Captain EO Review by Ryan Kilpatrick

After I was unable to join the crew down in Walt Disney World a few weeks ago, I was asked by our lovely producer, Cheryl, to view Captain EO and write about it.  When Cheryl gives you an assignment, you do it, so today at lunch I pulled up the ole YouTube and gave Captain EO a second look.  I have to say, it’s a tough one to evaluate.

After all, Captain EO contains some of my favorite things from the world of film. First of all, George Lucas.  I mean…stop right there, right? Star Wars? Indiana Jones? Come on! But then there’s Francis Ford Coppola.  Heard of him.  Not a hack.  Did a few great Mafia movies I hear.  Putting those two together should be the recipe for a cinematic masterpiece, right? Then comes Michael Jackson.

I loved Michael as a kid. Thought his music was fun, he did some great videos, and was the consummate entertainer.  Watching Captain EO is watching him in his prime. This is the same Michael who moonwalked across the stage or made the Thriller video. The two songs in Captain EO – “We Are Here To Change the World” and “Another Part of Me” – are among my favorites in his catalog. It’s hard to walk out of the Imagination pavilion not singing those songs if you go to see this 3D show.

However, the film itself is a bit silly. Okay, it’s a lot silly. Captain EO, who is part of some unnamed galactic army type thing, crash lands on a planet of junk with his less than helpful friends and uses his music to transform the evil denizens to life affirming citizens. If you think I’m making that up, just go watch it.  When I watched this as a kid, in the Imagination pavilion, I thought it was funny. And this is someone who liked Michael. As an adult, I find it incredibly silly.

There is absolutely a difference, however, between watching it on YouTube and watching it in EPCOT.  The last time I watched it on property, last fall, I really enjoyed it. Part of it was the nostalgia of seeing this on the big screen again, and the fact that I could walk out of the theater and buy Michael’s rainbow t-shirt.  I didn’t, just for the record. But there was a huge rush associated with watching the film in its original location, brought back to life by Disney. 

As I reflected on it, though, I realized how flat out lame some of it actually was. Obviously you can’t expect special effects from the 80s to match today’s, but the special effects in this film are, shall we say, Dr. Who-esque.  And not today’s Doctor, either.  I’m talking Tom Baker, Scarf wearing Doctor.  While the music is fantastic, the paper thin plot is just awful. I get the idea, letting Michael be Michael but finding a way to wrap it in some sort of adventure.  But the execution is pretty terrible. 

That said, I have to give credit to Angelica Huston as the villain of the piece.  She could have mailed this one in. Instead, she went the other way and went over the top with it, chewing up the scenery and hissing and clawing her way through the 3D.  If this were a period drama, you’d have room to criticize her performance.  In this very wacky environment, her performance is pitch perfect.

All told, Captain EO is a memorable part of my youth, but it’s just not something I particularly enjoy. It’s worth watching, no doubt about it, but don’t just seek it out on YouTube.  If you are going to watch it, head down to EPCOT and enjoy the Imagination pavilion while you’re at it. 

Captain EO – 2/5

“Show me this gift!”

Disney Film Project Podcast - Episode 92 - Captain EO

This week the DFPP team grabs the wrong Kilpatrick and heads into space with friends Dana and Shalon only to discover that changing the world involves a whole lot of dancing and singing in the 1986 musical space opera Captain EO.

Listen, download, etc.

Show notes:

• IMDb
• Wikipedia
• Epcot (TouringPlans)
• Disneyland (TouringPlans)
• Soundtrack
• YouTube
• 2011 blog post by Todd

Enjoy the show!

Donald's Better Self

I’ve mentioned here before that Goofy is my favorite of the Fab Five Disney characters, because of the work he does in later shorts where he’s learning sports or other tasks. The more I see of Donald, though, the more he goes up in my estimation. Again, as I’ve said before, Donald is a reflection of most of us in our lives, and that’s readily apparent in Donald’s Better Self.

This is a deeply psychological cartoon. Sure, it uses a tried and true gag, having Donald split into an angel and a devil, but it’s interesting to see the differences in what each has him do, and how Donald reacts to them. Someone who’s a better amateur psychologist than me could divine the instances of id, ego and superego in this short, but I know enough to know that they are there.



The opening gag features Donald’s alarm going off, then the angel inside him pops up, ready for the day. If you can’t relate to this, you haven’t had to go to work or school. Everyone has that person inside them who wants to go back to sleep, but it’s the angel that gets us up. True to form, Donald’s devil shows up and tries to keep him in bed. It’s an immediately relatable gag that kicks this short off with a bang.



