The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

"Willie the Operatic Whale"... my oh my, I have just watched this for the first time in ages. I barely remembered anything from this. This is one of the segments from Walt Disney's "Make Mine Music".

While certainly not as good as the little masterpiece "Peter and the Wolf", this one is enjoyable in a different way. The first minutes are a bit weak, but once the whale Willie is introduced, this improves notoriously.

This whale's name (Willie) could almost cause some confusion with Willy (the orca from the "Free Willy" movies). But only their names are similar. Similar, not equal. And yes, they are both whales, but this Willie is a sperm whale.

Willie himself makes this short so enjoyable. He might be enormous, but he's a nice and friendly whale. In other words, a gentle giant. He doesn't hurt or do anything bad to anyone, he's just a very unusual whale that likes to take advantage of his incredible talent to sing Opera music. He sings very well, especially that delightful Italian song "Figaro" (a song which can also be heard in a great commercial of the Fiat Ritmo). In fact, that's precisely what Willie wishes most: to become an Opera singer... which happens. Willie has more amazing and unbelievable abilities that make him a very special whale. The ending, however, is sad: poor Willie! Whales are certainly majestic and fantastic big animals. They fascinate me. Sadly, they are an endangered species. If this keep going like this, someday there will be no more whales.

As for the cartoon, it has generally good artwork, aside in the first minutes before the whale appears. The sceneries, the seagulls and Willie are especially well drawn.

As a tiny child, I liked this, but found it incredibly sad. Now, I still enjoy it, for many reasons. It is a fifteen minute cartoon to love and treasure. It has a fun, quite exciting storyline, cute Disney animation, good opera and the emotion and the warmness this creates in your heart are incredibly good as well.

The cartoon starts with newspaper headings - and continues with quite a few of these every now and again. Someone has heard someone singing way out to sea and eventually someone finds the singing is coming from a whale. The professors and ordinary people are baffled, until one scientist makes his last decision, an opera singer is stuck inside the whale. He goes out to try and find the whale, with interesting consequences...

Before you watch it, you should make sure you can cope with opera, if you closed your eyes and just listened to this cartoon, most of what you would hear is opera. That is one of the beautiful things about this cartoon. I also recommend this to people who like Disney things and to people who are passionate about cartoons. Enjoy "Willie the Operatic Whale"! :-)

P.S Another extraordinary thing about this is that all of the voices are done by one man, he does the narrating, the three kinds of opera and even some woman voices.

While "chester"'s review was kind-hearted, I felt, as someone who has viewed "Willie the Whale" numerous times, I had to expand on it. While he feels this movie has no other motive than to entertain, I feel it makes the most of the human experience.

Nelson Eddy does an inexplicably emotive narrative and also sings ALL of the songs. His inflection on the narration of this story could be the only reason to watch it. But, no, we also have a trained American opera singer (Eddy, again) singing all of the songs, without fault. If you closed your eyes and listened to this video, your emotions would still be evoked to the highest possible level, stimulated by music and narrative.

The story is so bittersweet. Although this is an old Disney production, I was not introduced to it until my daughter picked it up at a video store in the 90's. It has, at the core, a burning political statement, all the while, making it simple enough for the smallest children to relate to and to reconcile. All creatures are different; all have their own talents; we don't have precidence over anything we just don't understand; and we all make mistakes.

I cannot get through this video without tears at the end. It is simple and complex. Kids could relate it to the playground; we can relate it to world politics.

I've said all of this without mentioning a note that Nelson Eddy sings. There are some universal reknowned songs intertwined into this video, and if you know the background of them, "Shortnin' Bread", "Figaro", et. al., then you will get the underlying message. I think Disney and other production companies are very clever at using this type of medium to send a bigger message. If you really listen, you will hear, but if you don't want to, then you will still enjoy this gem of a short. It's a very sweet story.

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)!

This cartoon was featured in a Disney movie called "Make Mine Music" that had different segments. It's now shown as a separate cartoon most of the time, because it was the best of the segments. I saw this as a child; I remember Willie the Whale singing and thinking it was so cute and adorable. I was so rooting for Willie. And then came the ending, which was to say the least, shocking. Really, it was like getting kicked in the stomach. There was talk of "heaven" but that didn't make things any better. This cartoon is entertaining the but ending is something that might upset some children. It sure upset me. Really, it broke my heart, and it affects me the same way still.