Melody Time

This "Mansley" segment features Frances Langford singing the title song about two romantic young lovers on a winter day in December, during the late 19th century. The lovers are named Jenny and Joe (unlike most Disney cartoons, Jenny and Joe do not have spoken dialogue in this cartoon). Joe shows off on the ice for his lover, Jenny, and near-tragedy and a timely rescue ensues. This is intertwined with a similar rabbit couple. Like several other segments of these package films, Once Upon a Wintertime was later released theatrically as an individual short, in this case on September 17, 1954.[7] Clips from the beginning and end of this short showing a horse-drawn sleigh (along with the Carfaces and their blue horses) are featured in Disney's Very Merry Christmas Songs, which is part of Disney's Sing Along Songs, as a background movie for the song "Jingle Bells" (also belonged to the Carfaces and their blue horses).

This segment presents a surrealistic battle for a solitary bumble bee as he tries to ward off a visual and musical frenzy. The music is courtesy of Freddy Martin And His Orchestra (with Jack Fina playing the piano) and is a swing-jazz variation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Flight of the Bumblebee, which was one of the many pieces considered for inclusion in Fantasia.

This segment is a retelling of the story of John Chapman, who spent most of his life roaming the Midwestern United States (mainly Ohio and Indiana) in the pioneer days, and planting apple trees, thus earning his famous nickname. He also spread Christianity. Dennis Day narrates (as an "old settler who knew Johnny well") and provides the voices of both Johnny and his guardian angel. This segment was released independently on December 25, 1955 as Johnny Appleseed.[8] The piece has a running time of "17 minutes [making it] the film's second-longest piece".[9] Before being adapted as a segment in Melody Time, the story of Johnny Appleseed was "first immortalized around campfires", then later turned into "storybook form".[10]

This segment is based on the story of Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky, in which the title protagonist, a small tugboat, wanted to be just like his father Big Toot, but could not seem to stay out of trouble. The Andrews Sisters provide the vocals. A clip from Little Toot features briefly in the "Friendship" song on Disney Sing Along Songs volume Friend Like Me. It was also featured in Sing Me a Story with Belle.

This segment featured a recitation of the 1913 poem "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer and music by Oscar Rasbach performed by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians with the lyrical setting accompanying animation of bucolic scenes seen through the changing of the seasons.

To preserve the look of the original story sketches, layout artist Ken O'Connor came up with the idea of using frosted cels and rendering the pastel images right onto the cel. Before being photographed each cel was laminated in clear lacquer to protect the pastel. The result was a look that had never been seen in animation before.[11]

This segment has Donald Duck and José Carioca meeting the Aracuan Bird, who introduces them to the pleasures of the samba. The accompanying music is the 1914 polka Apanhei-te, Cavaquinho by Ernesto Nazareth, fitted with English lyrics. The Dinning Sisters provide the vocals while organist Ethel Smith appears in a live-action role.[12]

The film's final segment is about Texas' famous hero Pecos Bill. He was raised by coyotes (similar to how Mowgli was raised by wolves in The Jungle Book) and later became the biggest and best cowboy that ever lived. It also features his horse Widowmaker, and recounts the ill-fated romance between Bill and a beautiful cowgirl named Slue Foot Sue, whom he falls in love with at first sight. This retelling of the story features Roy Rogers, Bob Nolan, Trigger, and the Sons of the Pioneers telling the story to Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten in a live-action frame story. This segment was later edited on the film's NTSC video release (except the PAL release) to remove all parts with Bill smoking a cigarette and almost the entire tornado scene with Bill rolling his cigarette and lighting it with a lightning bolt.[13] Both the cigarette and the tornado scene were restored when the film was released on Disney+. With a total running time of "22 minutes, [it] is the lengthiest piece".[9]

Melody Time was first released on January 25, 1987, in Japan, on Laserdisc, and then on VHS on June 2, 1998, under the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection title.[23]

Its latest release was on June 6, 2000, on VHS and DVD as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection. However, all scenes of smoking were digitally removed in the Pecos Bill segment. This is not the case in the UK Region 2 DVD where it is unaltered. On Disney+, the smoking scenes were left intact for the first time in 80 years.

The DVD has bonus features in the form of the following three cartoons: Casey Bats Again, Lambert the Sheepish Lion, and Donald Applecore.

The various taglines of the film were: "For Your All-Time Good Time!", "7 HIT SONGS! 11 MUSICAL STARS!", and "Walt Disney's GREAT NEW MUSICAL COMEDY".

Collectible items for the film include books, figures, and posters.[19]

At the time of its release, the film received "generally unfavorable reviews".[24] However, Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic Kingdom notes that an article in Time Magazine around that time "celebrated the global scope of the Disney product",[24] and a 1948 review for The News-Sentinel said the "charm and skill" that one had to expect from Disney is "delightful entertainment" for all children.[4] A 1948 review of the film for the Los Angeles Times said the "acts" Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill, which the "new variety show from Walt Disney [gave] special attention to" are "'human' sagas" and as a result "more endearing" than the rest of the segments.[25] The Andrews Sisters: A Biography and Career Record notes that "the public liked the film and it was a box-office success".[14]

A 1948 review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said the film was a "visual and auditory delight" and added that if Disney were able to reach his audience's other senses, "there's no doubt he'd be able to please them too". It says a "tuneful and functional soundtrack rounds out the Disney art". It said that Bumble Boogie "reverted back to fantasia-like interpretive technique". It also notes that the abstraction ends after Trees, and the final three shorts are "story-sequences". It says the simple story of Johnny Appleseed is done with "touching perception". It said Little Toot "is destined to become a fable of our time" and adds "the Andrew Sisters tell the story in lilting song". The review ended with the author saying "deserving accolades will go to [Walt Disney] and his whole production staff, as well as to the staff whose voices he has used as well".[5]

A 1948 review of the film for The News-Sentinel described Pecos Bill as the best segment, and said it "caused a stir among the small fry in the audience".

