Ferdinand the Bull

There is some historical significance associated with the story of Ferdinand the Bull as the Spanish Civil War is said to have begun a few months after the story of Ferdinand was written. The domestic harmless nature of the bull is said to represent pacifistic views towards the situation in Spain. Munro Leaf may have partly been influenced by the political climate around him while writing about Ferdinand, but this remains uncertain.

The 1938 short by Disney does not consider all this, and is more concerned with showing Ferdinand's love for flowers. Ferdinand does not care about bull fights unlike his fellow bulls, and prefers reclining under his favorite tree, inhaling the sweet fragrance of the flowers. His mother, despite being a 'cow' is very considerate and allows him to do as he likes. But after a bee accident, Ferdinand is thought to be the most ferocious of bulls and is brought to the bull fight. His name too changes to 'Ferdinand the Fierce' for the event; everyone including the bullfighter is scared of him and they anticipate his grand entry. What happens after this surprises everyone in the story but now us because we already know how Ferdinand actually is.

This story would have been stratospherically more poignant and rich had auteur Frederic Back made it; remember how he beautifully used the chair as a motif while showing the rapid transformation of Quebec society in his brilliant short 'Crac'. Ferdinand the Bull would have got that flavor of Spain had Back made this film; however, Disney does enough justice to make this film watchable and enjoyable. Ferdinand the Bull hence does not wow us but it does bring a smile upon our faces, which is Disney's primary aim.

Verdict: Would have been stratospherically more poignant and richer had Frederic Back made 'Ferdinand the Bull', but Disney does manage to make the short entertaining enough

Disney has had a reputation (in large part, justifiably so) for taking literary works and making them overly cute, thereby not doing justice to the source (i.e., Bambi), but here do a wonderful job of bringing Ferdinand off the printed page and into glorious, moving color! This is one of the best shorts Disney ever did and took the Oscar for 1938, beating three other Disney shorts (including a Mickey Mouse) and a Paramount cartoon called Hunky and Spunky. With remarkable backgrounds and detail, even for a Disney cartoon, this really should be in-print. It does show on The Ink and Paint Club. Most joyously recommended!

"Ferdinand" has the same lush art direction and is based on the same kind of sweet parable as a Silly Symphony, and was released while that series was still going (it would end on a high note with "The Ugly Duckling" in 1939), but it's something else altogether: the first of Disney's "storybook" cartoons. It is, in fact, based on a children's storybook, but that's not the point. The point is that there is spoken narration, and the drawings ILLUSTRATE the narration, much as they would illustrate the printed text in a picture book.

So far as I know this is the first cartoon from ANY studio to attempt this kind of thing. It's not the best; narration and illustration are too independent of one another. I'm not saying that Disney should have used any of those old cartoon gimmicks - characters arguing with the narrator, etc. - which postmodernists delight in as though they weren't half obvious; such gimmicks would not, in a sincere work such as this, have worked. But words and pictures should partner each other in a subtle dance; each should know when to withdraw and place the narrative burden upon the other. I can't put it more precisely than this; but watch two "storybook" cartoons that Disney produced later - "Lambert the Sheepish Lion" from 1951, "Pigs is Pigs" from 1954 - to see the dance perfected, resulting in an animated storytelling sessions that FLOW, from beginning to end.

To be fair, unqualified successes like these are rare. Most of Disney's later "storybook" cartoons also get it wrong, some of them are dreadful, and not a single one apart from the two I've named can match the charm of the first.

This is one of my favorite stories from childhood and this Disney cartoon did a wonderful job of capturing the spirit of the classic Muro Leaf story. The 1939 Oscars were a particularly good year, with Disney receiving 4 of 5 nominations in the category of Best Cartoon and receiving the award for FERDINAND--beating out such Disney classics as THE BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR and GOOD SCOUTS.

The film is about a gentle bull in Spain who has no interest in fighting. Instead, he'd rather just sit and smell the flowers all day. However, when men come looking for fierce bulls for the bullfighting ring, they think Ferdinand is the meanest bull because he was just stung by a bee. What happens next you'll need to see for yourself.

There is a lot to like about this cartoon. The artwork, though not exactly in the style of the children's book, is pretty close and is among the better animated shorts Disney did in the era. If you compare the artwork, music and quality to fare from Fleischer, Warner Brothers and MGM at the same time, it is light-years ahead. The best cartoons at that time were clearly Disney--with MGM and Warner Brothers still making saccharine-sweet cartoons with second-rate animation until the 1940s (when these two studios became the best maker of cartoon shorts). This film just screams "quality" throughout and deserved the Oscar.

By the way, get a load of the Cork Tree! Ha!

Munro Leaf's original story comes to life with the pictures of Walt Disney and his artists, who give personality and life to the characters of Ferdinand, his fellow bulls, and the bullfighters.

Ferdinand himself is a sensitive soul, who has no desire to fight and just likes sitting under his favourite tree and smelling the flowers. The other bulls do nothing but fight and cause a racket, but when the bullfighters come looking for the fiercest bull for their show, guess who by some odd circumstance gets picked?

This little cartoon is a joy from start to finish, and Ferdinand is one of the cutest and funniest characters ever created in an animated short. Highly recommended!