Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Ferdinand the Bull" is a Walt Disney cartoon from shortly before World War II. It won the Oscar in a year where no less than 4 out of 5 nominated cartoons were by Walt Disney. This one here takes another journey into the wonderful world of animals. It has to be one of Disney's most harmonic works. However, I felt that it lacks somehow the emotion of films about the likes of the Ugly Duckling, Lambert or Elmer. Nonetheless, it's a good watch and has some funny moments such as the bumble-bee who was at the wrong place wrong time. And so was Ferdinand as he gets taken to the bull-fighting arena. All the other bulls would have been so happy, but not him. Another scene I liked was when the bullfighter shows us his naked breast and we see the tattoo and the music implies that maybe the red color will get Ferdinand finally angry and let him attack, but nope. He is just too peace-loving, so in the end it's back to the green grass for him. nice to see he wasn't killed as bulls frequently are after fights in the arena. Entertaining short film, but not among Disney's best.

MartinHafer This is one of my favorite stories from childhood and this Disney cartoon did a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the classic Muro Leaf story. The 1939 Oscars were a particularly good year, with Disney receiving 4 of 5 nominations in the category of Best Cartoon and receiving the award for FERDINAND--beating out such Disney classics as THE BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR and GOOD SCOUTS.The film is about a gentle bull in Spain who has no interest in fighting. Instead, he'd rather just sit and smell the flowers all day. However, when men come looking for fierce bulls for the bullfighting ring, they think Ferdinand is the meanest bull because he was just stung by a bee. What happens next you'll need to see for yourself.There is a lot to like about this cartoon. The artwork, though not exactly in the style of the children's book, is pretty close and is among the better animated shorts Disney did in the era. If you compare the artwork, music and quality to fare from Fleischer, Warner Brothers and MGM at the same time, it is light-years ahead. The best cartoons at that time were clearly Disney--with MGM and Warner Brothers still making saccharine-sweet cartoons with second-rate animation until the 1940s (when these two studios became the best maker of cartoon shorts). This film just screams "quality" throughout and deserved the Oscar.By the way, get a load of the Cork Tree! Ha!

Spleen "Ferdinand" has the same lush art direction and is based on the same kind of sweet parable as a Silly Symphony, and was released while that series was still going (it would end on a high note with "The Ugly Duckling" in 1939), but it's something else altogether: the first of Disney's "storybook" cartoons. It is, in fact, based on a children's storybook, but that's not the point. The point is that there is spoken narration, and the drawings ILLUSTRATE the narration, much as they would illustrate the printed text in a picture book.So far as I know this is the first cartoon from ANY studio to attempt this kind of thing. It's not the best; narration and illustration are too independent of one another. I'm not saying that Disney should have used any of those old cartoon gimmicks - characters arguing with the narrator, etc. - which postmodernists delight in as though they weren't half obvious; such gimmicks would not, in a sincere work such as this, have worked. But words and pictures should partner each other in a subtle dance; each should know when to withdraw and place the narrative burden upon the other. I can't put it more precisely than this; but watch two "storybook" cartoons that Disney produced later - "Lambert the Sheepish Lion" from 1951, "Pigs is Pigs" from 1954 - to see the dance perfected, resulting in an animated storytelling sessions that FLOW, from beginning to end.To be fair, unqualified successes like these are rare. Most of Disney's later "storybook" cartoons also get it wrong, some of them are dreadful, and not a single one apart from the two I've named can match the charm of the first.

Ron Oliver A Walt Disney Cartoon Short.Young FERDINAND THE BULL wants nothing more than to sit under his favorite cork tree, just smelling the flowers. But he is chosen to fight in the great arena in Madrid, where only the bravest, fiercest bulls have a chance for glory...This splendid cartoon, based on Munro Leaf's 1936 classic paean to individualism, is one of Disney's finest. The original story has been left basically intact - no animated mice or ducks, no dancing and/or singing trees & flowers needed here. Robert Lawson's evocative black & white drawings come to life in beautiful color & motion. The animators did have a bit of sly fun: the banderilleros & picadors are caricatures of the artists; the matador is a spoof of Walt himself (he was not amused). Don Wilson, Jack Benny's decades-long announcer, is an inspired choice as narrator. The personality & character of Ferdinand has been a matter of speculation for years, but the truth of the matter is perhaps best left in the privacy of the bull field...