Once Upon A Time

After a chat with my parents that bizarrely involved Ghadafi, Walt Disney and the snobbishness of literary critics, I ended up spending a good 45 minutes YouTubing clips of Disney cartoons. Of course there can be no denying that the main reason behind doing so was nostalgia - at least initially. But rather quickly, I genuinely got caught up in the madness of the clips. I was surprised, after watching many of my childhood favourites again, to find out just how batshit insane they were. Take 'Alice in Wonderland', for instance. I had recently watched 'Alice', Burton's take on Caroll's story. And it was slickly done, as you would expect from that guy. But for all that Burton is an undisputed genius of the weird and wacky, the film comes across as what it is - a polished attempt by an accomplished but sane filmmaker to tell you a trippy story.

Disney's take, on the other hand, genuinely has the feel of dreamlike insanity. It doesn't feel like the artists and scriptwriters were trying to tell you anything bizarre - it seems that, while they were writing the story, they were themselves in an altered state where their grip on reality was loosened. Put it this way, if Burton's film was an accomplished actor trying to portray an eccentric man, Disney's film WAS the eccentric himself. Of course, a great deal of the madness happens to take inspiration from the original story in Lewis Caroll's book. But while Burton tries to merely re-interpret that surreal quirkiness for today's generation, Disney uses it as a launching pad for bold journeys into the heart of good natured insanity.

And it isn't just 'Alice'. There are so many other films that have that streak of insane brilliance running through them that you have to wonder whether Disney forced his artists to drop acid regularly. I mean, just look at this:

I used to be terrified of this one as a child. I remember leaving the room while this bit was on and returning for the concluding hymn. And damn it, I was right to be freaked out. Good heavens, that's really not the sort of thing you show children.

'The Sword in the Stone' does its bit to haunt kiddy dreams. The battle between Madam Mim and Merlin isn't in the same category as 'Bald Mountain', but it's still quite scary in a surreal way. Have a peek:

OK, fine, that was a pretty bad example, that's just fun. But don't tell me they weren't on something pretty whiffy when they made it.

And anyway, while that wouldn't scare a child, the 'escape into the woods' scene from Snow White would:

Even when they were trying to be playful, many scenes would come out as just weird and surreal. This was from my first Disney film - "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day":

I was going to go on and make some kind of serious point regarding Disney. But at this stage, I'm not sure whether I'm arguing for or against Disney, or for that matter whether this post even needs a point. I'm just busy enjoying someone else's acid trip. Shut up and watch.