Major Post 6: The Barn Dance

Posted on by Sydney McPherson

Two ways through which Disney’s older animations create entertainment, are exaggeration and character development. A fitting example is “The Barn Dance” created by Ub Iwerks in 1929. In the opening scene, Mickey Mouse is riding in his carriage. He whips the horse to get it to accelerate and suddenly the horse quickens from a steady trod to a jumping gallop. Soon the carriage begins to gallop as well, instead of rolling along smoothly. Next, we arrive at Minnie Mouse’s house as Mickey has offered her a carriage ride to the barn dance. Mickey’s love for Minnie is established through the hearts floating around his head throughout.

In this scene, Minnie is presented as the woman that all the men want, as a competition between Mickey and Pete ensues when Pete arrives in a swanky vehicle. Mickey doesn’t have a car horn like Pete, and so he uses a duck’s call by squeezing the duck to impress Minnie. Minnie continues to test the waters throughout the animation, going back and forth between Mickey and Pete when one disappoints her. During the dancing scene, Mickey continuously steps on Minnie’s feet and legs and his shoes grow impossibly large until he is trampling Minnie. Upset, Minnie goes to dance with Pete, reinforcing the way she is portrayed as having no commitment to neither Pete nor Mickey. This spurs on the love Mickey has for Minnie as he continues to impress her.

Another interesting aspect is the repetition of movements that make the character’s cohesive. In the scene at Minnie’s house, Mickey and Minnie both throw their noses upwards towards Pete in dislike. This is typical for Mickey because he does dislike Pete. However, after Mickey steps on Minnie’s toes while dancing, Minnie throws up her nose towards Mickey in dislike. Before, we didn’t see the full extent of Minnie’s non-commitment to the two boys, yet now Minnie has returned to Pete who she left just a scene prior, which in turn spurs on Mickey’s competition with him.

Sydney McPherson

Major Post 03 – Interaction with Audience from Disney

Posted on by Thang Tsz Ching, Janelle

When Professor Jake talked about Fantasia from Disney, I misunderstood as the other one that I love watching which is also made by Disney. I found myself often messed this one up with Fantasia.
The one music video or a show that I am talking about is Mickey’s PhilharMagic. The animation is created for a show in Disneyland. I love this animation when I was a little girl. Even though it is a computer animation, I do still find some old fashion taste from the old animations showed in class. The whole animation is driven by music. A lot of the content in between is basically scenes and songs from the classic animated Disney animated movie but are remade for dramatic effects and interaction with Donald Duck. The consideration of the characters in it will interact with the audience is what makes me remind of the animations showed in class. Remembering there are scenes when the characters were doing something or talking but they were actually talking to us, the audience.
For example, Hell-Bent for Election (1944), directed by Chuck Jones. There is the scene of the short man in suit, he was being frustrated and transformed into Hitler. He then was embarrassed and returned back to himself. This is a symbolic movement of the animation but have you ever think of who is he embarrassed to? Us, the audience because in any animations, we are watching the story goes on in god mode, we know a lot more than the characters in it. If you think about it, from the old animations, the characters sometimes interacted with the audience to create a sense of humor that makes us laugh.

I do not have a proper link to watch it in the best quality because it is a show in Disneyland. No one got the original video, it is best to watch it in person but you have to pay to watch this.
This is the one I think it got the best quality to watch it.
If I remembered it correctly and they still haven’t remove it, this can be watched in Disneyland Hong Kong too.