DVD Review: Walt Disney Animation Collection: Classic Short Films Vol. 1-6

Those of my generation grew up in the sense the second of three waves in a long-held reign over animated filmmaking by Disney. The beloved and well-known classics like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Lady and the Tramp inhabit the first wave which dominated the 1940s through the 1960s. My generation embraces fond memories of the era spanning the 1970s and 80s with films like Robin Hood, The Black Cauldron, and The Fox and the Hound. The third wave began in the 1990s with films like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King and actually recaptured the hearts of children with massive popularity. In our contemporary time, the popularity of the traditional hand-drawn cell animation has waned greatly and favor has fallen to the computer-animated films that now claim the hearts of children of all ages.

With the rapid development of technology and the increasing demand for bigger and better displays of technical wizardry, films today often fall into the trap of creating all form and little content. I’m often reminded of days past when animation was both a fascinating technical achievement as well as a marvelous outlet for creative storytelling. With little more than pen and paper, an artist such as Walt Disney could bring any creation his imagination could possibly concieve to life on film and that’s precisely what he set out to accomplish. With all the amazing animated feature films created under the Disney banner, few hold the pure and untarnished joy that can be had from the many animated shorts made by Disney. These shorter, less widely distributed films have suffered a lengthy hibernation, becoming relatively unknown by current generations.

Fortunately for us, and thanks to the technology of home entertainment on DVD, Disney has finally found an outlet for these classic short animated films that will hopefully reach a larger mass of viewers and a newer era of young, impressionable eyes to rekindle the magic that has long been left to collect dust. I’ll be honest and admit that I haven’t always felt Disney’s newer animated films were equal to their predecessors, but that’s merely my own opinion. However, I gladly encourage others to indulge themselves in the newly released Walt Disney Animation Collection, a series of six volumes of classic animated short films. Each of the six single DVDs contains an anthology of shorts that fall within a general theme.

The volume titled and containing Mickey and the Beanstalk also includes The Brave Little Tailor (my favorite on this volume), Gulliver Mickey, Thru the Mirror and Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip. The volume titled and containing The Prince and the Pauper also includes The Pied Piper, Old King Cole, A Knight For a Day, Ye Olden Days. The volume titled and containing Wind in the Willows also includes The Ugly Duckling, The Robber Kitten, The Grasshopper and the Ants, The Wise Little Hen, The Golden Touch. The volume titled and containing The Reluctant Dragon also includes Goliath II, Ferdinand the Bull and Johnny Appleseed. The volume titled and containing The Tortoise and the Hare also includes Babes in the Woods, The Saga of Windwagon Smith, The Goddess of Spring, Toby Tortoise Returns, Paul Bunyan. The volume titled and containing Three Little Pigs also includes The Big Bad Wolf, Three Little Wolves, Lambert the Sheepish Lion, Chicken Little, Three Blind Mouseketeers and Elmer Elephant.

Each of the short films on these six volumes look and sound good, especially those older ones that were done before color that really pop on DVD, but the films were not remastered for this release. This strikes me as a disappointing missed opportunity to reintroduce these classic shorts to new audience with added appeal. While I enjoyed going back and rewatching many of these films and seeing a few for the first time, I did find myself rather disappointed that their exist no features of any kind to accompany these anthologies.

One of the newer technical features on Disney’s DVDs is something called Fast Play, an option to skip all the “stuff” at the beginning of the disc and allows the viewer to jump straight to the meat of the disc. Good thing too, because I opted not to use this feature on the first volume and was amazed at how many previews and Disney-related commercials were crammed onto the disc.