For the most part, I wanted to look at the animated movies that people would look to when they think of Disney Animated Movies. I opted to leave out collections of Shorts (Fantasia being the exception) and the live-action mixes they did since those aren't things a person generally thinks about when they think Disney. That said, I am using this review as a sort of catch-all review of the kind of cartoons you would see from Disney back in the day, the non-feature film ones, and because I always remembered loving this movie as a kid despite not being able to remember to much about it. So breaking my guidelines (That will happen one more time during these reviews) I decided to take a look at it.
To start, this shouldn't be looked at as a movie but a made for TV special. It looks great, but not as good as their other movies out at the same time, it's not a typical movie kind of story, and it's not really any deeper or grander than what you would see from their shows on TV. At the same time its much longer than an episode, about a fifty-five minute run time, and while it is a series of shorts there are connecting themes and callbacks making it best viewed in one sitting.
This is kind of what made the old Disney Cartoons (Not the Movies) so great is their ability to create a kind of an alternate reality in how the physics of the world functions and feel consistent with itself. There is a point Donald Duck grows in size by blowing into his finger to inflate himself, a crazy bird walks out of a film projector along the stream of light projected to the screen, all kinds of goofy things like this. But it's not just one random character doing it, all characters follow these strange rules and it gives the whole thing a sense of believably. When this crazy stuff happens, it doesn't pull you out of the experience because it feels natural to the world created. What helps is how clever it is about it all.
A nice touch is the showcase of various cultures from around the world, though nothing very detailed. But if you are showing this movie to young kids it's a great way to show how many different things there are out there in the world well beyond what they know. In what almost feels like a lost art, it does this without having to be preachy or go out of its way to make a point or a grand statement, it's just them going 'There are a lot of really cool things out there in the world'. It was a great thing to re-visit.
That said, there is no getting around how awful the mix of live-action and cartoon animations are in this. Some slack is given because if I recall this is the first movie to try that, but the pure visual of it looks horrible. It never even remotely feels like the real-life actors and animations are interacting with each other, and it makes what were otherwise pretty funny gags fall flat. Only portions of the movie are done with the mix, and the idea of getting all these famous performers from around the world involved is great, but the execution feels lacking due to the underwhelming tech of the time.
But when the show is funny, it is really funny. Watching this again for the first time since I was a kid I have seen what is one of my favorite gags in all of Disney's movies. It comes after the Baiha song, a song about how much Jose` misses and loves Baiha. I don't even want to spoil it, but it was just beautiful when it hits.
This is everything great about Disney TV Cartoons, but as a movie, it doesn't quite hold up to their others due to lack of a solid story and the lower quality of the animation. So long as you go into it expecting some kind of TV special instead of a Feature Length Film you are in for a treat.
