Wednesday, September 27, 2017

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!

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