The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

This movie was interesting. When I first started watching it, i had no idea what was going to happen. Then it started getting good. It was ridiculous but thats half the fun of animation. The ending comes a big shock to all so get the tissues ready. The whale just couldn't fit in with the human world. No matter how wonderful his voice was. I think he would of been happier in the ocean with his seagull friend. Over all a pretty good cartoon.

Originally part of the movie Make Mine Music, this cartoon was released later on its own as a theatrical short. This is a showcase for Nelson Eddy, who does the narration, voices of the characters, and all the singing. The story is about a whale named Willie that is heard singing by the crew of a ship at sea. As reports spread about Willie, opera impresario Tetti-Tatti is convinced the singing is actually coming from an opera singer the whale must have swallowed. He sets out to hunt and kill Willie to prove this. What follows is a bittersweet and somewhat allegorical story with a surprisingly dark end. It's a good cartoon with nice animation and impressive vocals from Eddy. Not sure how the ending will play for little ones, though.

I saw WILLIE THE OPERATIC WHALE as a child on a Disney matinée with BAMBI...can you believe this? What were they trying to do to us? WILLIE is a superb Disney short about an opera singing whale who wants to be at the NY Met singing PAGLIACCI ...but really belongs at the bottom of the sea. Seeing him dressed in his clown outfit, pom poms and cone shaped hat and teardrop and all is just shattering for any child let alone the adult with him. I just cried and cried and then......what happens at the end is emotional scarring for life. I have never forgotten WILLIE also because we copped BAMBI 30 minutes later. I think the whole audience was washed from the Marina Theatre in 1962, in tears. WILLIE is part of a series of cartoons that just have to be on DVD soon. I will snap it up immediately! I did not know it was part of the "Jive version of Fantasia" pic called MAKE MINE MUSIC as that film was never seen after 1946, only the components of which WILLIE was the finale (Jeez!) and deserves a place all to itself maybe on a DVD with other sensational short Disney animations like DONALD IN MATHMAGICLAND and FERDINAND THE BULL. (Ferdinand is a bull who prefers to pick flowers instead of fighting.....believe it or not, as gay as all get out)!

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

Endowed with tremendous vocal powers, WILLIE THE OPERATIC WHALE dreams of leaving his ocean home and becoming a success on the stage of the New York Met.

This heart touching little film, originally the closing segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946), is buoyed along by the colorful animation and a prodigious vocal performance by Nelson Eddy who enacts all the roles - young & old, male & female, human & animal. The ending couldn't be better.

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.

I was introduced to opera at 6 years age listening repeatedly to the 78 RPM 3 disk recording of this magnificent Disney production. I never saw the video until I was 40 years old. It is a charming and exciting animation that will captivate young children. I forgot about opera by 9 years age until I accidentally heard the sextet from Lucia di Lammermoor at college and immediately recognized Willie. I fell in love with grand opera all over again at that moment and pushed aside my rock and pop collections.

Music from Barber of Seville (Rossini), Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Pagliacci (Leoncavallo), Mephistofiles (Boito), Tristan und Isolde (Wagener), Martha (Flotow), possibly other I do not recognize.

Play it to your children. Wean them with it, and one day they will remember.