Säveltuokio

Disney made a whole lot of these short film collections after the war years as a way to bide time until they got an actual feature film together. They're a mixed pack, but this one is arguably the best, if only because it contains the smallest amount of bad or boring segments.

Though there certainly are a few of those here as well. Once again the segments are a gamut of musical segments mixed with actual stories. And once again the musical segments are usually the weaker ones. Like Bumble Boogie and Trees, which are mainly mood pieces. The music and poetry is nice in both, but they're as good as Fantasia's similar pieces and are there mainly for padding.

Not that the story segments are all great either. Little Toot, the story about a tugboat child, is just as predictable and pandering as the story about an airplane child in Saludos Amigos. And speaking of Saludos Amigos, we get reacquainted with José in Blame It on the Samba, which is all of the worst parts of Saludos Amigos done with slightly different songs and images.

But luckily we have Once Upon a Wintertime, the opening segment, a nice, soothing winter pastoral with nice animation style, cute characters and good use of music.

And of course we have both The Legend of Johnny Appleseed and Pecos Bill, two of the most famous short films Disney has ever made. And they've both earned their legend. They're animated perfectly, the characters are amazing, the humour topnotch and as a whole they're just immensely entertaining.

And that's Melody Time. Most segments are at the very least average, with some of them earning the moniker of classic. If you want to check out Disney's early package films, see at least this one.