By The Cover: 30 Years of Simply Mad About The Mouse

Tags

1990's, 1991, 30th anniversary, 90s, animated, animated special, animation, animators, anniversary, billy joel, bobby mcferrin, By The Cover, cgi animation, Cinderella, classic disney, classic Disney animation, computer animation, cov, cover, Disney, disney animation, disney music, disney review, disney song cover, disney vault, gipsy kings, hand drawn animation, harry connick jr., jazz cover, Kiss The Girl, LL Cool J, michael bolton, music, music video, music videos, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, ric ocasek, rock cover, rotoscope, Simply Mad About The Mouse, Snow White, song cover, song covers, soul2soul, the bare necessities, The Jungle Book, the little mermaid, the siamese cat song, top 40, traditional animation, When You Wish Upon a Star, Zip A Dee Doo Dah

Hi. It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it? I’ll level with you, on top of the usual burnout, every time I’ve done a By The Cover post, I’m always struck by some kind of bad luck immediately, or something bad happens in the world that affects me personally. Don’t believe me? The last time I did this was in February 2020; do I need to remind you how things went after? Still, I couldn’t resist dragging this series out of mothballs to honor the 30th anniversary of something that’s very much the reason why By The Cover exists at all.

On September 27th 1991, Disney released Simply Mad About The Mouse, a 35-minute collection of music videos featuring some of the most popular artists of the time covering, what else, Disney songs. It’s not the first time a well-known musician has taken Disney classics and made it their own, but none of them ever made a high-profile music video to go with it. These videos were exclusive to the Disney Channel and I remember occasionally hearing the songs on Radio Disney (yeah, remember when Radio Disney was a thing?) The CD version comes with two more songs; En Vogue’s “One Song/Someday My Prince Will Come”, which I already discussed in the first By The Cover, and an instrumental jazz version of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” titled “Mad About The Wolf” by Kirk Whalum – but we’re not here to talk about the CD. I had the VHS tape when I was a kid, and it had me spellbound. Without realizing it, I was introduced to singers who would go on to be some of my all-time favorites. As great as these covers are on their own, each video is a unique experience perfectly tailored to its artists’ genre and style. That tape I had disappeared ages ago, but an acquaintance gifted me a brand-new one after hearing me rave about it, and another friend even ripped me a higher-quality laserdisc copy for my birthday.

As of writing this, the individual songs are available for purchase on most online music stores, but the videos, either as a whole or individually, haven’t been re-released since 1991; it’s not even on Disney Plus. Thankfully, fellow Disney enthusiasts have kept the memory of Simply Mad About The Mouse alive through the magic of YouTube. So come with me as I explore this unearthed musical corner of Disney history and see what makes it worth going mad over.

An Introduction to Faerie Tale Theatre Reviews

Tags

1980's, 80's fantasy, 80s, actors, Aladdin, anthology, anthology series, beauty and the beast, Big Bad Wolf, brothers grimm, celebrity, celebrity casting, Cinderella, dwarfs, Faerie Tale Theatre, fairies, fairy, fairy tale, fairy tales, folk tale, folk tales, frog prince, goldilocks, goldilocks and the three bears, gretel, grimm, hamelin, hans christian andersen, hansel, hansel and gretel, introduction, Jack and the beanstalk, little mermaid, little red riding hood, magic mirror, mirror, nightingale, pied piper, Pinocchio, puss in boots, Rapunzel, red riding hood, review series, rip van winkle, rumpelstiltskin, series, seven dwarfs, shelley duvall, sleeping beauty, snow queen, Snow White, snow white and the seven dwarfs, television review, television series, the boy who left home to find out about the shivers, the dancing princesses, the emperor's new clothes, the emperor's nightingale, the little mermaid, the pied piper, the pied piper of hamelin, the princess and the pea, the princess who had never laughed, the snow queen, the twelve dancing princesses, three little pigs, thumbelina, tv review, tv series, witch, witches, wolf

“Hello, I’m Shelley Duvall. Welcome to Faerie Tale Theatre.”

