Classic Shorts Showcase: Ferdinand the Bull

After a short break, Classic Shorts Showcase is back. Now for those of you wondering when the next Request will be put up that will be either tomorrow or Monday. I haven't decided yet. Anyways onto today's classic, Ferdinand The Bull.  Funnily enough, this is one of the few times where I'm familiar with the source material as I used to own the book, The Story of Ferdinand when I was little. While I do recall watching the short, it had been awhile. So I had forgotten about it, a little bit. 

The Plot

In this short, we meet Ferdiand who is different from most bulls in that he doesn't want to fight but would rather sit under his favorite tree and just smell the flowers. Though one day, five men come looking for a bull to take to a bull fight and while the other bulls show off. None of the five men re impressed but when Ferdiand goes to sit under his favorite tree, he sits on a bee and that causes him to act wild and the five men love it and decide to take him for the bull fight.


Characters


Now I'm only going to talk a few characters because not all of them play an important role but I feel that these are the ones that should be adressed.


Ferdinand voiced by Milt Kahl



Our main character, Ferdiand as I stated in the plot is a bull who would rather smell the flowers than fight. The way, I see it, it's just not his thing. He doesn't look down on the other bulls who do fight. He seems to have an attitude as I'll do what I like and you can do what you like. He is a paficist and as has been stated, he is happiest sitting underneath his favorite tree smelling the flowers.  This actuallys causes the arena to get mad at him because you see the Matador is thrown a bouqet of flowers and all Ferdinand does is smell them.

All right, one last important person to talk about. Now techinally he's not a character in the short but unlike The Reluctant Dragon. I feel he is important here.

The Narrator - Voiced By Don Wilson

The Narrator is the one that really sells the short and there is so much antimation in this voice that it is great. Especially when they are in the arena, and the body movements match the emotion of the Matador. The Narrator in this short was bar none the best thing about it. He sold the characters and made them funny and his voice was just great. It's hard to actually sell you guys on this, so I'm going to include a video at the end of the short just so you can see what I mean.


My Final Thoughts

This short was so much better than The Reluctant Dragon. The story was simple, I was able to care for Ferdiand while still being able to laugh at his actions and again, The Narrator did a great job of setting up the characters and the story. I highly suggest, you watch this short. Going in, I feared it would be boring and too simple. And while it falls on the simple side, this short makes that work.  Definetly check out this classic Disney short.

And if you want to check out, just watch the video below.







Join me next for the third installment Classic Shorts Showcase, when I take a look at Golitah II