DuringWorld War II, much ofWalt Disney's staff was drafted into thearmy, and those that remained were called upon by theU.S. government to make training andpropaganda films. As a result, thestudio was littered with unfinished story ideas. In order to keep the feature film division alive during this difficult time, the studio released sixpackage films including this one, made up of various unrelated segments set to music. This is the third package film, followingSaludos Amigos andThe Three Caballeros. The film was entered into the1946 Cannes Film Festival.[4]
The popular radio vocal group The King's Men sings the story of aHatfields and McCoys-stylefeud in the mountains. The feud is broken up when Grace Martin and Henry Coy, two young people from each side, inadvertently fall in love. This segment was later censored from the film's US video release due to objections to the film's depiction of gun violence.
This segment featured animation originally intended forFantasia using theClaude Debussy musical compositionClair de Lune fromSuite bergamasque (conducted byLeopold Stokowski).[citation needed] It featured twoegrets flying through theEverglades on a moonlit night. However, by the timeMake Mine Music was releasedClair de Lune was replaced by the new songBlue Bayou, performed by theKen Darby Singers. However, the original version of the segment still survives.
This segment was one of two sections in whichBenny Goodman and his Orchestra contributed.[5] Their music played over visuals drawn by an animator's pencil as the action occurred. The scene portrayedhepcatteens of the 1940s, being swept away bypopular music. This segment features some mild female nudity that was edited out in both the US and UK DVD releases, although the film's Japanese home video releases features it intact and uncensored.[6]
This segment featuredJerry Colonna,reciting the poem also titled "Casey at the Bat" byErnest Thayer, about the arrogant ballplayer whose cockiness was his undoing. The setting is 1902, in the town of Mudville. A few moments are exaggerated or altered and music is added. A sequel to this segment calledCasey Bats Again was released on June 18, 1954 as theatrical short.
The segment "Peter and the Wolf" is an animated dramatization of the 1936musical composition bySergei Prokofiev, with narration by actorSterling Holloway. A Russian boy named Peter sets off into the forest to hunt the wolf with his animal friends: a bird named Sascha, a duck named Sonia, and a cat named Ivan. Just like in Prokofiev's piece, each character is represented with a specific musical accompaniment: Peter by theString Quartet, Sascha by theFlute, Sonia by theOboe, Ivan by theClarinet, Grandpapa by theBassoon, the Hunters through their gunfire by theKettledrums, and the evil Wolf primarily byhorns andcymbals.
This segment told theromantic story of two hats who fell in love in adepartment store window inNew York City. When AliceBluebonnet was sold, JohnnieFedora devoted himself to finding her again. They eventually, by pure chance, meet up again and live happily ever after together, side by side.The Andrews Sisters provided the vocals. Like the other segments, it was later released theatrically. It was released as such on May 21, 1954.[7]
The final segment, the finale of the film, is a bittersweet story about asperm whale (named Willie) with incredible musical talent and his dreams of singinggrand opera. A rumor is spread throughout the city about an operatic whale, but is seemingly disproven, therefore the short-sightedimpresario Tetti-Tatti believes that the whale has swallowed an opera singer. He concludes this after studying the story ofJonah.
Tetti-Tatti sets out to "rescue" his non-existent quarry, the newspapers announcing that he was going to sea. Whitey, Willie's seagull friend, excitedly brings Willie the newspaper, all of his friends believing that this is his big chance, so he goes out to meet the boat and sing for Tetti-Tatti. He finds them, and upon hearing Willie sing, Tetti-Tatti comes to believe that Willie has swallowed not one, butthree singers (due to his having three uvulas, each with a different voice range; tenor, baritone and bass), and chases him with aharpoon on a boat with three crewmen. Upon hearing the whale sing, the crewmen try to stop the stubborn and deluded Tetti-Tatti from killing the whale, as they want to continue listening to him sing, even to the point of pinning Tetti-Tatti down by sitting on him. A montage then follows of what would be Willie's future career in performing opera on the stage of theMet, with Tetti-Tatti shown to have finally been convinced. In the end, reality strikes when Tetti-Tatti succeeds in harpooning and killing Willie which causes the three sailors to beat him up afterwards, but the narrator then explains that Willie's voice (now in a thousand, each more golden than before) will sing on in heaven, ironically still achieving his dream after all; the final shot is of the Pearly gates with a "sold out" sign.Nelson Eddy narrated and performed all the voices in this segment. As Willie the Whale, Eddy sang, among others,Shortnin' Bread, "Largo al factotum" fromThe Barber of Seville, all three male voices in the first part of theSextet fromDonizetti's opera,Lucia di Lammermoor, andMag der Himmel Euch Verbegen from Friedrich Wilhelm Riese's operaMartha.
