#10 Melody Time

Returning to the "pop-Fantasia" style of Make Mine Music after the more narratively inclined  Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time is yet another compilation film. Not that it's necessarily bad - it's more consistent in its quality than its spiritual predecessor, Make Mine Music, but while it never hits that film's boring lows, it never quite matches its high points either.

That's also not to say Melody Time it totally without merit. "Bumble Boogie" gives us a swing-jazz take on "Flight of the Bumblebee" with a bee zipping through a visual interpretation of the music, marrying upbeat music to punchy visuals. "Blame it on the Samba" throws Donald Duck and Jose Carioca into a colorful, South American-themed number that admittedly feels a bit like an outtake from The Three Caballeros. "The Legend of Johnny Appleseed," "Little Toot," and "Pecos Bill" are all typical Disney shorts - good, but nothing particularly new or exciting.

And that's the real trouble with Melody Time. It's nothing new, and because it's nothing new, it's honestly hard to talk about. While the package films as a whole are light on innovation, Melody Time genuinely offers nothing that any of the other package films haven't already. Luckily, it would the last of its kind; after the unevenness (and lack of memorability) of the package film era, it would take only one more before Disney returned to narrative filmmaking for good.