My Top 20 Favorite Goofy Shorts

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It’s the 90th anniversary of everyone’s favorite goof. Whether you know him as Dippy Dawg, George Geef, Mickey’s loyal pal, Max’s dorky dad, one of Donald’s many sources of frustration, or just the character you compare to Pluto when debating pants and anthropomorphism, Goofy is the best kind of everyman. He’s adaptable to any situation and a master of physical comedy. Name a sport, and he’s “mastered” it. Name a job and he’s tackled it; his resume is nearly as long as Homer Simpson’s. Goofy’s cartoons have aged the finest out of the Fab Five’s thanks to a healthy dose of slapstick and wry modern commentary. He even survived the move to mundane 50s suburbia with most of his good humor and personality in tact. And like his costars before him, we honor him and his nine decades of goofing it up here today.

The usual rules apply: no bits from films, only short features (but A Goofy Movie would be Number One if that weren’t the case). And while Goofy works just as well on a team as he does solo, this thankfully won’t be another matter of sorting through Mickey cartoons where he steals the spotlight. But before we begin, here are some well-deserved Honorable Mentions:

• Goofy and Wilbur – Goofy officially gets his moniker in this charming short where he and his grasshopper pal risk life and limb in the name of fishing.
• Victory Vehicles – Goofy and his ilk develop a variety of creative and implausible modes of transportation as a response to the war effort.
• How To Be a Sailor – The reason why I barely saw this cartoon growing up is because the ending is one big screw you to the Japanese due to Pearl Harbor. But everything else up to that point is fantastic.
• Goofy’s Big Kitty – This Mouse Works short has Goofy confuse an escaped circus lion for his new kitty.
• How to Wash Dishes/Be a Waiter – These shorts appear to have misleading titles as they instead show Goofy globetrotting and becoming an actor respectively…but how they circle back to what the titles promise is genius.
• How to Play Golf – Playing a good game is easier said than done when an angry bull gets involved.
• Baggage Buster – Gags run amok when Goofy is tasked with unloading a magician’s trunk.
• Get Rich Quick – Goofy catches the gambling bug; a quick reminder that golden-age animation was created with adults in mind.
• Double Dribble – The rules of basketball barely apply when Goofys of varying size are involved.
• Fathers Are People/Father’s Day Off/Father’s Weekend/Father’s Lion – Goofy’s first forays into fatherhood come with many pitfalls and pratfalls – and the occasional risqué joke.
• The How To Stay At Home shorts – These extra-short shorts were created for Disney Plus in response to the pandemic, but Goofy learning to adapt to these unusual circumstances will make you smile.
• Goofy’s Radio – Goofy spends a day in the countryside, oblivious that his radio is the only thing keeping him from being a mountain lion’s lunch.
• Teachers Are People – Nothing but respect for good teachers in my house, even though Goofy doesn’t get much of it here.
• How To Take Care of Your Yard – Goofy gains a green thumb but destroys his home in the process.
• How To Sleep – An insomniac Goofy tries varying methods of getting forty winks when it’s time to actually go to bed. Shockingly relatable.
• How To Be A Spy – Paranoid that his neighbor is out to get him, Goofy attempts to master the art of espionage.
• How To Be A Rock Star – Goofy pursues stardom in the music world.
• How To Camp – This How To short takes an interesting turn when Goofy is abducted by aliens.
• A Goofy Movie – How could I not mention this? It’s Goofy as we’ve never seen him before, a fully-developed, compelling character that makes you feel things other than humor.

October Review: Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

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When I was a kid, my dad raised me on a steady diet of Abbott and Costello. Some of my fondest memories of the two of us include him popping in a tape of the classic duo’s capers after many of our intense Mario Kart sessions. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello contributed a lot to comedy in their thirty years together, most notably the famous “Who’s On First” routine, but for many they reached their peak with 1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. The meeting of the two teams sounds like something wouldn’t work in theory but does gangbusters in practice. Bud and Lou’s career needed a boost right around the time Universal’s famous movie monsters were dwindling in popularity, so it was decided to bring the two together. Though some, even Lou Costello, had their doubts, the film was so successful that kicked off a whole series of Abbott and Costello running into other notable monsters and characters (with varying levels of quality). It’s arguably the first mainstream horror-comedy and it’s easy to see why it was such a big hit. It’s a loving homage to Universal’s golden age of horror that knows how to poke fun at the cliches it’s wrought and when to inject terror to up the suspense. Even the contrast between our creature actors’ melodramatic, haunted delivery and Bud and Lou’s rapid-fire responses when played against each other provide just as much laughs as suspense.

