The Walt Disney Company has been promoting their upcoming launch of Disney+, a streaming service to rival…well, the universe. All the Marvel stuff, all the Pixar stuff, “The Simpsons”, all the “Star Wars” stuff, and…uh…oh yeah! All the Disney stuff!
Well…almost.
In 1946 Walt Disney released “Song of the South”, an ambitious film combining live action and animation. The live actors and cartoon characters weren’t constantly intertwined as in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”; Even the Disney studio artists at their peak couldn’t sustain that in the post-WWII days when the studio was just getting back on its feet. So, there are one or two stunning musical sequences where Uncle Remus interacts with the Br’ers Rabbit, Fox, Bear, etc. But mostly it’s a live action story that serves to bookend long animation sequences.
Like all the best-loved Disney films, “Song of the South” was trotted out to theaters every few years, and this is how my brother and I saw it in 1980. I remember my Dad being the force behind us going to see it, which was almost unheard of…he was usually not too invested in that kind of decision. But he had seen “Song of the South” in theaters when he was a kiddo. So he was excited for us to see it.
My memories of “Song of the South” are almost exclusively related to the animated sequences. Disney cartoons, which we saw on NBC’s “Wonderful World of Disney” Sunday nights, were usually more visually impressive than genuinely entertaining. But the Uncle Remus story sequences in “Song of the South” were laugh-out-loud funny. The cartoons really were the thing in that movie. I also remember, as part of the live-action story, a seqence where a kid gets chased by a loose bull.
Of course, there’s a whole other side to “Song of the South.” Its troublesome portrayal of subservient roles and attitudes of African-American characters, the ambiguous time period, the stereotypical dialect, and other areas of concern caused the film to be criticized from its release in 1946. This makes it all the more remarkable that Walt Disney Pictures re-released the film theatrically one final time in 1986. But it has never aired on TV, never released on home video, and will not be among the offerings on Disney’s new streaming service.
I don’t have a strong opinion on whether Disney’s self-imposed ban on “Song of the South” is justified. The Disney company released quite a bit of material that hasn’t dated well on its series of “Treasures” DVDs, in each case featuring host Leonard Maltin offering context on the material. However, unlike World War II industrial films and silent “Oswald The Lucky Rabbit” cartoons, “Song of the South” is a feature-length film with the Disney name. This puts it on a list with “Cinderella”, “Frozen”, and other films parents feel comfortable leaving their kids with. As much as I love my memories of seeing it on the big screen, I’m not sure if it can go on that list.
The Disney+ service does appeal to me, probably for all the wrong reasons. All I want it to have are streaming seasons of “The Muppet Show” and original episodes of the Disney anthology series (“Disneyland”, “Walt Disney Presents”, “Wonderful World of Color.”). I am planning to be disappointed.