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Melody Time

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Melody Time is a 1948 American hybrid musical film and the 10th theatrically released animated feature produced by Walt Disney. It was released to theatres by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. Made up of seven segments set to popular music and folk music, the film is, like Make Mine Music before it, the popular music version of Fantasia. Melody Time, while not meeting the artistic accomplishments of Fantasia, was mildly successful. It is the fifth Disney package film following Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, and Fun and Fancy Free.

Plot and background information of film segments[]

According to Disney, the film's plot is as follows: "In the grand tradition of Disney's greatest musical classics, such as FANTASIA, MELODY TIME features seven classic stories, each enhanced with high-spirited music and unforgettale characters...[A] feast for the eyes and ears [full of] wit and charm...a delightful Disney classic with something for everyone".[3] Rose Pelswick, in a 1948 review for The News-Sentinel, described the film as an 'adventure into the intriguing make-believe world peopled by Walt Disney's Cartoon characters". It also explains that "with the off-screen voice of Buddy Clark doing the introductions, the...episodes include fantasy, folklore, South American rhythms, poetry, and slapstick".[4] A 1948 review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described it as a "mixture of fantasy, abstraction, parable, music, color, and movement".[5]

The seven "mini-musical"[6] stories outlined:

Once Upon a Wintertime[]

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]

Bumble Boogie[]

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.

The Legend of Johnny Appleseed[]

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]

Little Toot[]

This segment is based on the story of Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky, in which the title protagonist, a small tugboat in New York City, 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.

Trees[]

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]

Blame It on the Samba[]

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]

Pecos Bill[]

The film's final segment is about Texas' famous hero Pecos Bill. He was raised by coyotes 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]

Cast[]

The cast is listed below:[3]

  • Roy Rogers – Himself; Narrator; Singer (Pecos Bill)
  • Trigger, the Smartest Horse in the Movies – Himself
  • Dennis Day – Narrator; Singer; Characters (Johnny Appleseed)
  • The Andrews Sisters – Singers (Little Toot)[14]
  • Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians – Singers (Trees)
  • Freddy Martin – Music composer (Bumble Boogie)
  • Ethel Smith – Organist (Blame It On the Samba)
  • Frances Langford – Singer (Once Upon a Wintertime)
  • Buddy Clark – Singer; Narrator
  • Bob Nolan – Himself; Singer; Narrator (Pecos Bill)
  • Sons of the Pioneers – Themselves; Singers; Narrators (Pecos Bill)
  • The Dinning Sisters – Singers (Blame It On the Samba)
  • Bobby Driscoll – Himself (Pecos Bill)
  • Luana Patten – Herself (Pecos Bill)
Cast
Once Upon a Wintertime Bumble Boogie Johnny Appleseed Little Toot Trees Blame It On the Samba Pecos Bill
Frances Langford (Singer) Freddy Martin (Music composer) Dennis Day The Andrews Sisters (Singers) Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians (Singers) Ethel Smith and the Dinning Sisters (Singers) Roy Rogers (Singer), Sons of Pioneers (Singers), Bob Nolan (Singer)

Songs[]

The songs in Melody Time were all "largely based around (then) contemporary music and musical performances".[15] "Blue Shadows on the Trail" was chosen by the Western Writers of America as one of the top 100 Western Songs of all time.[16]

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Production[]

In late 1947, Disney announced he would be releasing a "regrouping of various cartoons at his studio under two titles, Melody Time and Two Fabulous Characters", to be released in August 1948 and 1949, respectively.[17] Melody Time ended up being released a few months earlier than planned, in May.

Melody Time is considered to be the last anthology feature made by the Walt Disney Animation Studios (the next film to be released was The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which featured two stories). These package features were "little-known short-film compilations that Disney produced and released as feature films during World War II". They were "financially (and artistically) lightweight productions meant to bring in profits [to allow the studio to] return to fairy tale single-narrative feature form", an endeavour which they successfully completed two years later with Cinderella. While the shorts "contrast in length, form, and style", a common thread throughout is that each "is accompanied by song[s] from musicians and vocalists of the '40s"[9] – both popular and folk music.[18] This sets it apart from the similarly structured Fantasia, whose segments were set to classical music instead.[19] As opposed to Fun and Fancy Free, whose story was bound to the tales of Bongo and Mickey and the Beanstalk, in this film "Walt Disney has let his animators and his color magicians have free rein".[20]

