{"id":72961,"date":"2022-06-15T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2022-06-15T07:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=72961"},"modified":"2022-06-14T16:24:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-14T23:24:17","slug":"flights-of-fancy-part-26-disney-in-the-modern-era-to-insanity-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/flights-of-fancy-part-26-disney-in-the-modern-era-to-insanity-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Flights of Fancy (Part 26): Disney in the Modern Era – To Insanity, and Beyond!"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"\n

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Disney\u2019s illustrious breakthrough into the small-screen medium has been well chronicled. Its early TV ventures were generally solid ratings-getters, watched avidly by the young and the young at heart. Of prime importance to this development was the hour-long showcase series, shown at various times as \u201cDisneyland\u201d, \u201cWalt Disney Presents\u201d, \u201cThe Wonderful World of Color\u201d<\/em>, and \u201cThe Wonderful World of Disney\u201d<\/em>, following the founder\u2019s death. Early episodes were hosted by Walt himself, but commencing with the \u201cColor\u201d run, hosting would often be turned over to a favorite Hamilton Luske creation, Donald\u2019s madcap and batty scientific uncle, Professor Ludwig Von Drake. Veteran voice-over artist Paul Frees would provide energetic jabbering dialogue in Germanic accent for the character, capitalizing upon the modern reputation of rocket scientists such as Werhner Von Braun. Paul has almost as much fun with his Ludwig voicings as with his alternate foreign-accented alter ego, Boris Badenov for \u201cRocky and His Friends.\u201d (In the rare Disneyland LP, \u201cWalt Disney Presents Professor Ludwig Von Drake\u201d, one cut gives the impression of nearly a ten-minute long \u201cad-lib\u201d by Frees, where you simply pull his string and never know what he\u2019ll say next, with even the orchestra members breaking up in involuntary laughter as punch lines fly from nowhere.) <\/p>\n\"\"\n

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One of the best of these duck-hosted hours was \u201cFly With Von Drake\u201d (10\/13\/63). While a portion of the show included a nucleus of old footage from the \u201cHistory of Aviation\u201d sequence of \u201cVictory Through Air Power\u201d, allowing its first public re-screening since its WWII theatrical debut, the hour includes one of the largest percentages of new animation ever included in a Disney hour, with Ludwig taking center stage to expand on the principles and history of aeronautical inventions, dating from the flying myths of the ancient Greek Gods on through the advances just before and concurrent with the Wright Brothers. In a comical and well-timed sequence, Ludwig presides over a \u201cround table\u201d panel discussion concerning which country contributed the most ideas and advances to the ultimate amalgam of ideas that resulted in flight. Of course, Ludwig is the only one in attendance – but with a \u201csplit personality\u201d, Ludwig divides into four additional versions of himself with different ethnicities – Chinese, Italian, French, and British, allowing Paul to pull out the stops on all his favorite vocal dialects. Innovations discussed include the skyrocket, the parachute, the ornithopter, hot air ballooning, and development of the glider. <\/p>\n

\"\"Ludwig also introduces us to an able assistant at demonstrating the principles of flight – a seagull whom he has named Orville, who spends most of his time rummaging in Ludwig\u2019s pail of bait fish, and hilariously demonstrates the perils of trying to take off when your \u201cfuselage\u201d is too overloaded. Ludwig also shows off a billfold of old photographs of himself at toddler age and early youth, when he himself was hot with the \u201cflying bug\u201d, and nearly killed himself with winged inventions by which he tried to fly using pure muscle power. When reaching point in discussion of contributions of the U.S.A. to flight history, Ludwig performs comic close-order drill in Uncle Sam hat, to slightly off-key rendition of a patriotic medley. Finally, at the end of the show, Ludwig announces that for the first time, live, he will demonstrate that he has finally licked the unsolved problem of providing man with the ability to fly under his own power like a bird. He climbs atop a roof, with a set of fake wings and tail that appears no more advanced than his failed flight efforts as a child. He leaps off the roof, and appears to fall straight down. Orville breaks up with laughter at this effort that seems doomed on arrival – but suddenly, a streak whizzes past him, and the camera reveals Ludwig soaring like a fighter jet all around the sky, leaving a contrail in his wake. \u201cI bet you didn\u2019t think I could do it!\u201d, Ludwig shouts to us, as he passes Orville again, speeding by so fast, he pulls off all of Orville\u2019s feathers in the suction of his speed trail. The surprised bird places his wing tips in his ears, as a sonic boom rocks the screen, shattering the camera lens, with the pieces of the TV image falling one by one out of frame, to leave the screen in a black-out to close the show.<\/p>\n

\tA full version of this terrific show, blacking out the imagery from Victory Through Air Power<\/em> (which can be seen in its entirety in an earlier post in this series) is included below.<\/p>\n