By The Cover: Pinocchio

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Yes folks, after a lengthy absence on this blog, we’re returning to the semi-popular recurring series By The Cover, wherein I discuss my favorite covers of songs entirely from movies. This is a particularly special entry as we’re marking the 80th anniversary of the timeless Disney animated feature, Pinocchio!

When people hear the words “animated musical”, movies like Beauty and the Beast or Snow White come to mind quicker than Pinocchio does. It’s a movie where the characters and story come first and the music comes a close second. That’s not a knock on the soundtrack, far from it. The music is the icing on what’s already a perfectly baked dark and delectable dessert. Leigh Harline and Ned Washington gave us some iconic songs ranging from the fun to the inspirational, and artists have stepped up to the overwhelming task of interpreting them time and again for the past fourscore. Let’s pay them some homage.

My Top 21 Favorite Donald Duck Shorts

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Last November we celebrated a milestone for one of Disney’s most iconic characters. Today we gather for another – Happy 85th Birthday Donald Duck!

There’s a certain irony to Donald’s popularity: in the theme parks or shows like The Mickey Mouse Club or House of Mouse, Donald is portrayed flagging behind Mickey in fame and adulation if not outright forgotten. But in the real world so many people prefer Donald over Mickey, and I can see why. Mickey’s status as the company’s mascot rarely allows him to be a mischievous rascal like in the old days. Donald on the other hand has always been the feisty fowl generations could relate to due to how much he’s put through the wringer and his resulting temper flares.

Because he’s not on as high a pedestal as The One That Started It All, he’s given more freedom of personality, and, as a result, much more to do. Donald’s worn a variety of hats throughout his five-and-fourscore-long career. This also expands beyond traditional media. You’d be hard pressed to find a Donald Duck video game that isn’t at least a little fun to play. Getting to bash things with his trademark temper tantrums is a treat, and Disney always takes full advantage of it. In fact, before Sora was created to be the protagonist for Kingdom Hearts, Tetsuya Nomura imagined Mickey as the main character, but Disney wanted it to be Donald! They’re well aware that no matter how bad the scenario, Donald can take a licking and keep on ticking, and that’s done him well these past 85 years.

So to mark the special occasion, I’m counting down my Top 21 Favorite Donald Duck Shorts. Why that many? Because I like to go eleven steps beyond.

The rules from before apply: I’m not counting segments from or complete feature films like Saludos Amigos or The Three Caballeros. Donald has to be the main focus of the entire short feature, and not just “Mickey’s name is in the title though Donald takes up 90% of the action but it’s totally a Mickey short, you guys, for reals”.

But par the course for this blog, a few Honorable Mentions first:

• Pomp and Circumstance – This highlight from Fantasia 2000 has Donald assisting Noah before the flood then reenacting An American Tail with Daisy on the ark.
• Trick or Treat – A Halloween classic where Donald falls victim to a witch’s tricks after he deprives his nephews of their treats.
• Donald and the Wheel – Two spirits of innovation try to inspire caveman Donald to invent the wheel, but it doesn’t quite stick. Meant to be educational, but the music is unbelievably catchy.
• Drip Drippy Donald/Early to Bed – These shorts featuring Donald being robbed of a good night’s rest would be hilarious if they weren’t so relatable.
• Donald’s Dilemma – The title’s a bit of a misnomer; Daisy’s the focus and there’s barely a dilemma. But it reveals a darker side to her romance and shows just how far she’d go to hold on to him.
• Orphan’s Benefit – While an ensemble piece for Mickey and Friends, it’s Donald who steals the show as usual.
• Commando Duck – Horribly blatant anti-Japanese sentiment aside, this World War Two-era short of Donald behind enemy lines has a fun chase at the climax.
• Cured Duck – Donald tries to cure his temper once and for all with an insult machine.
• Slide Donald Slide – Another one of Donald’s quarrels with Spike the Bee wins points for mirroring the World Series game playing on the radio, but winds up here because Spike is technically in the wrong this time around.
• The Wise Little Hen – The one that started it all.
• Donald’s Double Trouble – Donald hires an inexplicable doppelganger with better manners and English to win back Daisy only for it to backfire terribly.
• Donald’s Golf Game – Donald goes golfing with his nephews and their usual amount of mischief.
• Donald’s Valentine Dollar – Donald must retrieve his last dollar from all sorts of shenanigans in order to purchase a valentine for Daisy. It’s completely silent, but that repetitive piano music can get grating.
• Donald’s Camera – Donald’s attempt to shoot wildlife with a camera instead of a gun goes as well as you’d expect. Interestingly, I never knew about the original ending for years since they abruptly cut it off whenever they aired it on tv.
• Sleepytime Donald – A sleepwalking Donald takes Daisy out on a late night date, and it’s up to her to make sure he doesn’t wake up in a precarious situation.
• Mickey’s Philharmagic – Yes it’s a 3D show in the Disney parks and Mickey’s name is in the title, but don’t be fooled. Donald is the star of the show, and seeing him interact with some of the most iconic musical moments of the Disney Renaissance in stunning CGI animation for the time is astounding.