Melody Time was the last film The Andrews Sisters took part in. They sang throughout the 10-minute segment known as Little Toot. Andrews Sisters member Maxine said: "It was quite an experience. On the wall at the studio they had the whole story in picture form. Two songwriters played the score and Walt Disney explained it to us. It was a new thing for Disney. We sang the narrative. It was very exciting to work with Disney-he was such a gentleman".[14]

Favourite Disney juvenile actors Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten, who also starred in Song of the South and So Dear to My Heart, appear in the last sequence as the two children who hear the story of Pecos Bill (.[6]

Melody Time was the last feature film to include Donald Duck and José Carioca until the 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit.[6]

Release[]

The film was originally released in USA, Brazil, and Argentina in 1948, in 1949 in Australia and in 1950 in Mexico and Uruguay. From December 1948 (UK) to 15 September 1954 (Denmark) the film was released across Europe. The film was known by a variety of names including Време за музика in Bulgaria, Mélodie cocktail in France, Musik, Tanz und Rhythmus in Germany, and Säveltuokio in Finland.

Disney later released a package film entitled Music Land, a nine-segment film which "recycled sequences from both Make Mine Music and Melody Time". Five selections were from Melody Time while another was the short Two For the Record, which consisted of two segments produced under Benny Goodman's direction.[21]

Melody Time was unusual in that, until 1998 (50 years after its initial release), it remained "one of the handful of Disney's animated features yet to be released on videocassette". Some of the segments "have been re-released as featurettes", and Once Upon a Wintertime has "been included on other Disney video cartoon compilations".[22]

Home media[]

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]

Prior to its 1998 home video debut in the US, in part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, Once Upon A Wintertime was featured on the VHS, A Walt Disney Christmas, Little Toot on Storybook Classics, Blame It On The Samba on The Wonderful World of Disney: Music for Everybody and Pecos Bill on the American Heroes VHS paired with Paul Bunyan.

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 70 years. The same uncut scenes are released on Blu-ray for the first time ever, exclusive to the Disney Movie Club on November 2, 2021.

The DVD has bonus features in the form of the following three cartoons: Casey Bats Again, Lambert the Sheepish Lion, and Donald Applecore.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".

Marketing[]

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]

Reception[]

Critical reception[]

Contemporary reviews[]

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".

Retrospective reviews[]

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 Tribune 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, as they are "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]

Box office[]

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]

Controversy[]

Due to the controversy surrounding the smoking in Pecos Bill, the segment was "heavily edited" when the film was released onto VHS in 1998. While the character of Bill is shown "smoking a cigarette in several sequences", the edited version cuts these scenes, "resulting in the removal of almost the entire tornado sequence, and [creating] some odd hand and mouth movements for Bill throughout". In a review at DVDizzy, it is noted that if one has an interest in the shorts, one will "probably be upset to know that Disney has decided to digitally edit out contents of the 50-plus-year-old frames of animation".[9] In the Melody Time section of the Your Guide To Disney's 50 Animated Features feature at Empire Online, the review said of the editing: "at least, it was [done] for the US releases, but not for the rest of the world. Go figure."[15] The scenes are removed on the Gold Collection DVD release[12] although the Japanese laserdisc and the version of the DVD released in the United Kingdom are uncut. For the first time in 80 years, the uncut version with Pecos Bill's cigarette can now be seen on Disney+, alongside an upcoming Disney Movie Club exclusive Blu-ray, releasing on November 2, 2021.

According to a source, upon reviewing the music that Ken Darby had composed for Johnny Appleseed, Walt Disney "scorned the music", describing it as "like New Deal music". Darby was "enraged", and said to Disney "THAT is just a cross-section of one man's opinion!". Darby was only employed at The Walt Disney Company for a short while after this supposed incident.

Jerry Beck, in his book The Animated Movie Guide, comments on a risqué joke in Pecos Bill that somehow made it past the censors, when Bill kisses Sue and his guns rise from their holsters and begin to fire by themselves, simulating ejaculation. He adds jokingly that "perhaps Roy Rogers was covering the eyes of Bobby Driscoll and Luana Patten during this scene".[12]

Legacy[]

Many of the seven segments were later released as shorts, and some of them became "more successful than the original film". Bumble Boogie was among the few segments to receive huge popularity upon individual release.[26] The article The Walt Disney Classics Collection Gets "Twitterpatted" For Spring notes that "the Little Toot segment of the film was so popular that it was re-released on its own as a short cartoon in 1954, and was subsequently featured on Walt Disney's popular weekly television series".[29]

