O Rebocador Apitinho

Little Toot is my all time favorite character from Melody Time & he is very cute. This segment served as the basis for a show called Tugs, which happens to be the criminally underrated sister show of Thomas & friends that was made in 1989 by the former maker of Thomas, David Mitton. The series Tugs, involves two fleets known as the Star tugs & the Z stacks. Sadly the series lastest with only 13 episodes & a single season, due to bankruptcy of it's distributor, Television South. I believe that Little Toot looks very similar to the protagonist of Tugs, Ten Cents, due to his hat, color & whistle.

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

The tiny tugboat, LITTLE TOOT, just can't seem to get serious about the important work to be done with the big ships in the harbor. In fact, he's become quite a pest...

Hardie Gramatky's classic children's book comes beautifully to life in this little cartoon. The humorous animation is excellent and completely appropriate to the original illustrations. The Andrews Sisters were the perfect choice to be the singing narrators. LITTLE TOOT was originally one segment in the musical compilation film MELODY TIME (1948).

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by 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 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 blizzard of doomsayers, 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 simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

This is a short that was used to make up the full-length film from Disney, "Melody Time". Following WWII, Disney Studio was a mess--a terrible strike and the war (where many of the workers were drafted and many more were assigned to wartime animation work) decimated the studio and many of the old animators were gone. As a result, Disney did not get back to making traditional animated feature films for several years. In the meantime, their 'full-length' films were really odd compilations of shorts--and of a rather lackluster quality compared to earlier and later work.

Little Toot is a rather rambunctious and annoying little anthropomorphic tugboat. His goofy ways get him in trouble with other ships, such as his Dad, Big Toot. As a result of his bad ways, he's banished far off-shore and is frightened. Can he somehow redeem himself?! While this short is like the others in "Melody Time" because of all the singing (this time by the Andrews Sisters), it is quite different when it comes to the animation. The backgrounds and characters are much more detailed and richly animated--making this an exceptionally fine looking short film. In fact, it's almost too good for the otherwise lackluster film! I did not love the singing, but otherwise it was a lovely film.

Memorable (for me) simply because it was the first time my parents had taken me to a major London Theater - the Odeon, Leicester Square, if I remember correctly.

Little Toot was a baby tugboat, a strong-willed if not pesky little guy who just plain refused to listen to his dad and ended up causing all sorts of maritime mayhem before being grounded. The thrill of that day, looking up seeing Little Toot battling the waves in pursuit of glory, circumstances causing him to be the last hope of rescue for an adrift liner in "the perfect storm," was seared on my mind for all time. I remember less about THE MATRIX!

I fell in love with movies that day. Grab a child and start the cycle again!

This cartoon was originally part of Melody Time, an animated anthology of musical cartoons made by Disney. It's probably my favorite cartoon from that film. It's the absolutely adorable story of a little tugboat who wants to be like his father. He causes an accident in the harbor but gets the chance to redeem himself and make his papa proud. Great animation and wonderful singing from the Andrews Sisters. I just love their sound. I always have. Try to see Melody Time but if you don't have that much time, definitely watch this one. It's a few minutes out of your life and you'll get a big smile on your face in return. Little Toot is too cute!