It’s in the next section that things get much more interesting. While the angel gets Donald up and moving, the devil bides its time. Popping out of a mailbox on the way to school, the devil convinces Donald to head to the fishing hole and play hooky. While they’re there, the devil gets Donald to smoke a pipe.



This is the part that is so intriguing to me, because Donald has an extreme averse reaction to the pipe and smoking. It’s not like Walt Disney, an avid smoker, was one to rail against the evils of tobacco. Perhaps for children, but where is Donald in this short? The angel is dragging him to school, so he is a kid, I guess, but later on we will meet his nephews, and if he’s driving and wooing Daisy, I’d see him as an adult. So, why, exactly, was the anti-smoking message in here?



It’s also good to note that Donald’s angel and devil have clear, well spoken voices. There’s something more to that than just the opportunity to give Donald a clear voice. It’s psychological as well, as if Donald hears himself just fine, and doesn’t worry about the nearly unintelligible squawking he usually makes.



As you’d imagine, everything turns out fine, and Donald is steered to school. But this is probably a very important cartoon in the Donald mythos. I say probably, because it would take someone much more skilled in animation critique and psychology to break it down. The animation style in this is a little more simplistic than in previous shorts, which was an adjustment visually. Does that relate to the psychology? I’m not sure, but it does make Donald’s Better Self a very intriguing short to watch.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Self Control

Now that 1937 has been covered, we move forward into 1938 in a much different landscape for the Walt Disney Company. The proceeds from Snow White begin rolling in, and the company is now flush with cash. A new studio is on the horizon, built especially for the animators. The future of the company is not in doubt, and there are new stars like Snow White, Goofy and Donald Duck.

Donald has had his own cartoons before 1938, but he’s really becoming more a part of the company’s plans. The first short released in 1938 is today’s subject – Self Control. If you can imagine more of a dichotomy between title and character than Donald Duck and Self Control, then you should be writing this blog.



As you would imagine, Donald does not display much Self Control in this short. In fact, quite the opposite. The comedy comes because he is trying to control himself. As he lies in his hammock, the radio on his nearby table begins a self help program, on how to control your anger. Donald decides to accept the challenge.



You can imagine how that turns out. Various creatures begin to menace Donald, causing his anger to rise. A fly takes first crack, buzzing by his feet and ending up with Donald flipping his hammock over. Then, we have an inchworm being chased by a hen. Finally, there’s a woodpecker that decides to make Donald’s lemonade into a pool, and peck a tree full of apples so they fall into the hammock.



The fun of this short is watching the increasingly bothersome animals/pests and the rising level of anger coming from Donald. There’s not really any doubt that Donald will end up losing control, the question is when it will happen. In the end, he takes a gun to the radio, clobbering the radio rather than shooting it.



However, I would have to say that the pattern, intended to be a slow burn, ends up being a slow down. The short doesn’t have the vitality or energy of other Donalds, because you know the outcome in advance. The gags are okay, but not as good as something like Modern Inventions.



In fact, this short plays a similar tune to Modern Inventions, with Donald getting involved in increasingly irritating situations, waiting for the inevitable blow up. To be fair, that’s a big part of his appeal, so it makes sense, but Self Control comes off a little tired. It’s still enjoyable, but not as good as other Donald Duck shorts we have seen and will see in the future.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Donald's Ostrich

Goofy is my favorite of Disney’s cartoon stars, but Donald is a close second. I’ve always said that I see a lot of myself in Donald. The frustration he expresses in nearly every cartoon he is in is something I tend to see in myself, but I don’t express it the way he does.

Donald’s Ostrich is a good example of that frustration. Were I to find myself in a situation where I was confronted with a rogue ostrich that was eating everything in sight, and knocking me all over the place, I doubt I would be able to contain my anger anymore. Donald gives us all the voice that we want to have, but don’t use publicly.



The set up here is just as described above, but it doesn’t get much beyond that, and that’s the problem with this. I come into this short to watch Donald Duck, but I end up getting a lot of focus on the ostrich, and not the ostrich’s interactions with Donald. I don’t care about the ostrich unless he annoys Donald.



Hortense the ostrich is not a compelling character. Hortense parades around the train station where Donald is working, and eats everything in sight. But that’s all there is to him. There is a sequence in the middle of the short where we see Hortense eating an accordion, a clock, balloons and radio. During that entire sequence, Donald is absent.



