Noah's Ark

Walt Disney gives the Noah's ark story some fun treatment here as he and his sons have to construct and water-tight boat then populate it with a pair of just about everything from an aardvark to a zebra. A torrent ensues and Noah decides to have a dance to take everyone's mind of things - and that's when we get a niftily constructed ditty from "Harriet Hippo" warning never to mention thermidor to a lobster. Then the rain stops and Mount Ararat beckons. The subject matter gives the animators pretty much carte blanche to use everything from a clothes peg to a ball of cotton wool to represent the construction, effective storm sequence and finally the creatures who make the journey. The whole thing is sung in rhyme, and for the most part that works quite well delivering an engagingly jolly representation of the old testament tale of God when he is a bit narked. Curious they all seem to have made it home afterwards, too!

This cartoon was nominated for an Oscar in 1959. The animation style is stop-motion, almost a Puppetoon type of animation. This is the only cartoon from Disney that I recall ever seeing. It certainly is not your typical Disney cartoon. The music is all over the board-there's even some pretty good blues in here. Worth chasing down to see at least once. Runs infrequently on the Disney Channel during "Vault Disney" in the wee hours of the morning.

And that's more to do with how truly unique it is rather than being one of their best, at the top of my head there is no other Disney short like Noah's Ark. And that is mainly down to the animation style and the creativity gone into the characters, in many ways Noah's Ark is very different for Disney but that's not a bad thing here. Noah's Ark doesn't have the most compelling of stories, the story itself is rather thin on the ground and the pacing lags at times. But the reason why Noah's Ark rates high personally is because, despite the story being unexceptional, everything else works brilliantly. The stop-motion animation immediately reminds one of Rankin'/Bass rather than the traditional hand-drawn animation usually seen with Disney at this time, but it does look very charming and beautiful with some clever stylised designs and some of the visuals are a huge amount of fun to watch, still holding up by today's standards. What helps Noah's Ark immensely is George Bruns' jazzy score, which is so energetic and wonderfully upbeat, Mrs. Hippo's song has some very witty lyrics too. The songs are all very sprightly and drive the short really well. Noah's Ark has a touch of weirdness, meant in a good way, and even more immense charm. Jerome Courtland's narration is effective in how simple it is and Jeanne Cayle does some great vocals too, but even better is Paul Frees, known as one of the best voice actors of the time and judging from his brilliant voice work here that's justified. It's the work done with the household items and the animals though where Noah's Ark really excels, it's a hard job making household items creative(using them to build the animals) and interesting but Noah's Ark does it and does so ingeniously. The cork hippos are especially delightful. Overall, a unique Disney short and a good one. 8/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

After a musical voyage, the rather peculiar passengers on NOAH'S ARK find a safe refuge.

This highly imaginative cartoon is told almost entirely using stop-motion animation. What makes it especially unusual & fun is that the characters, human and animal, are constructed out of odds 'n' ends: corks, pipe cleaners, pencils, forks, hair pins, etc. giving the well known Biblical tale a sense of whimsy. Then, there's the female hippo that sings the blues...

Jerome Courtland is the narrator; among the other voices can be heard those of Paul Frees (as Noah) and Thurl Ravenscroft.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a storm of naysayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

I really can't find any fault with this atypical Disney cartoon, which is directed by Bill Justice and presented in the stop-motion format. Noah and his sons, his wife, their wives, and the various animals, are made out of various objects including clothes pegs, pipe cleaners, and so on, and although unusual, this works well.

Primitive shots of a model ark rattling around on the high seas can be forgiven in the hippo's torch song, the elephants, the ostriches, the crocodiles, the porcupines, the cats, the dogs, the mice, and the horses brought above the ark. All have their own personalities and are memorable.

Good to watch alongside the Silly Symphony which presented the same story ('Father Noah's Ark') some twenty years earlier, just to see how inspiration can strike animators in many different ways.

Unusual, charming and unique in the Disney portfolio, 'Noah's Ark' is definitely worth a look.