There are many references to the Pecos Bill segment in the Frontierland part of Magic Kingdom: there is a sign of Bill outside the Pecos Bill Tall Tale Inn and Cafe, as well as various images of him, the other characters, and their accessories around the cafe. A pair of gloves with the inscription "To Billy, All My Love, Slue Foot Sue" is located in a glass display case. In the World of Disney, Jose Carioca from Blame it on the Samba appears in a mural on the ceiling among many other characters. In a glass case, behind the windows of the All-Star Movies, there is a script for Melody Time.[6]

See also[]

  • 1948 in film
  • List of American films of 1948
  • List of Walt Disney Pictures films
  • List of Disney theatrical animated features
  • List of animated feature films of the 1940s
  • List of highest-grossing animated films
  • List of package films
  • Tall Tale: The Unbelievable Adventures of Pecos Bill

References[]

  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Disney Legend Ken O'Connor
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  28. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

External links[]

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Seal Team is a 2021 South African computer-animated action comedy film co-directed by Greig Cameron and Kane Croudace, produced by Triggerfish Animation Studios and Cinema Management Group oversees worldwide distribution.[2] The film stars the voices of J.K. Simmons, Jessie T. Usher, Matthew Rhys, Patrick Warburton, Kristen Schaal, Sharlto Copley, John Kani, Dolph Lundgren, and Seal.[3] It tells the story of a group of misfit Cape Fur Seals who come together to fight a gang of ruthless sharks.[4][5][6]

The film was released in cinemas in the Netherlands on 13 October 2021, followed by Belgium in 27 October, Czech Republic one day later, and in West Asian Arab countries on 4 November. Netflix acquired the rights for the film for release on 31 December 2021 in many other territories.

Plot[]

During the 1980s, near the Cape of Storms, an animal military unit called H.M.M.F. (Hydro Marine Military Force), consisting of two African cape fur seals: veteran Claggart & tech genius Switch, & a celebrity striped dolphin named Dolph, are tasked by their human superiors with trying to defuse an underwater mine. Due to a seal's color-blindness, Claggart ends up cutting the wrong wire, & the mine immediately blows up once hauled onto their ship, the Good Boy. This causes a portion of the ship to be destroyed & the ship to wrecked on a rock, while the H.M.M.F. all survive unscathed, though Claggart loses his name tags which drifts off to rest near Seal Island, an island endlessly full of seals. Over time, the now retired H.M.M.F. drift apart: Claggart stays behind on the wreck of the Good Boy, Switch goes insane & lives on his own wreck that he turns into a lab with his imaginary friend, Senior Echo (which is in fact his echo, though he sometimes speaks without Switch talking out loud), & Dolph goes into show business in his own popular superhero show titled: Dial Eck-Eck-Eck-Eck For Action.

In the present day, Claggart's name tag is found by a bold cape fur seal named Quinn & his nervous best friend Benji while hunting for fish, before they are chased off by sharks, whom their community lives in fear of, but their fear is always scoffed at by their elder leader, Brick. Due to the shortage of food, the seals are all forced to eat bad-tasting barnacles while having to wait for the annual sardine run. After retrieving the name tag, Quinn & Benji both share each of the name tags, & go out at night to search for food amongst the human shipwrecks with no luck, & run afoul of a great white shark named Grimes & his remora associates, who tries to eat them. Quinn manages to survive by hiding in the wreck, & calls for Benji to join him, but learns he has been eaten by Grimes after seeing his part of the name tag snagged on his teeth, who then goes for him next, but Quinn is then saved by an elderly Claggart, who drives off Grimes & brings him back to the surface & reclaims his name tag before leaving Quinn. After he comes to, he's found by three cape gannets named Diving Dee, Roger, & Mayday, who has been trying to eat a starfish that's been stuck in her mouth for years, who guide him to the wreck of the Good Boy, where Quinn insist Claggart into teaching him how to fight a shark, which he had experienced him do that to Grimes before he passed out, so he can avenge Benji's death.

After some advice by Claggart to assemble a team in order to accomplish his goal, he returns to Seal Island, where he recruits the energetic but eccentric Beth, who prefers & suggests to licking rocks rather than eat barnacles, & the boastful yet cowardly Great Geraldo, who keeps telling everyone that comes his way about escaping an aquarium in Cape Town, but had to leave behind his Asian cape fur seal girlfriend, Magnificent Jing. They arrive at the Good Boy where Claggart teaches them the skills they need to fight sharks & eventually they pass the final exam. Later that night, after being convinced by Quinn, Claggart takes them to Switch's wreck, where he accepts the offer to join them & shows off his latest biotech weapons to help them, including snapping clam grenades, electric eel bolts, pufferfish mines, stolen synchronized watches (Geraldo instead gets a toy watch), fighting barracuda bazookas, pistol shrimps(that shoots an ion blast of knockout gas when used), & a group of octopuses all named Flicka, who can all turn into a suit that makes anyone invisible. With their training & new weapons, they successfully take down a shark. Two onlooking sharks see this, & report to Grimes, who decides to make an example of them by using his remoras to summon all the sharks in the world, including the one that Quinn & his friends trapped, & orders them to surround Seal Island.