March Review: Fantasia (1940)

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And now we come to the final piece of Walt Disney’s original animation trifecta, Fantasia, and it’s one I’m both anticipating and dreading. Fantasia isn’t just one of the crowning jewels in Disney’s canon, a landmark in motion picture animation, and second only to Snow White in terms of influential music and storytelling in the whole medium, it’s one of my top three favorite movies of all time. Discussing it without sounding like an old history professor, a pretentious internet snob, or a hyper Disney fangirl is one hell of a daunting task.

“Did someone say hyper Disney fangirl?! I LOVE Disney!!”

“I thought you only liked Frozen.”

“Well, DUH, Frozen is my favorite, which makes it, like, the best Disney movie ever! But Disney’s awesome! There’s a bunch of other movies I like that are almost as good!”

“And Fantasia’s one of them?”

“Yeah!!…Which one is that again?”

“The one with Sorcerer Mickey?”

“Ohhhh, you’re talking about the fireworks show where he fights the dragon!”

“No, that’s Fantasmic. I’m referring to Fantasia. Came out the same year as Pinocchio? All done in hand-drawn animation…has the big devil guy at the end?”

“THAT’S where he’s from?! Geez, that’s some old movie. Why haven’t I heard about ’til now?”

“Probably because you spend twelve hours a day searching for more Frozen GIFs to reblog on your Tumblr.”

“Ooh, that reminds me! I need to go post my next batch of theories about the upcoming sequel! Toodles!!”

“Thanks. Another second with her and I would’ve bust a gasket.”

“Don’t mention it.”

January Review: Pinocchio (1940)

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“When You Wish Upon A Star
Makes No Difference Who You Are
Anything Your Heart Desires
Will Come To You…”

In my last review, I compared Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to Star Wars; a blockbuster that captivated audiences, revolutionized filmmaking, and was an all-around fun adventure with a likable cast. Well if Snow White is Disney’s Star Wars – before Disney owned Lucasfilm, I mean – then Pinocchio is undoubtedly Disney’s Empire Strikes Back: refined visuals, more complex storytelling and characters, and much, MUCH darker.

The success of Snow White marked the beginning of big things for Disney animation. The sizable influx of cash meant Walt could build a bigger studio, hire more staff, and give his projects a noticeably larger budget. The question is, where to go from here? What movie could possibly follow the fairest one of all? Investors were clamoring for a sequel and the idea was toyed with for a time, but Walt was not a one-trick pony. Then animator Norm Ferguson brought a copy of Carlo Collodi’s Le avventuri di Pinocchio to Walt’s attention. Walt and a few of his key guys had attended a performance of Yasha Frank’s successful staging of Pinocchio prior to Snow White’s release and noted the story had possibilities for adaptation – plenty of spectacle, cute comic relief critters, etc. Seeing that book sparked Walt’s memory; after reading it, he intended to make Pinocchio his third animated venture behind the upcoming Bambi. But when that movie ran into production troubles, Pinocchio was bumped up to its place. Does it measure up to Snow White, though? Let’s find out.

MovieBabble Link: Top 10 Underrated Disney Romances

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classic disney, cute couples, Disney, disney animated, disney animated feature, disney animation, disney love, disney review, disney romance, list, love, moviebabble, Pixar, Romance, romantic comedy, top 10 list, underrated, valentine, Valentines Day

A bit early for Valentine’s Day, but here’s my look at some of Disney’s most underrated couples. I might expand on this another time, but for now, enjoy!
https://moviebabblereviews.com/2019/02/12/top-10-underrated-disney-romances/

My Top 20 Favorite Mickey Mouse Shorts

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As a lifelong Disney fan I can’t understate how much of an impact Mickey Mouse has had on me. In childhood, he was an icon and friend – instantly recognizable, a source of joy and entertainment, a hero and a role model. I know this is making me sound like one of those cheesy sponsors reading off a cue card, but when you’re talking about a mouse, expect plenty of cheese to be involved.