Hortense’s voracious appetite is established from the get-go, with the tag that Donald reads after the ostrich breaks loose. So why do we need to spend a couple minutes out of an 8 minute short trying to re-establish that with the diet I listed above? Is it funny? Somewhat, but it’s the same gag over and over – Hortense eats something, it gets stuck in his throat, causing the throat to distend, then he swallows it.



The best part of this short is the inventive use of the radio as a device throughout the short. The beginning of the short shows Donald switching stations and looking for something fun. Then, in the middle, Hortense is startled by the radio, looking for the voice that is coming out of the radio. Finally, the voices coming out of the ostrich because he swallowed the radio startle Donald at the end.



There was also a gag about Hortense developing hiccoughs towards the end, which causes him to change the stations on the radio and stumble around. It just doesn’t come off as funny to me, although I admit that’s probably individual taste. This short does not come close to something like Modern Inventions, which shows Donald in a variety of situations that raise his ire. In this short, it’s a loose confederation of gags by Hortense that cause Donald inconvenience. It seems like the focus is taken off of Donald and put onto the ostrich, which really turned me off to this short.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Modern Inventions

One of my favorites among Donald Duck’s early cartoons is this one: Modern Inventions. Why? It’s a favorite among my kids, and we constantly quote the robot butler from this short: “Your hat, sir.”



You’d have to live in my house to understand, but if you’ve seen this short, you know the robot butler is the best running gag we’ve seen in Disney shorts. That’s right, I said the best. Take Donald’s magic pockets or sleeves that he used in The Band Concert to produce flutes seemingly out of nowhere and combine them with a robot who keeps taking his hat, and you have comedy gold. Donald produces a series of sillier and sillier hats throughout the short, from a top hat to a Napoleon looking general’s hat.



Aside from that running gag, the rest of the short features Donald’s interactions with various mechanical contraptions designed to “make life easier.” As anyone who has dealt with technology over the years knows, sometimes the new device designed to make things easier actually makes it harder. That’s the case for Donald.

He has the first attack come from the automatic bundling machine. Watching Donald get tied up in knots is funny, but it is of course his reaction to that that makes it so good. This is a short that could not have worked with Mickey, because Donald’s frustration and silly laugh make the humor work.



My personal favorite is the baby carriage. When Donald runs away from the robot butler (again), he dives into a baby carriage. This little sequence demonstrates my favorite parts of Donald’s character. He is fun loving, because he gets into the spirit of things, putting on a baby bonnet and playing along with the carriage that plays him music and rocks him. But as always, Donald has to try and push it too far, asking for a bottle, with disastrous consequences.



The final sequence, with Donald stuck upside down in a barber’s chair, is classic Donald. Watching his tail feathers get turned into a finely coiffed hairdo is funny, but I like the way he gets his face polished with shoe polish.



Donald’s frustration is classic, and it’s what makes us love him. I said it before, but Donald is what we all end up being, even though we want to be Mickey. Donald is like me, so I love to watch him go through things that are just larger, more cartoonish versions of what I’ve gone through.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Don Donald

Yet again, we’ve reached a milestone in our comprehensive review of the Disney films. 1937 is the year of Snow White, but there is a whole year’s worth of shorts to get through before Snow White. Don Donald is a landmark one, because it’s the first “official” Donald Duck short, and it features the debut of Daisy (though she’s not called such in the short).

Donald Duck would eventually become the most popular of the Disney characters, leading to the longest lasting series of shorts among the Fab Five. From 1937 going forward, we see Donald, Goofy and Pluto becoming more and more prominent, while Mickey becomes less so. For Donald, that begins here.



The short is all about Donald wooing Daisy, however unsuccessful that might be. It’s Donald’s ultimate fate to always be falling short. After all, the humor of Donald is in his frustration. If he’s happy, then he’s not funny. He gets plenty of frustration here.

First, he tries to woo Daisy with a song, riding up on his burro and serenading her. But when Daisy gets on the burro and gets bucked off, Donald can’t help but laugh. Bad move, man. Daisy gets irritated, and storms off.



Donald being Donald, it can’t be his fault, so he puts the blame on the burro, and trades the burro in for a new car. Right here is the difference between Donald and Mickey. Donald can trade in the burro and leave it, but we still like him as a character. Mickey could never do something like that.



