary on the making of the Disneyland Theme Park; A big parade full of culture dancers, TV stars, movie stars, Disney characters and A HUGE ORCHESTRA! The special also shows the opening of three new Attractions such as “The Nautilus” (The Submarine Ride), The Monorail, and The Matterhorn. Since the special is RARE, I was surprised by how good the sound quality is, but the picture quality was bad! At times the picture looks fuzzy and even jumps on a few occasions! Oh, and just to let you know, there's some missing footage added to this and the picture quality for that footage is so good that you can tell when they added the missing footage in.

RATING 4/5

BONUS FEATURES

 The bonus features made for the DVD is Leonard Maltin's interview with Walt's daughter Diane Disney Miller. The rest of the Bonus Features are just bunch of Pictures of Walt Disney which they are worth a look, BUT HERE'S A SECRET! There’s a hidden Easter Egg on this DVD. If you don't know what that means, it means there’s a hidden Bonus Feature on this DVD. I'm not going to tell you where it is or what it is, however, I will give you a hint. Remember, it's always better to choose what you want to see, then playing them all at once. THAT’S YOUR HINT, THINK ABOUT IT!


DISC 2

WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR: BACKSTAGE PARTY

Before I review this program, you're probably wondering what the show "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color" is about. So, once again I'm going to give you a quick Background on the show. Well, believe it or not, it's the same show only with a different name because Walt Disney wanted his show to be in Color. The show basically has the same elements that first show has. It's hosted by Walt Disney, has cartoons, shows you behind the scenes stuff and well you get the rest. The only huge change in the shows plot is it doesn't have the four worlds like the Early show did, but it still has the Castle, fireworks and Tinker Bell, ONLY IN COLOR!

Back to the review!


 
The first program on disc 2 is an episode from "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color". The episode takes you to a backstage party of Disney's finished film "Babes In Toyland" (1961) which will later be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Musical Picture and 2 Oscars for costumes and score. You'll be seeing many of the characters, cast, and crew from the movie. You'll even get a little tour of the Disney Studios Back lot. This whole party is filled with all sorts of surprises, but I don't want to give them away. Now I have not seen Disney's "Babes in Toyland" I've only seen two versions of the musical, which are the classic Thanksgiving film "March of the Wooden Soldiers" starring Laurel and Hardy; and The animated MGM version, but after watching this episode I'd probably give it a look. Even though the episode was wonderful, there's one thing I don't understand. Why did they put this episode on the DVD? Walt's in the episode, but only for a short time, the episode is hosted by Annette Funicello. Now she wasn't bad at all, it’s just this DVD is called "Your Host Walt Disney" not "Your Host Walt Disney, AND ANNETTE!”. Whatever the reason why they put it on this DVD it's still a wonderful episode.

In episode wise, it gets a 5/5

BUT in DVD wise, it gets a 2/5.

WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR: DISNEYLAND'S 10TH ANNIVERSARY



Now this program is my favorite program out of all the programs that I’ve reviewed on this DVD. This episode celebrates Disneyland's 10th Anniversary. The episode has all sorts of amazing things such as dancing, music, appearances by Disney characters, looking at old Disneyland attractions and lots and lots more! My favorite part in the episode is when Walt Disney takes you and Disneyland Ambassador Julia on tour of the Imagineering Department and talks about his future attractions for Disneyland! Just like the other programs I don't want to spoil too much of the surprises so I'm going to end my review on this program right here.

RATING 5/5

BONUS FEATURES

In the bonus features we have an extra episode, footage from a live show and an interview with people who worked with Walt. I'm just going to review the first two since one is an episode and the other is rare footage. However, defiantly check out the bonus feature "Working With Walt".


WALT DISNEY PRESENTS: I CAPTURED THE KING OF THE LEPRECHAUNS

The first bonus feature is a bonus episode from the show "Walt Disney Presents". Once again I'm sure you never heard of or seen the show either so I'll be happy to give you a quick Background on the show. This show was the second change of title for the show "Disneyland" before the show "Walt Disney's Wonderful World Color" was made. Now I don't know why they changed the title "Disneyland" to "Walt Disney Presents" but once again even though the titles changed it still has the same elements as the original version of the show. It’s hosted by Walt; showed behind the scenes stuff; had Disney cartoons; and kept the Four Worlds Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland and Frontierland.


 


This episode from "Walt Disney Presents" is actually a little different from any of the episodes and TV specials that I just reviewed. Instead of seeing Walt just talking to the audience, we actually get to see him perform for change. I'm guessing that's why it's under the Bonus features. Anyway the episode is about Walt trying to find the Leprechaun King so he can appear for his next picture "Darby O'Gill and the Little People"(Which is also my favorite St. Patricks Day film). Walt's performance wasn't different, he’s still the same guy you always see on the show, but still it was nice seeing him doing something different, but yet again, it's not like he hasn't performed before because believe it or not he use to provide the voice of Mickey Mouse. There are also guest appearances from Pat O' Brien, Albert Sharpe as Darby, and Jimmy O'Dea as King Brian. This episode sounds like a treasure; it is a treasure, however, while the episode promotes the upcoming film "Darby O'Gill and the Little People", it seriously gives too much away from the film. It shows all the best scenes from the film, and I'm not talking a bit from those scenes, I mean, they actually show the whole scene! Just imagine if you were that audience and after seeing this episode you really want to see all the surprises that awaits in the film, but then after when you finally do see the film, you find out there were really were no surprises at all because you saw them on the show.  Even though this episode is hard to find, it still gave away too much from the film. If you haven't seen the movie I strongly suggest you skip this episode until you do see it, because believe me, this episode gave too much away. 

RATING 2/5


DISNEYLAND USA AT THE RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL

 


This bonus feature is not an Episode or TV special; it’s actually rare footage of a show at the Radio City Music Hall. This rare footage shows a mascot dressed as Mickey Mouse and interacting with Walt on the big Screen. What I don’t get is why they couldn’t show the rest of the footage, they were able to get Mickeys Live footage. Even though they don’t have the live show that followed, it’s still worth a look.

RATING 3/5

This DVD is indeed a treasure; I’m not just saying that, I mean it, because all these episodes and TV specials are so hard to find that you could almost swear that they been lost forever. If you love Walt Disney, I grantee you’re going to love this DVD.

Rating For The DVD 5/5

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