Rankin Bass' Johnny Appleseed

Johnny Appleseed came across a village to promote the joys of apples after 25 years of planting them in the country side. The villagers have their promotion with medicine from a crooked Doctor Staywell. The village kids and Johnny Appleseed make Apple Cider to prove apple rather they better than the medicine or not.

I partly knew the story of John “Appleseed” Chapman from a live-action version I’ve seen in elementary school, the Simpsons did their short version with Lisa Simpsons as Connie Appleseed as Homer was Buffekill, and the obvious animated version that was part of a package film.

Johnny Appleseed is upset with apples, to the point I question if he ever ate anything else in his life. Surely he has every other apple beside red delicious such as Honey Crisp, Envy, Pink Lady, etc. Any other food would be blasphemy. It’s an interesting angle to see Johnny interact with the people who bare his fruits. Could be worst, he could open the church of Apple.

*NYU professor considers Apple Store as a Church in 2015*

 Wrong Macintosh!

The villain is Doctor Staywell. OK, why do we need a villain in this one? Yes, it’s to show natural medicine is better than paying medicine with the moral of “An apple a day keeps a doctor away”. (Though Lil Lulu took that moral too literal.) Sure he looks like an anorexic Professor Hinkle, but he’s obviously the villain and obviously defeated, but not by Johnny Appleseed himself, but his woodland critters. Sound embarrassing! Granted in the end, Staywell doesn’t get killed or jailed, but Johnny has Staywell plant apple seeds in the west side of the United States. Rather he plants the seeds or sell them is debatable barely worth doing. If he was removed from the story, the episode will last for about 3-5 minutes.

Strange that we have all the other folklore, with most of them being defeated by the realistic competition such as Paul Bunyan with Virgil with his chainsaw that chops more trees and wear high heels, or John Henry with the Inky Poo that can hammer nails on track quicker. If you’ve heard the realistic version of Johnny Appleseed, you wouldn’t see an animated kid’s film, adult film less likely. Johnny planted the seeds for money and ownership of the land he planted. He did made apple cider, but it was made from spitter apples, and it was the safer drink than water at that time, even if it was Hard Cider. Special thanks to Adam Conover of Adam Ruins Everything on TruTV, the only good show I can get out of the channel than Practical Jokers.

Though with that fact, the story would be different, especially when Johnny made the cider with kids, and tell them to drink it, even when two or three of those kids are voiced by Billie Mae Richard. The reasons I haven’t talked about the voice actors in the series so far is mainly majority of them aren’t distinct to tell who’s voicing who, except for Billie Mae Richard with her Rudolph voice. The credits don’t tell who voices who, and neither does IMDB with the exception of Jack O’Lantern.

As for the story as its own, it’s passable at best. Can’t recommend it as much as Simpsons’ version for a good laugh. Now the next episode of Festival of Family Classic is Around the World in 80 Days. OK, this time the original film isn’t a Disney version.

*Disney’s Around the World in 80 Days start to fly in their balloon, but I shot the balloon down with my boomstick.*

Dang it, I was aiming for its head! Oh well. Join me in the next episode!

Rankin Bass' 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Well we got a two-parters for some reason with the next episode of Festival of Family Classics, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.

A bunch of ships near Australia were being destroyed by a “sea monster”, as a crew were set to hunt for the “sea monster” only to have their ship being destroyed with three known survivors. The three survivors are. The sea monster reveals to be the first unofficial submarine named Nautilus, powered by Captain Nemo and his possibly cloned crew. Nemo hated humanity in the surface world, so he lives the rest of his life in the seas with the survivors as guest than slaves.

Thankfully I don’t have nostalgia connection with the Disney version, and known them from Captain Nemo bursting out, “You’re calling it murder?” and Michael Douglas singing “Whale of a Tale” to the point my music teacher sings that in high school. I’ve seen the Nautilus in two version of Mysterious Island (Journey 2 counts, sadly), and part of the squid was seen in The Pagemaster as it came from the book of 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas.

It’s strange that two of the characters, Ned Land and Nemo look very close in design to Kirk Douglas and James Mason in the Disney version. Despite this is the abridged version of story, the performances are not going to be as the obvious popular version. The minor difference is they trade Esmeralda the Seal for Fifi the Blue Dolphin, which is kind of an improvement that Fifi is actually more useful than Esmeralda, somehow. What’s a downgrade is trading Peter Lorre’s character for Professor Aronnax’s son, who I’ll describe him as proto-Spike Witwicky, yet as useful as Sam Witwicky. Pick your own brunette everyman to compare!

This is probably the first dynamic design for Rankin Bass. As much as I like Paul Coker’s round design, it is a different take. The downside of being dynamic here is that it’s so detailed it’ll stiffen the animation, as it won’t be as energetic as their other animation, and would almost be on par with The Red Baron in energy level. It’s not too stiff as those crappy cut-out animations that uses live action mouths instead, or never moving their lips at all. It might be what would be used later in Thundercats. It’s not entirely aims for kids under 12, as there’s a scene where they Nemo throws a harpoon at a hammerhead shark. The shark got stabbed, bleeds, and swam away with the harpoon still intact. You know, for Family, Festival of Family Classics! Now why is this story need to be a 2-parter is beyond me.

This is simple an OK episode. I can’t recommend this animated version to everyone, yet I haven’t seen an animated version that’s on par or better than the Disney, despite it’s impossible to be better than a groundbreaking film. Think of this as shorter lived Sealab. If you’re interested, give it a cannonball….

(A viewer pulled out cannon to aim at the animated film.)

Of A Dive to watch the film! Geez, I’m trying to some variety from diving without going literal. At least aim the cannon at the Dic version. Oh right, what’s the next episode for Festival of Family Classics? Jack O’Lantern, finally, but I’ll save that for October. What’s after that? Johnny Appleseed! Dammit, I’m going to need Ziegler’s Apple Cider for this!