Once upon a time in the faraway land of Malta, an actress named Shelley Duvall starred in a little movie called Popeye. A blithe innocent spirit, Ms. Duvall kept herself entertained with a charming book of fairy tales in between shooting. Duvall recounted the story of The Frog Prince to her costar, Robin Williams, who found the tale humorous enough to his liking. From there, an idea sprung that would stay with many a child of the 80s and 90s.

From 1982 to 1987, Duvall produced and hosted Faerie Tale Theatre, a 27-episode long anthology series on Showtime. She convinced many of the biggest stars of the time to play the roles and even a few well-known auteurs to direct using her clout and gregarious charm. Duvall herself would star in seven of the episodes as well. This show, along with HBO’s Fraggle Rock, proved to be one of the first successful examples of cable programming and cemented itself as a cult classic. My own experience with Faerie Tale Theatre stems from renting episodes on VHS from my library at a very young age. Back in the day, if you really wanted to know what you were in for, then you could turn to the VHS cover. Yes, we’re all familiar with the old adage about not judging a book et cetera, but there’s an art to home media releases that’s tragically all but lost. The VHS tapes of Faerie Tale Theatre had a specifically crafted painting made for each episode done in a famous art style that the episode itself replicated in its set and costume design. Apart from giving you an idea about the content on the tape, it was just pretty to look at. Tell me, which is the more inviting, this –

or THESE?

After a lengthy time gap, I rediscovered the entire series on Youtube and watched with fascination. While many of the effects and the over-reliance on green screen certainly dates it, there’s a nostalgic charm that’s far from a deal-breaker. This was well before Disney began building upon and later deconstructing classic fairy tales with the Renaissance and Revival periods of animation, meaning the stories are told completely straight with just the bare amount of changes needed to fill an hour runtime. Seeing a score of well-known actors in fantasy costumes playing to the cheap seats can make you feel like you’re watching a pantomime, but there’s hardly a moment where it seems like they’re doing it just for the paycheck. Everyone involved looks like they’re in on the idea of putting on an entertaining show. Some performances remind us how excellent some of the actors are at their craft, others show sides to their talent that were rarely seen – though for the most part, there’s plenty of ham to go around, ham smothered in heaps of delicious cheese.

So I’ll be going through every episode in order, providing a ranking, a little bit of the stories’ history, why they were changed, and how they hold up compared to other versions. I won’t be classifying the reviews season by season as the amount of episodes in each one is erratic, with some having as many as six or as few as two. Despite their being only twenty-six of them (plus one reunion episode), there’s going to be a lot to unpack.

See you tomorrow when I review the first entry in this series, The Tale of the Frog Prince.

By the Cover: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Tags

adriana casselotti, Anarchy on 45, By The Cover, classic disney, Comedian Harmonists, Dave Brubeck, Disney, disney animated, disney animated feature, disney animated movie, disney animation, disney review, disney song, disney songs, En Vogue, Evelyn Knight, Fred Mollin, Gail Reese, heigh ho, i'm wishing, jazz cover, jazz music, Los Lobos, Mary Martin, Neverland Orchestra, NRBQ, one song, oscars, plunderphonics, Pogo, pop music, Rob Lowe, seven dwarfs, Simply Mad About The Mouse, Snow White, snow white and the seven dwarfs, someday my prince will come, song cover, song covers, Stay Awake, Stay Awake Various Interpretations of Music From Vintage Disney Films, swing music, The Comedian Harmonists, The Enid, the silly song, The Vandals, the washing song, Tom Waits, Walt Disney, Wishery, with a smile and a song

Welcome to the premiere of By The Cover, a series where I highlight the best (and some of the worst) covers of songs from musicals I’ve reviewed before.

