The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met

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)!

When I was 8 or so, I used to watch Willie the Operatic Whale a lot and loved it. I am 17 now, and watching it again, brings back all those good memories. The cartoon is very short, but is so sweet and charming you can't help but like it. I absolutely love anything to do with classical music, and would love to train to be a singer in a few years time, and this cartoon was the one where I drew my inspiration from. The animation is really lovely considering it was made in 1946, especially Willie in heaven, and Nelson Eddy, from films such as the Chocolate Soldier, narrates with feeling and passion, and sang the soundtrack wonderfully. The story, is simple, about a whale who sings opera with three voices tenor, baritone and bass, and there are attempts to kill Willie, as people think he swallowed an opera singer, and in the end he does get killed and that was sad. The ending was really sad, seeing that seagull like that, made me want to reach into the television and hug him. I think the real star was the music, wonderful choices, from the hilarious Largo Al Factotum from Barber of Seville, Mephistopheles' terrifying aria from Mephistophele, the sextet from Lucia Di Lamemoor(a beautiful piece too) and a duet from Wagner's masterpiece Tristan and Isolde. Overall, a beautiful cartoon, that has made me appreciate classical music more over the years. 10/10 Bethany Cox.

"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.

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.