I’m sure you can figure out where this is going – Daisy is intrigued by the car and jumps on board. But then, something goes horribly wrong, and the car takes off with Daisy, then ends up throwing her into the mud. Instead of ending up with Daisy, Donald ends up alone, with the car spraying hot water on him, and the escaped burro laughing at him.



In watching this short, I found myself struggling for something to compare Donald to – I knew the comparison was there, but I couldn’t figure it out. Then it hit me – George Costanza. Just like George, Donald shouldn’t be a character that we like. He’s mean, always trying to find the easy way out, and treats people horribly. He laughs at his girlfriend rather than help her out, for example.



But, like George, Donald’s charm lies in his frustration. Watching his blood pressure rise and how things never work out for him is what makes him funny. I know that Donald came first, but that was the comparison I came up with. Is there more here? Goofy as Kramer? I don’t know, but it hit me while watching this short. A great start to Donald’s solo career, to be sure.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Donald and Pluto

Ever wonder what would happen if they had a Mickey Mouse cartoon and Mickey never showed up? Well, then you should watch the latest “Mickey” – Donald and Pluto. The only appearance that Mickey makes is in the title card. Otherwise, this is a Donald and Pluto starring turn.



I’d have to qualify this as an early Pluto solo short, much like Pluto’s Judgment Day was. Pluto takes up the majority of the short with a simple premise: he swallows a magnet and ends up having all sorts of things being attracted to his rear end where the magnet is lodged. Pots, pans, knives, Donald’s hammer – they are all chasing Pluto throughout the short.



I feel that Pluto is the best work of the animators, because they can’t necessarily rely on human body language or voice to create mood or emotion. Instead, they have to convey Pluto’s mood through his actions. That’s a difficult thing to do, but it is done well here, as you get the sense of bewilderment that Pluto is going through as things keep attacking him.



That’s the other thing that amazes me about Pluto, is that the animators always seem to keep in mind that he is a dog. The human reaction to the magnet antics would be much different than a dog. As a dog, Pluto spends half of his time trying to figure out what is going on, then trying to move on when he’s satisfied that it’s “over.” This is exactly what a dog would do, so it makes perfect sense.



As for Donald, his role here is more of a bit player. He is there at the beginning, trying to fix some pipes in the basement, but for the most part, he’s absent. It’s his magnet that ends up getting swallowed by Pluto, though. Donald’s real role comes towards the end of the short, as Pluto, magnet still inside him, is on the roof, and Donald, holding a hammer gets stuck on the ceiling.



What’s not clear to me from this short is why Disney thought that Donald and Pluto would be a good pairing. They have limited interaction in the short, and their styles are not very complimentary. Donald’s aggressive, angry tone doesn’t match with Pluto’s simple bewilderment and innocence. Goofy and Donald play off each other well, but I don’t quite see the same thing with Pluto.

All images copyright Disney. All rights reserved.

Walt's Last Film

On this, EPCOT's 25th birthday, it only seems appropriate for a site that is dedicated to Disney films to talk about Walt's very last film. It never appeared in any theatre, but lots of people around the world have seen bits and pieces of it, thanks to Disney. It's the film Walt made to convince the locals in Florida that EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, would be the perfect thing for the Florida economy.



The film does not have an official title, but most people call it the EPCOT movie. You can view it on the Walt Disney's Tomorrowland DVD, from the Walt Disney Treasures line.





Disney has used it many times to promote the current EPCOT, which is somewhat of a travesty. In case you didn't know, EPCOT of today is nothing like what Walt envisioned. Mine is not the place to go into that, but Walt Disney was dreaming of something revolutionary, not just another theme park.


The film describes Walt's vision for the community of EPCOT, featuring a central city business district, with concentric circles following out to the edge of the city. In between are various entertainment options, including an amusement park, movie theatre, park and more. People movers, monorails and other forms of transportation keep cars off the roads, keeping the air clean and traffic to a minimum.

If this had been ultimately completed, it could have been Walt's ultimate gift to the world - a new way to plan communities and cities. After his death, EPCOT would never be completed the way that Walt planned. The remaining executives lacked the guiding force to make the vision a reality, and EPCOT became EPCOT Center, the theme park.

But for a few moments, Walt's vision was a reality, in this film. A model of it was built, and can be seen now in the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, and you can see the sets of the film at the One Man's Dream attraction in the Disney-MGM Studios. I advise everyone to see the film if you can, it's a true insight into Walt and his world.