In the spirit of Mickey celebrating his 90th birthday, I’d like to share with you my 20 favorite shorts he starred in. Why 20? Because I couldn’t narrow it down to ten and I like to go nine steps beyond as opposed to one.

There were only two rules I set while making this list:

1. Mickey is the main focus, or at the very least he must be given as much to do as the other characters he shares the cartoon with. There’s a lot of great shorts out there that has Mickey’s name in the title – Mickey’s Parrot, Mickey’s Circus, Mickey’s Birthday, Mickey and the Seal, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, etc. – or has his face in the intro that advertises it as his adventure, but upon watching you find they’re really about Donald, Goofy or Pluto or literally anyone else but him.
2. Shorts only, no segments from full-length films or direct-to-video works. This means no Mickey and the Beanstalk from Fun and Fancy Free or various bits from Mickey’s Once/Twice Upon A Christmas, but sadly no Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia. I thought of excluding any short that ran over the usual length of five to seven minutes to about twenty, but that made my job even harder.

Now before we get to the countdown, here are a few Honorable Mentions:

• Mickey, Donald and Goofy in The Three Musketeers – If I were including full-length films on the list, this would be in the top five, bar none.
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from Fantasia – It would easily take the number one spot if it didn’t overlap with the #2 rule.
• Plane Crazy – The mouse’s first appearance on the silver screen, though he wouldn’t make as quite a splash until his sound debut in Steamboat Willie a few years later
• Orphan’s Benefit – One of my favorites as a kid. It made me laugh something fierce and still does, though a large part of it has to do with Donald and Goofy’s segments, hence why it’s only an honorable mention. Also, did you know that the color one we’re mostly familiar with is actually a remake of an earlier black and white version?
• Mickey’s Delayed Date – Pluto and Mickey tussle for attention in this outing.
• Haunted House – Spooky and atmospheric. Classic Disney nightmare fuel.
• The Gorilla Mystery – Mickey plays Minnie’s white knight yet again as he goes to-to-toe with a dangerous gorilla.
• Two-Gun Mickey – An American Tail: Mickey Goes West.
• Mickey’s Surprise Party – After Minnie’s dog spoils the cookies she was making for Mickey, he saves the day with some shockingly transparent corporate sponsorship. At least I take comfort in the fact that Mickey’s favorite cookies are the same as mine.
• Hansel and Gretel – Mickey and Minnie stumble upon a treacherous witch to the ominous strains of Danse Macabre.
• Mickey’s Cabin – Mickey outwits Pete and his dimwitted cousin with a little reverse psychology when they hold him hostage in his winter cabin. Hilarity ensues.
• Croissant – Mickey’s first short in the modern style proved you can’t keep a mouse on a mission down.
• Yodelberg – Continuing with the previous short, it’s modern Mickey at its most fast-paced and stylish fun.
• Shanghaied – It’s up to Mickey to save the day and Minnie again, this time from Pete and his dastardly crew of pirates.
• Mickey’s Christmas Carol – Mickey’s first cartoon in 30 years has him slightly out of the spotlight, but still got him back in the public eye for good.

June Review: Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

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Sigh, poor package features, why does nobody like you? Why is it that internet reviewers and Disney critics and fans always seem to give you the shaft? Is it the minimized animation budget? The effort towards story and character that was forcibly driven towards wartime propaganda over actual films? The deviation of a traditional three-act structure in favor of a string of unrelated shorts woven together by a loosely connecting theme or narration? Well in a manner of speaking, it’s a combination of all three. For one thing most people I know prefer to sit down and enjoy a movie that has one uninterrupted story. And yes there are a good number of films, great ones, in fact, that play around with how the story is presented, but as of writing there’s yet to be an audience or even a filmmaker clamoring for an animated equivalent of something like Pulp Fiction.

In theory.

And of course the major factor in all this is the time period in which these movies were made. I’ve already talked about this in my review of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad but for those not on the uptake, THERE WAS A FREAKING WORLD WAR WHILE THIS WAS GOING ON. Disney couldn’t afford to do something on the scale of Pinocchio or Fantasia or even Dumbo because his best animators were A, drafted out to fight, B, struggling to work with what little resources they had when the government was also pushing them to remind the public to buy bonds, or C, kicked out because of the disastrous animators’ strike of the early ’40’s. Projects with linear narratives that were considered big scale like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp were put on hold for virtually a decade. The best they could do was package a bunch of fun little shorts together because releasing them individually wouldn’t bring in as much desperately needed revenue as a full feature would.