The gannets tell the group of the situation, so Switch suggests using his special formula chum to hypnotize the sharks & lure them away from Seal Island, so they go to Cape Town to retrieve a boat in order to install the chum. Once there, Geraldo reunites with Jing, who forces him to reveal that escaping the aquarium was Jing's idea & she escaped & left him behind due to the fact that he couldn't go through with it, & he was thrown out instead of escaping. After some convincing, Jing joins the team, & they acquire a boat & head back to Seal Island, where they use the chum to lure the sharks away from Seal Island & use the advantage to bombard the sharks with their weapons, distracting them & causing them to smash them into a rock. When the shark they fought attacks their boat, it crashes into a crevice where one of Grimes' remoras gets separated from the shark & take it hostage where they learn from it that surrounding Seal Island was a distraction to keep them busy while Grimes was gathering more shark forces. Geraldo & Jing stay behind to distract the sharks surrounding the boat wreck by tricking them with a play with fake replicas, in which they amend their ways before joining the others near Grimes' wreck to learn his true intentions.

With the help of Flicka, Quinn goes undercover & learns that Grimes is planning to lead an endless population of sharks to attack the Seal Island population on their south to the upcoming annual sardine run. However, Quinn's cover is compromised after Flicka's effects wear off but orders Flicka to activate their countermeasures who do it by covering the entire area of squid ink. In the commotion, Claggart abandons the others to keep the sharks busy, while the others escape. After arriving on the Good Boy, Quinn leaves for Seal Island, as he no longer wants to endanger his friends, but once he arrives, he learns all the seals have gone for the sardine run, & he confronts Brick for mindlessly endangering them, but then the latter regrets that he already knows about sharks, & pretends to believe that sharks aren't real, because even though some seals won't come back, the community will survive, before leaving with the rest of the seals. Knowing that their fate is in his hands, Quinn returns to the Good Boy, & reassembles the team to take down Grimes once & for all.

They arrive at Grime's wreck by sneaking inside the mouth of Dave, a goofy looking, loud-mouthed basking shark whom they frequently encounter. Once there, they assault all the sharks with ambushes, but Grimes appears & traps them in a container, before he joins the other sharks to eat the seals, which have already arrived. The group eventually escape, & manage to protect all the seals, who also lose their fear & join in the fight, along with Brick. They are also joined by Claggart, who is revealed to be alive & had gone to recruit Dolph for the team, who both restart the Good Boy, allowing a chance for the seals to escape on board. Grimes pounces onto the ship & snags Claggart's name tag on Quinn with the other name tag snagged on his tooth, resulting in a tug-of-war, but Quinn breaks free & retrieves both name tags while Grimes loses his balance, falls back into the sea, & is then killed & mauled by the Good Boy's propeller. With Grimes dead, the entire seal colony head for the sardine run on board the Good Boy.

Months later, Quinn & his friends have hauled the Good Boy to Seal Island as their new base, where the residents of Seal Island now honor them as heroes, & they, along with the gannets & Dave, keep the island safe from any seal-eating shark that comes by.

In a series of mid-credits scenes, Dave is seen as a caller on a talk show radio station, where continuously talks about the many objects he accidentally ate other than plankton to prove that not all sharks are dangerous.[7]

Cast[]

