EXPANDING THE DREAM
In mid-1941, with war raging in Europe but the United States not yet involved, Nelson Rockefeller, the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs for the State Department, asked Walt Disney and members of his staff to embark on a goodwill tour of South America. The reasons for the trip were twofold: On the one hand, sending a much beloved figure like Walt would help the U.S.’s Good Neighbor Policy, which was designed to quell any pro-Axis feeling that existed south of the border. On the other hand, South America represented an untapped market for Hollywood motion picture studios such as Disney that were suffering from the loss of European revenues due to the war.
The results of the trip south were two travelog-style films combining live-action glimpses of South American culture with several cartoon sequences.
The first of the two films, Saludos Amigos, was released in 1943 and featured such Latin standards as “Tico Tico” and “Brazil.” The one song written especially for the film, “Saludos Amigos,” was penned by Ned Washington and Charles Wolcott, who admitted prior to the trip that “my only exposure to Latin music was the sound of Xavier Cugat.”
Apparently, the public and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences liked what they saw and heard. The movie was a box office success both north and south of the border, while “Saludos Amigos” was nominated for Best Song and the score, composed by such Disney stalwarts as Ed Plumb, Paul J. Smith and Wolcott, was nominated for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture.
The second of the two Latin American-themed movies was The Three Caballeros, which featured Donald Duck, Joe Carioca and a new character, Panchito, on a musical romp through Mexico and South America.
Of the nine songs written for the film, two became hits: “Baia” and the Agustin Lara-Ray Gilbert-penned “You Belong to My Heart” which featured the vocal talents of Latin American singing star Dora Luz.
Perhaps no other song in the Disney pantheon has enjoyed greater popularity than “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah,” the irresistibly bouncy, upbeat tune from Song of the South that has become nothing less than an anthem for happiness. Written by Allie Wrubel and Ray Gilbert, “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” not only topped the Hit Parade in 1946, it took home the Oscar for Best Song.
But the song’s already considerable success hasn’t ended there. It has become an enduring standard, popping up in the strangest places with performances by the most surprising of people. Producer Phil Spector gave “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” his trademark “wall of sound” treatment in 1962 and turned it into a Top Ten hit on the Billboard pop chart for Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans. The song has even turned up in other movies. For instance, in the 1984 hit Splash, Tom Hanks turns in an offhanded performance of “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” after spending a wild night with Daryl Hannah’s mermaid character.
Somewhat lost in the hubbub over “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” was another tow-tapping ditty written for Song of the South, “Ev’rybody Has a Laughing Place.” Also written by Wrubel and Gilbert, “Laughing Place” is sung by Johnny Lee as Brer Rabbit with a little “help” from Nicodemus Stewart as Brer Bear.
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In 1945, James Baskett was playing fast-talking lawyer Gabby Gibson on the “Amos ‘n’ Andy” radio show when he answered an ad to provide the voice of a butterfly in Disney’s Song of the South. Not only did he get the part of the butterfly, he also got the lead role of Uncle Remus, served as the voice of the wily and conniving Brer Fox (a rather abrupt turnabout from his portrayal of the kindly Uncle Remus) and, as if all those roles weren’t enough, also provided some of Brer Rabbit’s vocalizations when Johnny Lee was called off on a USO tour in the middle of recording. So Baskett went from one small role in Song of the South to just about taking over the whole motion picture. Pretty good for a Midwestern kid who at one time studied to be a pharmacist before pursuing his first love, the theater. Completing this success story was the special Academy Award Baskett received in 1948 for his “able and heartwarming characterization” of Uncle Remus. Alas, the euphoria was short-lived. Baskett died of a heart ailment just a few months after the Academy Awards ceremony.
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In the mid-1940s, the Disney Studio released a number of “package” pictures, movies that featured a series of animated shorts rolled into one film. The impetus behind the movies was both personal and practical. On the personal side, Walt Disney had always wanted to do a sequel to Fantasia, but on the practical side, the cost of producing such a film (not to mention the unlikelihood of making any money off of it, given the lack of success of that first effort) made such another ambitious undertaking an impossibility, especially considering the precarious financial position of the Disney Studio at the time.
So he made a compromise. Rather than use classical music for these pictures, which he thought might scare people away, he chose mainstream songs and popular performers as a means of enhancing each movie’s box office appeal. The results were four features – Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) – composed of fanciful music sequences. Call them an early version of DTV.
Among the performers Walt called on were such popular recording artists as the Andrews Sisters, Jerry Colonna, Nelson Eddy, Benny Goodman, Dinah Shore, Roy Rogers, Fred Waring and the Sons of the Pioneers, and Freddy Martin and His Orchestra. Alas, despite the presence of these stars, none of the films did particularly well with either critics or audiences. However, they did produce some good music, including “The Lord Is Good to Me,” featured as part of “Johnny Appleseed” in Melody Time. Written by Kim Gannon and Walter Kent, the song is performed by Dennis Day and continues to be sung by children today, few of whom realize that it originated in a Disney film.
So Dear to My Heart, released in 1949, has long been considered one of Walt Disney’s personal favorites. “So Dear was especially close to me,” he once said in an interview. “That’s the life my brother and I grew up with as kids out in Missouri.”
The movie, a somewhat forgotten musical period piece that tells the story of a boy and his pet lamb, was the last step Walt took before releasing his first entirely live-action motion picture, Treasure Island, in 1950. In fact, some critics complained that the few, brief animated sequences actually intrude on what is a nice understated film.
As is the case with many Disney movies, a large part of the movie’s charm is derived from its music. In this case, it’s several folk-inspired songs, among them “Lavender Blue (Dilly, Dilly),” sung by Burl Ives, who plays Uncle Hiram in the movie. “Lavender Blue,” written by Eliot Daniel with lyrics by the ever-present Larry Morey, received an Academy Award nomination.