And who says these shorts are bad? I don’t! At worst they’re fluffy little time fillers, but at their best they can hold their own with the big leagues of Disney animation. Again, going back to my Ichabod and Mr. Toad review, Disney’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the first thing I and a good many others think of when the story comes to mind. I also have the advantage that a lot of people today sadly don’t in that I grew up with virtually all of the package feature shorts in one way or another, either through individual VHS releases or on the Disney Channel as part of shows like Mouse Tracks, Donald’s Quack Attack, or the DTV music videos. It would be years until I saw them all as they were meant to in order as one full film, but blame Disney themselves for that. It’s a Catch-22 situation when it comes to their forgotten films; Disney sees there’s not much public interest in these old movies and so holds out on releasing them for as long as possible, while the public notices Disney never getting around to releasing these movies and think it must be because they’re not worth their time. So nobody wins and we all get smothered under another avalanche of Frozen dvds.

“FROZEN??!!! FROZEN FROZEN FROZEN!!!!!”

“No! Go home! You’re drunk!”

As of writing there’s only two – count ’em, TWO – Walt Disney Animated Classics that have yet to be released fully on Blu-Ray, and they’re, you guessed it, package features. “Make Mine Music” and “Melody Time” to be precise. You wanna know how old the dvds for them are? The advertisements that play before the main menu are for The Tigger Movie and The Little Mermaid 2. That’s THE YEAR 2000. NEARLY TWENTY YEARS AGO. And the only reason why today’s feature “Fun and Fancy Free” got on blu-ray is because the higher ups at Disney decided to combine it with Ichabod & Mr. Toad. So now we have a package blu-ray of two package features (three if you count The Reluctant Dragon which is also on there). It’s Package-ception, if you will. BWOMP.

“She’ll get around to the actual review any minute now, folks.”

Back to the topic at hand, World War Two was finally winding down and the country was in a state of elation from having their boys return home after tearing the Axis powers a new one. Walt Disney had ideas for two full-length features, one inspired by a short story by Sinclair Lewis (I’d say based on but it barely resembles the tale that’s printed) and the other a take on Jack and the Beanstalk starring Mickey Mouse. Neither of them were able to get the treatment he wanted due to story issues and because the first thing to go during wars and Republican administrations is money for the arts. So he compromised by bringing them both into one movie with each of them sharing a half. Looking back I would have loved to have seen what an hour-length or even 75 minute version of Mickey and the Beanstalk would have been like because for all its flaws I enjoy it that much, and I’m tired of holding my breath waiting for Disney to do SOMETHING with “Gigantic”. Bongo on the other hand, I can’t see as anything other than a short, but that’s not a jab at its quality. Yet how do both stand up as a feature? Does it live up to what its title promises? Let’s find out.

April Review: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

(DISCLAIMER: This blog is not for profit. All images and footage used below are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. I do not claim ownership of this material.)

 “If you were asked to choose the most fabulous character in English literature, who would it be?”
– Narrator #1

Well, for Halloween I reviewed a movie that involves Halloween and Christmas, and for Christmas I reviewed an Easter film, so it’s only fitting that for Easter I look at a film that features stories taking place at both Christmas AND Halloween, right?

…This blog is turning out weirder than I originally planned it.

“The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” came at the end of the 1940’s, a turbulent time for Disney, mainly due to World War Two. Most of Walt’s animators were drafted to fight, the US Army was using the place to store equipment and they all but strongarmed whomever was left to hold a pencil into creating propaganda and training films to bolster the USA into giving the Germans and that old fickelgruber Adolph what-for! (Sorry, I tend to slip into an old-timey newsreel announcer voice when talking about the 40’s).

As such, there were many ideas for potential animated films tossed around but never fully developed due to budget and time constraints. Most of them were made into individual shorts that were packaged together to form a film, sometimes with a narrative of sorts to tie them together. There’s a good chance you’ve probably seen at least one of these shorts  on tv or on video. Remember “Peter and the Wolf”? That’s from a version of Fantasia featuring mostly contemporary tunes called “Make Mine Music”.  How about “Pecos Bill”? It’s the finale of a pseudo-sequel to the previous film titled “Melody Time”. “Mickey and the Beanstalk”? The second half of the double feature known as “Fun and Fancy Free”. The movie I’m looking at today is the very last of these aptly titled “package films” before Disney returned to the full-length fairy tale formula the following year with “Cinderella”.