For our first installment, I thought I’d revisit the one that started it all and gave me the inspiration to create this, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

Snow White, in addition to being the first full-length American animated feature, was the first movie to release its soundtrack to the public for their listening pleasure. If that wasn’t enough, the popularity of its songs saw many renditions by many well-known artists of the day. As time went on and Snow White was viewed as just another cartoon for the kids, the music found its way to many records aimed at young children. But it found new life in the 60s as jazz musicians took turns sampling the time-honored tunes and made them part of their repertoire. And it hasn’t stopped since. Snow White’s status as a Disney classic means there will always be some new iteration of its iconic melodies.

Let’s listen to a few of them, shall we?

February Review: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

Tags

1930's, animated, animated feature, animated movie, animated movie review, animated musical, animation, bashful, buddle-uddle-um-dum, castle, classic, classic disney, classic Hollywood, dark forest, diamond mine, Disney, disney animated, disney animated feature, disney animated movie, disney animation, disney princess, disney review, disney villain, disney villain death, doc, dopey, dwarfs, evil magic, evil queen, fairest one of all, fairy tale, fairy tale adaptation, fairytale, falling, Fantasy, ferdinand, florian, forest, grimms fairy tale, grumpy, hag, happy, heigh ho, Horror, horror movie, huntsman, i'm wishing, magic kingdom, magic mirror, musical, musical review, one song, poison apple, poisoned apple, prince charming, princess, Romance, romantic cliches, romantic comedy, romantic interlude, scary animation, silly song, sleepy, sneezy, Snow White, snow white and the seven dwarfs, snow white's scary adventures, someday my prince will come, themes, traditional animation, transformation, Walt Disney, whistle while you work, wicked queen, witch, with a smile and a song

If there’s a reason why we’re able to recall the story of Snow White from memory, and why said princess is usually depicted with short hair, a cute bow and surrounded by woodland fauna, look no further than Disney. Their take on the Grimms’ fairy tale is the prime example of pop cultural osmosis. Even if you’ve never watched Disney’s Snow White, it’s easy to recognize when a piece of work is borrowing from it or spoofing it. And I can definitely see why – not only is it going eighty-plus years strong, but its influence on nearly every Disney feature to come after it is a profound one.

The real story of Disney’s Snow White begins in the early 1910’s when a young Walt Disney saw a silent film version of the Grimms’ fairytale starring Marguerite Clark. The movie stuck with him well into adulthood. One night, well after he had established himself as an animation giant the world over, Walt gathered his entire staff of animators and storymen and re-enacted the tale for them in a mesmerizing one-man show. They were enraptured, but what he told them next struck them dumb – they were going to take what he performed and turn it into a full-length film.

In Tony Goldmark’s epic(ally hilarious) retrospective of Epcot, he performs a quick sketch he summed up as “Walt Disney’s entire career in 55 seconds” where Walt presents his career-defining ideas to a myopic businessman capable of only saying “You fool, that’ll never work!”. Considering how animation is everywhere today, it’s easy to forget that an animated film was once seen as an impossible dream. The press hawked Snow White as “Disney’s Folly”, and Hollywood speculated that it would bankrupt the Mouse House. It very nearly did. Miraculously, a private showing of the half-finished feature to a banking firm impressed the investors enough to ensure its completion.

Snow White is touted as the very first animated movie – admittedly something of a lie on Disney’s behalf. Europe and Russia were experimenting with feature-length animation decades before Walt gave it a try. But consider this: most animated films predating Snow White’s conception are either sadly lost to us or barely count as such by just crossing the hour mark. With all the hard work poured into it showing in every scene, with each moment displaying a new breakthrough in the medium, Snow White might as well be the first completely animated movie after all. Hell, it’s the very first movie in the entire history of cinema that was created using STORYBOARDS. A tool used by virtually every single movie put out today. If that’s not groundbreaking enough, I don’t know what is.

But is Snow White really…but why does it…can it…

“You know what? No. I’m not doing this teasing question thing before the review starts proper. OF COURSE Snow White is a masterpiece. OF COURSE most of it holds up. Let’s skip the middleman so I can explain why.”