Casey at the Bat

1940s comedian, Jerry Colonna, narrates this Disney short. If you are unfamiliar with Colonna, he was a radio comedian who often traveled with Bob Hope on his overseas tours. Colonna's big claims to fame were his amazingly weird Marty Feldman-like eyes and his piercing voice. But, because he didn't appear in a lot of movies, most people today have no idea who he was and how popular he was in the old days.

I was very apprehensive to watch this short--after all, I am not a fan of poetry and I've heard several dull recitations of "Casey At The Bat" and wasn't looking forward to another. Wow, was I surprised! While this was the poem, at least in places, the entire production was terrific! With wonderful animation, lots of clever jokes and an irreverent sense of humor, this is well worth seeing.

If you are looking for this short, try the "Disney Timeless Treasures: Volume 3". It's there along with several other seldom-seen cartoon shorts.

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

The prospects were grim for the Mudville Nine that day, but all might change with CASEY AT THE BAT...

The famous poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer is given a lively spoof by the Disney folks in this little film which was originally a segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946). The animation is colorful and full of good humor and the boisterous musical recitation by radio comic Jerry Colonna is a tremendous asset. Our baseball hero would return in the cartoon short CASEY BATS AGAIN (1954).

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Ernest Lawrence Thayer is remembered for exactly one thing: writing the poem this Walt Disney cartoon is based on. Cited as the model of the "one-poem poet", Thayer did not even sign his name to the poem on its first appearance. Instead, he signed it "Phin", which was the name he used when contributing to the Harvard Lampoon. Thayer would live until 1950, when he would die at the age of 77, never having done anything of note ever again.

Which is more than most of us will ever do. It was Dewolf Hopper who made the poem famous, reciting it thousands of times on vaudeville stages. To the point, it was so familiar to every. Man, woman and child in these United States that there was no need for the people who wrote this cartoon to use more than half a dozen lines of it, interpolated into Jerry Colonna's typically over-the-top narration; then let the folks who did the drawings perform their magic, and you have a fine cartoon.

The pace is a tad too rushed, but this cartoon is an entertaining one. The animation is handsome and colourful, and the music is a real memorable treat. One big positive asset is the voice of Jerry Colonna, who serves almost as a mini commentary and does it marvellously, and avoids being annoying. The cartoon is also very funny, and makes a game of baseball resoundingly entertaining.

"Casey at the Bat" featured on "Make Mine Music". While not the best of the lot, that honour goes to "Willie the Operatic Whale", it is an entertaining and worthwhile cartoon that is worth watching for entertainment value.

8/10 Bethany Cox

Originally part of the movie Make Mine Music, this cartoon was released later on its own as a theatrical short. This was probably the most popular cartoon to come out of that film. I used to watch it a lot as a kid as part of a compilation video they put out at the time. It's a very funny recitation of Ernest Thayer's famous poem about an over-confident baseball player. Jerry Colonna handles the narration and does a terrific job. The animation is very nice. Love the colors. The music is very good, too. This is about as good as it gets for baseball cartoons. Well, this and the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Baseball Bugs." Definitely something you'll want to see if you like baseball or classic animation.