I came across some Disney Animated short DVD’s recently and I thought I would share my thoughts about them.

The first one I watched was volume 5 of the collection, the headliner was “Wind and the Willows”

As a kid, I always had a particular fondness of The Wind in the Willows, but watching it as an adult I had a completely different opinion about it. It was as funny as I remember it being, but the story is so loosely assembled it was a little distracting. I really like the Horse and Mister Toad, they are certainly hilarious. Overall I still really like it, but there is something about watching it as a kid that was slightly more magical about it.

The other shorts on this DVD were various Silly Symphony’s, all telling moral stories. I remember them all from my childhood, and I enjoyed them even more watching them again. The other shorts on the disc were “The Ugly Duckling” “The Grasshopper and the Ants” “The Robber Kitten” “The Wise Little Hen”, and “The Golden Touch” They are all about 7 minutes long, which I think is great. I watched this DVD with a 3 year old, and it really fit his attention span wonderfully. I think my favorite short on this disc other than The Wind and The Willows was, “The Golden Touch”, telling the story of King Midas, mostly because it was hilarious to me how many times they killed a cat by turning it to gold.

I watched the 4th volume next, with the headliner on this one being, The Tortoise and the Hare.

The Tortoise and the Hare was really short in itself, but I liked this DVD plenty. It contains two Tortoise and the Hare shorts, one with the traditional story of the foot race, and the other with a boxing match. Both are really funny, and worth watching with your kids. It pains me to see how you can’t find cartoons like this anymore.

The other shorts on the DVD were, “Babes in the Woods”, “The Saga of Windwagon Smith”, “The Goddess of Spring” and “Paul Bunyan” My favorite of which was Paul Bunyan, telling the story of the triumph of machine over man. Being a Robot this always seems to hit the soft spot in my main compartment. This disc also contains my least favorite/ultimate favorite, which is “The Goddess of Spring” In which the bass singing Hades kidnaps Spring, and takes her to hell. It makes me laugh every time to see how cheesy it is.

The last collection I watched was volume 3, with the headliner being The Prince and the Pauper.

I remember liking The Prince and the Pauper a lot as a kid, but watching it again I didn’t enjoy it at all. It seems to me it was made just for kids, to be honest I haven’t really liked Mickey Mouse since he started talking an excessive amount.

The other shorts on the DVD were “The Pied Piper”, “Old King Cole”, “A Knight for a Day”, “Ye Olden Days” Other than “Old King Cole”, and The Prince and the Pauper, the shorts on this DVD were solid. “The Pied Piper” is really cool but I think it is tied for second place on this DVD with “A Knight for a Day”, which is a Goofy short. I am a big fan of the Goofy shorts, and this was a good one, where a squire takes over for a passed out knight in a jousting tournament with a corny announcer, competing for the affections of a Goofy princess.

My favorite on the DVD was “Ye Olden Days” though, which was a black and white short where Mickey saves Minnie from being betrothed to Dippy dog. Those old shorts where most of the gags are visual just hit the spot.

Overall, all of these DVD’s are worth watching with your kids but my favorite was The Wind and the Willows disk. Watching them makes me miss my robot adolescence when they would play shorts like these, Looney Tunes, and Tom and Jerry all the time. Something is missing from today’s cartoons that these all captured that I think are really worth sharing with your kids.