Animated adaptations of both Kenneth Grahaeme’s “The Wind in the Willows” and Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” were planned by Disney as far back as the 30’s, but what made them decide to bring the two together I haven’t been able to figure out. It’s an unusual choice, but somehow it works. They’re both fine shorts on their own, but together they make a decent film that balances lighthearted fun with darker tones. Much, MUCH darker tones. Oh yes, this is one of those Disney films that’s earned its reputation for scaring generations of children, myself included.

Witch, PLEASE!

Seeing how this is the 1940’s we get our opening credits with a peppy if not particularly interesting chorus singing over it. They’re simply stating the title of the movie over and over to the tune of a song we’ll hear much later in the film. Moving on.

The movie opens in a library where I assume all the books that magically open by themselves in the opening of every classic Disney movie are kept, because both stories featured here begin and end with their respective books coming out of the shelves and doing just that while the narrators postulate on them. Either that or this is part of the Haunted Mansion’s library.

Our library is well stocked with priceless first editions, only ghost stories, of course.

Now you may have noticed before that I said narrators. That’s not a typo, there are in fact more than one narrators in this movie, and oddly enough they don’t clash with each other at some point like you’d expect. They do provide the tenuous connection between the two stories, however, that being who’s the most fascinating literary character, Ichabod or Mr. Toad? Our first narrator, none other than Sherlock Holmes himself –

Uh, no.

Closer, but still no.

God I wish.

THERE we go.

Basil Rathbone, one of the most classy and dignified actors of his time, submits to us his candidate, a toad – J. Thaddeus Toad of Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows” to be precise – and he begins to tell us of his exploits.

Now here’s where I have to confess something. I normally make it a point to read the original stories that certain Disney films were based on and compare the two, just for fun if anything.

As of this review, I have never actually read “The Wind in the Willows”.

…Or rather I DID try to read it, but much like The Hobbit I was bored senseless.

To be fair, I was a small kid when I discovered that book at my library, but at least with The Hobbit I made to where Bilbo meets Gollum before giving up. With Wind in the Willows I couldn’t even get past the first chapter! From what I’ve gathered Toad isn’t even the central character of the story; it’s about Mole leaving his home for the first time and meeting him and Rat and Badger and a bunch of random stuff happening to him. The part with Toad and his motor mania getting the better of him, the part that everybody remembers regardless of whether or not they’ve picked up the book? That doesn’t happen until long past the halfway point, and it isn’t the main focus of the story. And unfortunately due to my limited knowledge, you’ll have to make do without a thoroughly detailed comparison of the book and the short for this review.

Well don’t everybody celebrate all at once!

Toad (Eric Blore), the richest animal living in the countryside, is a slave to fads and always ready for an adventure regardless of the cost. His wanton ways attract many fair-weather friends, but the three closest to him are the frugal Angus McBadger –

Get it? He’s Scottish so he’s a pennypincher! They don’t do humor like they did the 40’s anymore…and I’m glad.

– the kind and gentle Mole –

– who I swear they just recolored yellow and gave him a red t-shirt and Sterling Holloway’s voice when they made Winnie the Pooh, Still, really cute though.

– and a water rat simply called Rat, which always confused me because he looks nothing like a rat.

This is a rat.

These are rats.

And this is a rat (despite what he wants you to think).

THIS is Basil of Baker Street’s country cousin, but no less uptight.

In the middle of afternoon tea, Rat receives a letter from a postman – a human postman. A human postman that’s drawn to the real-life scale of an actual human. This is another thing I find strange about The Wind in the Willows; in nearly all the adaptations, the animals act and wear clothes like humans but retain their natural size and co-habit the world with human beings and nobody questions it.  Am I the only one who found this weird?

Then again, this does take place in England, the one country where nobody seems to give a damn about unusual happenings, no matter how fantastical. Polite marmalade-eating bear taking up residence with a family of four? How quaint. Werewolves running around the park? It’s only some hooligans causing trouble. Young virgins losing blood after the eccentric foreign count moves in next door? Nothing odd going on here. Flying cars and kids disappearing into train platforms carrying owls and magic wands? Just your average Monday. I’m surprised that none of these films have had weather forecasts that go like this –

“Good morning Little Hangleton! Today we have our usual torrential downpour, though it should clear up by the afternoon and leave the rest of the day partly cloudy with a chance of nannies. Now over to Wayne for sports.”