  • J.K. Simmons as Claggart, an elderly cape fur seal who comes out of retirement to lead the Seal Team.
  • Ben Stiller as Quinn, an orphaned cape fur seal.
  • Matthew Rhys as Grimes, a villainous great white shark who is the leader of the sharks.
  • Patrick Warburton as Geraldo, a boastful yet cowardly cape fur seal.
  • Ashley Rae Spillers as Beth, an energetic, but eccentric female cape fur seal.
  • Sharlto Copley as Switch, a mentally unstable gadgets expert cape fur seal.
  • Camille Mana as Jing, an Asian cape fur seal skilled in martial arts and Geraldo's former lover.
  • John Kani as Brick, a scarred old cape fur seal and the leader of the seals who keeps denying the existence of sharks.
  • Dolph Lundgren as Dolph, a cigar-chomping striped dolphin with sunglasses whose catchphrase is "Eck eck eck eck! It's go time!"
  • Seal as Seal Seal, a singing cape fur seal.
  • Julian Smith as Benji, a cape fur seal and Quinn's deceased best friend.
  • Kate Micucci as Diving Dee, a friendly, fast-talking cape gannet.
  • Anjali Bhimani as
    • Crabby Stabby, a decorator crab.
    • Female great white shark
    • Seal
  • Greig Cameron as:
    • Harbor Seal
    • Seal
    • Shark
  • Richard Steven Horvitz as:
    • Snap, a sharp-tempered Mako shark.
    • Two of Grimes's remora fish.
  • Jan Johns as:
    • Mayday, an insane cape gannet who has a starfish living in her mouth.
    • Geraldo's Watch
    • Seal
    • Shark
  • Matthew Mercer as:
    • Dave, a loud-mouthed Basking shark.
    • Shark
  • Daran Norris as:
    • Roger, a cape gannet who usually just says "Roger".
    • Radio DJ
  • Bumper Robinson as:
    • Chum, a dimwitted great white shark who hangs out with Snap and whose catchphrase is "Who wants to get in my face hole!?"
    • HMMF Animal Handler
    • One of Grimes's remora fish.
  • Vivienne Rutherford as Sam
  • Secunda Wood as Scarlet
  • Jenny Yokobori as:
    • Geraldo's Watch
    • Octopus
    • Seal
  • Rick Zieff as Crunch
  • Judy Abrahams as Guard
  • Julia Anastasopolous as Tour Guide
  • Bob Bergen as
    • Seal
    • Octopus
  • Rodger Bumpass as Shark
  • Remy Edgerly as Seal
  • Bill Farmer as Seal
  • Quinton Flynn as Shark
  • Jason E. Kelley as Seal
  • Neal Leachman as:
    • Seal
    • Shark
  • Zolani Mohala as Guard
  • Kristina Mueller as Shark
  • Brent Mukai as Shark
  • Brendan Sean Murray as:
    • Seal
    • Shark
  • Sarah Natochenny as Shark
  • Joe Ochman as Seal
  • Ryan Robinson as Shark
  • Lindsey Sheppard as Shark
  • Catherine Taber as Seal
  • Rob van Vurren as Harbor Seal
  • Louw Venter as Harbor Seal
  • Matthew Wood as:
    • Seal
    • Shark
  • Tarryn Wyndgaard as Harbor Seal

Production[]

In May 2018, it was announced Triggerfish Animation Studios would produce Seal Team as their third feature film.[8] The film was being financed by South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation, the Dept. of Trade and Industry (DTI), and Cinema Management Group (CMG).[8]

While the film was fully created at Triggerfish studios in Cape Town, some of the animation was outsourced to Base FX in Beijing and Johannesburg's Chocolate Tribe handled a portion of the rigging using Maya's mGear and Python tools to give the characters a stop-motion look on the movements.

Dolph Lundgren and Matthew Rhys joined the voice cast in May 2021, Rhys once mentioned that why he wanted to voice Grimes is because he has a 4-year-old son that is obesessed with sharks.[9]

Reception[]

The New York Times gave it a negative review, claiming "the best cackle comes from reading the voice cameos in the end credits".[10]

In contrast, Decider's verdict was 'Stream It.' They said, "Seal Team has laughs a-plenty and a sense of good natured camaraderie in its heart..." not to mention "inspired voice casting" and "the kind of sight gags that look beyond cartoon kids' fare."[11]

Common Sense Media recommended it for ages six and older, saying "Though it doesn't have the big-name studios behind it, this movie holds its own in the animation and voice acting categories... You can't help but root for the seals."[12]

The SA animation film Seal Team topped the top 10 list of the most-watched shows on Netflix in five continents and 27 countries. [13]

See also[]

  • Seal Team Six

References[]

  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Cinema Management Group
  3. ↑ MUBI
  4. ↑ What parents need to know about recent movies - The Washington Post
  5. ↑ The Most Popular Movies On Netflix Besides 'Don't Look Up'|HuffPost
  6. ↑ FilmAffinity
  7. ↑ New animation to celebrate Quinn, a seal living off the coast of Cape Town|South African News
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ 'Seal Team' Review: Leave No Pun Behind - The New York Times
  11. ↑ 'Seal Team' Netflix Review: Stream It or Skip It? - Decider
  12. ↑ Common Sense Media
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

External links[]

Script error: No such module "Side box".

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