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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Aug 16

This thread is on what the Pixar film Ratatouille is actually about. Every film is made within a historical context and the meaning behind this film has become lost over the years as we move away from the events from which it was made.

Ratatouille is about how John Lasseter's Pixar was the successor to Walt Disney & I'll show you where all the breadcrumbs are. This is also a lesson in how storytellers used to draw on their personal experiences without beating the audience over the head with it. This has been under your nose the whole time.

To understand Ratatouille we must first look at the climate in which it was made. Toy Story had been an independent film backed by Disney much like The Nightmare Before Christmas a few years before. After the success of Toy Story Disney studio head Eisner extended the Pixar deal to a 7 film contract. However, Eisner refused to count sequels as part of the tally & this would be a stinking point that led to the shaping Ratatouille's story would take.

Ratatouille was to be the first film after the Disney deal ended so it was crafted with that in mind from the beginning. The early Pixar films follow a more traditional template for an American animated feature. These post Disney Pixar films followed the template of the Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli and were more sophisticated for international audiences. (For a time Disney distributed the Ghibli films in America with the Pixar team handling the American dubbing process.)

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Aug 3

This is thread #25 of the Walt Disney's Uncle Remus newspaper comic strip. This thread collects the second half of the strips from July-Dec 1957. Anyone claiming the film was a failure & that these characters are obscure is lying to you. The only other Walt Disney characters with a regular newspaper comic strip like this were Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck. These were just as beloved Walt Disney characters & warmly embraced by many black Americans who saw them as Walt Disney celebrating their cultural heritage. In the days before VHS & streaming this is how most Americans were familiar with these characters thus proving their immense popularity.

After James Baskett died Walt had scrapped his plans of doing a series of Uncle Remus films. Out of respect, Walt retired the character from the strip except the for introduction. The strips also became self contained morals rather than a serial across several weeks. The continuation of this weekly comic strip proved how beloved these characters had become. The strip would run nearly 30 years but we're not supposed to know it ever existed. None of this is ever cited in smears against the film or its characters.

Song of the South was still a beloved Walt Disney film having had its first reissue the previous year. The year these comic strips were printed saw the release of such Walt Disney films as Old Yeller, Johnny Tremain, and the True Life Adventure fantasy film Perri. Walt's TV series Zorro also debuted on ABC enjoying a two year run.

It's worth noting that the only one of his films that Walt featured in both of his Christmas special pilots AND the pilot to his regular series was Song of the South. Even though he'd retired the character from the comics after James Baskett passed away, all three times he included segments featuring his friend James Baskett as the beloved Uncle Remus. Song of the South was always one of Walt's favorite and most personal films. The original stories were so fundamental to Walt that he also quoted Uncle Remus as frequently if not more so than America's founders and the Bible. It's a film that he celebrated and was proud of until the day he died. These purged comic strips are part of that legacy.

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Aug 2

This thread is about Walt Disney's friend & kindred spirit, forgotten fantasy filmmaker George Pal & his most lavish film The Wonderful World of the Brother's Grimm.

Every Christian & conservative should also read this thread because so many in those camps (even many of those with large platforms) see no value in storytelling. The history in this thread is about that & why it's important to American culture. It's a story that involves Martian War Machines, living instruments, a magical circus, a time machine, and more!

Both Walt and his pal George had similar values, worldviews, and were on similar creative trajectories. Both started in animated short subjects & moved into live action fantasy films. When Walt started making miniatures as a hobby & later created audioanimatronics he consulted with George on his experience breathing the illusion of life into three dimensions. When Pal became a US citizen it was Walt Disney & Woody Woodpecker creator Walter Lantz (all 3 seen below) who sponsored him. The Pals were eternally grateful to both men.

George Pal was born in Europe & became an animation filmmaker there. He created the Oscar award winning Puppetoon stop motion process which used carved wooden replacement parts to animate the puppets. He was eventually forced to flee Holland for America before the nazis invaded.

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Jun 29

This is an epilogue to the Anita Bryant/Rainbow Jihad Disney threads. I'm going to tell you a little story about this man (Howard Ashman) who some consider to be the most pivotal figure in making animation what it became. He also left behind something that's very relevant to the woke times we find ourselves in. He was gay but he wasn't woke.

Even id you don't know who Howard Ashman was, you've certainly seen the 3 films he had a hand in at Disney...

Here's a few clips about how Howard became involved with The Little Mermaid. There's also a few vintage clips of them in this montage. You can see he has no "secret gay agenda." He was trying to restore Disney to what it had been when Walt was alive. In the 2nd & 3rd clip you can see how Howard was instrumental in shaping the story & characters of The Little Mermaid. In the final clip Roy Disney Jr gives Howard the highest praise.

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

May 25

This thread is about how to nominate the purged 1946 film Walt Disney's Song of the South to the National Film Registry. The deadline is Aug 15. The form is in the next comment. You need reasons why it should be on the Registry & this thread will give you several.

This is the form. You must include the release year. Song of the South was released in 1946.
research.net/r/national-fim…

Actor James Baskett is the first black actor to receive an Academy Award.This was an eternal Oscar and there was a HUGE fight for him to receive it.He was also the first black actor signed to a 7 year contract & the first actor Walt Disney ever signed.This needs to be celebrated.

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Ed McCray

@Real_Ed_McCray

Mar 17

This epic thread is about Walt Disney's Darby O'Gill & The Little People. An obscure film today, it was a major project for Walt & is the bridge between Song of the South to Mary Poppins. It's one of the greatest fantasy films ever made & the techniques developed/perfected for it were later used in LOTR and Elf.

The film is suggested by the books Darby O'Gill & the Good People and The Ashes of Old Wishes & Other Darby O'Gill Stories by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh. The stories originally appeared serialized in magazines that Walt had been exposed to as a boy. As an adult he was determined to make a film.

You can read the original public domain books here:
archive.org/details/darbyo…

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