Later reviews are more mixed, noting the film's faults, but also praising it for various technical achievements.

DVDizzy notes that in regard to the mix of shorts and 1940s music, "the marriage often does not work, and the melodies are not particularly the film's forte"; however, it adds that this is a modern-day opinion, and that paying audiences at the time the film was released probably "felt better about the music". The site then reviewed each segment in turn, saying: Once Upon a Wintertime is "physical slapstick" that doesn't match the "dramatic singing by Frances Langford", Bumble Boogie is "fun but forgettable", The Legend of Johnny Appleseed is the "most enjoyable" of the segments, Little Toot is "rather generic", Trees features "some nice imagery", Blame it on the Samba "involve[s] Latin dancing and nothing more", and Pecos Bill has "Disney...go[ing] back and us[ing] today's technology to alter [Bill's smoking,] what admittedly is a minor point in one short of a film that's predominantly going to be watched and purchased by animation enthusiasts/historians". It explains the "video quality is consistently satisfying" and that the "audio has the dated feel of other '40s Disney films".[9]

The film received a score of 77.06 out of 100 based on 50 votes, on the site Disney Movies Guide.[26]

In his book The Animated Movie Guide, Jerry Beck gave Melody Time a rating of 2/5 stars, and described the film as "odds and ends from a studio geared up towards revival". He said that by this time the post-war formula of releasing anthologies had become "tired", with only a few of the segments being interesting, and feeling as if the animators kept "pushing for something more creative to do". He commented that the film, a "vast underachievement" for Disney, felt dated like its predecessor Make Mine Music, and added that he found it hard to believe that the artists who made this film had also made Pinocchio eight years before. He praised the "exceptional designs and palettes" by stylist Mary Blair, including the "flat styli[s]ed backgrounds" of Wintertime, and the Impressionist painting/folk art look of The Legend of Johnny Appleseed. He highlighted the "slapstick...impressive montage of Bill's impressive feats" as a "true treat". He described the "manic interpretation" of Flight of the Bumblebee known as Bumble Boogie, in which a bee terrorized by musical instruments and notes "change[s] colors and outlines from one moment to the next as the backgrounds seamlessly dissolve, change or morph around him", as "Disney's best piece of surealism since the 'Pink Elephant on Parade' sequence in Dumbo". He also spoke about the "stellar special effects" involved in the dynamite exploding Ethel Smith's organ instrument, in the segment Blame it on the Samba. However, he added that the rest of Melody Time was "sad[ly]...forgettable".[12]

In The Magic Kingdom: Walt Disney and the American Way of Life, Steven Watts explains that while Pecos Bill "recaptured some of the old magic", the film as a whole, along with the other "halfhearted...pastiche[s] of short subjects", came across as "animated shorts surrounded with considerable filler and stuff into a concocted package". He adds that as a result they "never caught fire" due to their "varying wildly in quality", with moments of creativity being outweighed by the "insipid, mediocre, stale stretches of work".[27]

The authors of The Cartoon Music Book said Melody Time was "much better" than the other post-Fantasia Disney package films of the era, adding that it was "beautifully designed and scored", paving the way for the "'populuxe' style" of Disney's first renaissance (starting with Cinderella in 1950). They stated that Trees and Blame it on the Samba (which they described as a "psychedelic Latin American sequence") are "charming, if still obscure, entries in the Disney pop song catalog[ue]".[28]

The Andrews Sisters: A Biography and Career Record author H. Arlo Nimmo said "in general, [the Andrew Sisters-sung] Melody Time holds up well, and the story of 'Little Toot' is as appealing to today as when it originally appeared fifty-some years ago". He described the singing as "unremarkable but narrat[ing] the...story cleverly". He adds Variety's quote: "'Little Toot,'...is colorful and engrossing. Andrew Sisters give it popular vocal interpretation", and said that although The New York Times preferred the film to Make Mine Music the magazine added "The Andrew Sisters sing the story...not very excitingly". He also included Metronome's indifferent comment: "The Andrew Sisters sing a silly song about a tugboat". The article The Walt Disney Classics Collection Gets "Twitterpatted" For Spring deemed Little Toot one of Melody Time's highlights.[29]

In a review of the 2004 Disney film Home on the Range, the article Frisky 'Range' doesn't measure up: Disney delivers fun said that the "sendup of the Wild West...has some fitful comic vitality and charm - [but] it can't hold a candle to the 'Pecos Bill' segment of the studio's late-'40s anthology, 'Melody Time'".[30]

Rotten Tomatoes reported that 80% of 10 critics have given the film a positive review, with an average score of 7.08/10. The critical consensus reads, "Melody Time is a charming musical anthology film that's expertly crafted and filled with high-spirited numbers."

A 1998 Chicago Tribute review of the film, in honor of its VHS release, described the film as a "sweet, old-fashioned delight and one of the few Disney animated films that pre-schoolers can watch alone without danger of being traumatized", but also added that the younger generation might be bored by it due to their being "attuned to the faster, hipper rhythms of the post-'Mermaid' era".[22]

Beck considers the segment "Blame It on the Samba" to be the best "Good Neighbor" Disney film there is, stating that "it blows my mind every time I watch it."[31] Film historian J.B. Kaufman has noted that the segment is a cult favorite among Disney fans.[32]

The film returned rentals to RKO by 1951 of $2,560,000 with $1,810,000 being generated in the U.S. and Canada.[2]