Make Mine Music was initially released in theaters in 1946. Like many other package features of the 1940s, it was never given a wide theatrical reissue. Instead, its distinct segments were separated and released as separate short films or used as segments inDisney television programmes.
Make Mine Music was originally released on home video inJapan on October 21, 1985. All of its segments (except forWithout You andThe Martins and the Coys) had been released on home video in the US since they were shown onThe Magical World of Disney television series and/or released only as shorts.
Casey at the Bat was featured on the VHS release ofDisney's Tall Tales in 1985.
Blue Bayou was featured on the Disney's Greatest Lullabies Part Two VHS.
All the Cats Join In,Two Silhouettes,After You've Gone andThe Whale Who Wanted To Sing At The Met (along with Stokowski's original recording of Claire de Lune) were featured on the VHS compilationThe Wonderful World of Disney: Music for Everybody in 1986.
Peter and the Wolf was first released on the Storybook Classics VHS in 1982 and eventually joined the Walt Disney Mini Classics series (along withWillie the Operatic Whale) and the Favorite Stories collection.
Johnnie Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet was released on laserdisc in 1999 as part of The Disneyland Anthology 3 disc box-set, as it was a segment of theAdventures in Fantasy episode on side 5.
The actual film was released on VHS and DVD on June 6, 2000 under the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection line. They edited this release to removeThe Martins and the Coys, which contained comicgunplay that they deemed not suitable for children,[6] as well as editing out the sexualized imagery inAll the Cats Join In.
Outside of North America,Make Mine Music has been largely unavailable on DVD and VHS. It has, however, been available in Scandinavia on both VHS (1983) and DVD (2006) and since 2013 on DVD in the UK (unrestored, albeit withThe Martins and the Coys intact, but still editing out the sexualized imagery inAll the Cats Join In). This andThe Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad are the only two major Disney animated films never to see a release on Region 4 DVD in Australia; however, the latter did get a VHS release.
As of 2025,Make Mine Music is the only package film from the animation studio that is not available onDisney+.[8]
Disney releasedMake Mine Music andMelody Time for the first time ever onBlu-ray, through their Disney Movie Club website on November 2, 2021. Despite explicit reports by Disney's customer service confirming this release would be uncut and mentioning that the release would include all ten musical segments, the actual discs contained the 2000 censored version of the film.
The film grossed $70,000 in its first week at theGlobe Theatre in New York City.[9] It went on to earn $2,085,000 intheatrical rentals from the United States and Canada. Cumulatively, it earned $3,275,000 in worldwide rentals.[3]
Abel Green ofVariety stated that "the animation, color and music, the swing versus symph, and the imagination, execution and delineation—that this Disney feature (two years in the making) may command widest attention yet. The blend of cartoon with human action has been evidenced before; here Disney has retained all his characters in their basic art form, but endowed them with human qualities, voices and treatments, which is another step forward in the field where cartoons graduate into the field of the classics."[10]Harrison's Reports felt that some of the shorts were "more entertaining than others, but all are good, and each has something to please movie-goers of all tastes and ages. It is a delightful blend of comedy, music, pathos, animation, and color, given a most imaginative treatment."[11]
Bosley Crowther, reviewing forThe New York Times, praised the film as "a brilliant abstraction wherein fanciful musical instruments dance gayly on sliding color disks, sets of romping fingers race blithely down tapes of piano keys and musical notes fly wildly through the multi-hued atmosphere—all to the tingling accompaniment of Benny Goodman's quartet playing the ancient and melodious torch song, "After You're Gone". Color, form and music blend dynamically in this bit, and a rich stimulant of sensuous rhythm is excitingly achieved."[12] Edwin Schallert of theLos Angeles Times wrote thatMake Mine Music was "a picture of much inventiveness and imagination. The lighter the picture is, the more is its excellence demonstrated, it might be noted. And while music is the keynote of the production, it ranges well into comedy, and plentifully into swing."[13]
The film holds 58% rating onRotten Tomatoes, with an average score of 6.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This collection of musical-themed shorts doesn't reach the artistic heights of Fantasia, but it's well animated and mostly good fun."[14]
