Friday 22 February 2019

Ising's Fantasia

After watching about 15 seconds of Dance of the Weed, a 1941 cartoon by Rudy Ising, a thought came to me. And it came to others at the time the cartoon was released. From the Motion Picture Herald:
This seemed almost like a piece of “Fantasia.” The adults liked it but the children did not appreciate it. (W.V. Nevins III, Alfred Co-Op Theatre, Alfred, N.Y.)
A very good cartoon and enjoyed by all. Was quite different. Could have been a bit of “Fantasia.” (Alex Slendak, St. Clair Theatre, St. Clair, Mich.)
Humanised plants? Coyness? Balletic dancing? Classical-like music? Yeah, Fantasia came to my mind, too.

Ising is at his most ersatz Disney-est here. At the start, leaves in the pastel mist laugh at a Ray Bolger-like weed that stumbles and falls while pulling himself out of the ground. The laughter is actually provided by a flute and other wind instruments.



Aw, shucks.



The weed backs into a stinging nettle. Pussywillows hiss like cats at him. He sprouts several heads before zipping away in multiples behind a rock.



Ising takes extremely good advantage of Technicolor in this short and the background paintings are impressive, but if I want Fantasia, I’ll watch Fantasia. As usual, Ising’s name is the only one in the credits.

4 comments:

  1. Jerry Brewer is the co-director, and I kinda remembered Gus (Gordo) Arriola handling the layouts (?)

    And, lets not forget, Bradley composed and recorded the music score before the cartoon was written.

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  2. Hans Christian Brando22 February 2019 at 18:58

    I'd love to know what Disney thought of it. I wonder if he'd be as vituperative as he was with Harman's "To Spring" or "Gulliver" ("Our second string animators can do better than that"). Speaking of the latter, it was a favorite of several of the 1990s Disney animation staff, so I got from several horses' mouths.

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  3. A favorite! Although my old Eastmancolor 16mm print looks now to be in perpetual autumn.

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  4. I like how his flower girlfriend forgets about concealing her "nudity" just a couple minutes after losing her petals.

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