The time has come for us to bid a not-so-fond farewell to Medfield College, along with its students and faculty and the handful of criminals who keep getting wrapped up in their science-based shenanigans. But this time the titular STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD might not be the young, round-faced Kurt Russell as we've come to expect, but the nasally-voiced, foot corn-infested Dean Higgins. Or maybe it's both of them, who can say. All our hosts know for sure is that for the final film in a Disney trilogy, this movie is a total mess.
It's not every day you get a movie that the House of Mouse was so proud of, they stick their name in the title. But it's also not every day you get superstar Bruce Willis to star alongside your latest and greatest lab-grown little ragamuffin child actor Spencer Breslin. Yes, DISNEY'S THE KID sure is special. If only it made a lick of sense in pretty much any way, shape or form.
This summer keeps getting weird so we'll keep charging ahead with our Summer of Sadness, exploring the Disney films of Tim Burton. In this week's entry, Timmy B is once again kicking back in the producer's chair as some close collaborators from a well-loved stop-motion film have another kick at that can with JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH. But while stop motion, Roald Dahl, and Tim Burton should be a match made in heaven, this one falls just a little short for our hosts. Have a listen and find out why!
Small technical note, we lost a few minutes of this week's recording, which may or may not be noticeable. If you don't notice it, then ignore this. If you do, well, this is why you noticed something off. Our apologies, such are the pitfalls of remote recording during a pandemic!
Fifty-nine years after releasing their experimental musical/film experiment Fantasia, Disney released it's follow-up, FANTASIA 2000. And so too do our hosts release an episode on the latter, 254 episodes after the original. And while the first entry could at the very least be applauded for being something wholly original for its era, this follow-up feels about as safe and middle-of-the-road as you can get. But hey, the interstitial bits with various celebrities sure are fun to talk about.
This week, our hosts wrap up the last of Disney's package films with FUN AND FANCY FREE. By now, we're all well aware that these movies were cost-saving measures for the struggling film studio in the 1940s. But the fact that two of the three of our hosts have distinct memories of Mickey and the Beanstalk wrapped in two entirely different packages than the nightmare birthday party version we watched in this one, really drives home how much a fan of recycling this content Disney has been. As for Bongo...the less said about Bongo, the better.