For years, I have listened to Disney Parks music. On streaming Internet radio, on CDs from
various Disney parks and just while I am in the parks, I can’t get enough of
the sounds of the parks. One song I have
listened to always makes me smile, which is the song with the lyric “I’m
walking right down the middle of Main
Street, USA .” I don’t know the title (I could probably find
it, but it doesn’t really matter to me), but the song always brings light
feeling to my heart. In the end, though,
I have wondered how the song relates to Disney.
In Crazy Over Daisy, the latest Donald Duck short from
1950, I got my answer. Set in the same
turn of the century setting as Main Street USA, we get Donald Duck on an old
time bicycle riding through the middle of town on his way to court Daisy
Duck. And while doing so, the background
music is that very song. That
immediately vaulted this short to one of my favorites.
There are so many elements here that work beautifully beyond
the music, though. We have the concept
of a shared universe at work, as we see Donald cycling through town waving at Mickey
and Minnie who are driving around, at Goofy who is making deliveries, and
finally running into his nemeses – Chip and Dale. Having all the characters together in one fell
swoop is fantastic. It really builds the
world of this short quickly and had me drawn in right away.
The main failing of this short is Donald’s rivalry with Chip
and Dale just frankly makes no sense. In
the other shorts where these three have battled, there was a clear reason for
it. The chipmunks were trying to steal
food for the most part, but there was always a good reason why they fought
Donald. Here it seems like they are just
picking on him, trying to derail him from visiting Daisy. It makes them come off in a bad light, at
least to me.
The ending of the short, though, makes up for it in sheer
comic brilliance. With Donald harnessing
the chipmunks to power his bicycle, he thinks he has solved the problem and
makes his way to Daisy. But when his
lady fair sees what he’s done to those “adorable” chipmunks, she is shocked and
appalled, and leaves him in the dirt in front of her house to comfort the
chipmunks. It makes for a fun, breezy
short that left me wanting to immediately head to Disneyland
and walk down Main Street .
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.