WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12 @ 07:15 AM ET (DVR Alert!)
Feature-length animated films are a staple of today’s movie fare, but that hasn’t always been the case-not until the release of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 did the studio heads believe that an audience would sit still for an 83 minute cartoon. Two years later Paramount would release the second animated feature: Fleischer Studios
Gulliver’s Travels, loosely adapted from the first of the three-part Jonathan Swift tale of seafarer Lemuel Gulliver. A shipwrecked Gulliver washes ashore in the mythical kingdom of Lilliput, where the residents are initially suspicious and hostile. And, oh yeah, the residents also happen to be the size of Gulliver’s thumb. But they’re easily won over, as they discover that a giant makes a good friend. And a lousy enemy.
Lilliput and the neighboring kingdom of Blefuscu are in the process of preparing for a
royal wedding. The respective monarchs agree on all the details until the question arises about the wedding song. Their disagreement escalates into an armed confrontation, but luckily, there’s a giant around to, as we used to say in Brooklyn, knock their royal heads together, and bring about
the inevitable happy ending.
This is real family entertainment-not just something for adults to put on for the kids and walk away. The humor, the clever characterizations, the Academy-Award-nominated music, and the beautiful technicolor make for a viewing experience I’ve enjoyed several times as an adult. But never as much as when I watched it with my six-year-old niece Gabriella. (She’s known as Gabby, which is also the name of the the pot-bellied little town crier who’s the first to sound the alarm that THERE’S A GIANT ON THE BEACH!, so that was an added attraction).
