Hey guys, welcome to another review. Today I'm going to be starting my new Disney reviews series, where I'm reviewing a lot of Disney movies, TV show pilots, classic video tapes from the late '80s and the '90s, books, and comics. If you want all the details go check out the most recent blog update which I will put the link for down below at the end of this review. Now let's check out Disney Sing-Along Songs: The Bare Necessities from 1987!
Before we get to the tape itself, I'm going to give you some background info on the series in case you don't know what this series is, though if you were born in the '80s and early '90s, or have kids or grandchildren who were, you probably already know this information.
Disney Sing-Along Songs or Disney's Sing Along Songs as it was known on the packaging for the early tapes, is a series of VHS and DVD releases featuring songs from Disney movies, TV shows, and theme park attractions, using pre-existing footage from said movies, shows and attractions. Each episode is hosted by either Professor Owl, Jiminy Cricket, Ludwig von Drake, or Sebastian the Crab using stock footage from other cartoons. A few of the tapes are live action featuring a group of kids with the Disney characters as they appeared in the theme parks at the time the tapes were filmed. The later episodes, which were released on both VHS and DVD, such as Little Patch of Heaven incorporated a story, which connected the songs together. Though this wasn't possible to do with the earlier tapes since while they had a theme, there were maybe only two songs from the same movie on each tape and the other songs were from other movies or shows. The idea is to show the lyrics of each song while a bouncing ball, in the shape of Mickey Mouse's head, floats over the words so that kids can sing along to the songs, hence the title.
The Bare Necessities was the third volume of the series to be released though beginning with the 1990 VHS re-release it became volume 4 in the series. The title comes from the song of the same name from the 1967 Disney animated classic, The Jungle Book, which is my favourite Disney movie of all time and the theme is the Animal Kingdom. It was produced to celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Jungle Book though there was no theatrical re-release or a home video release of the movie in 1987, despite the 20th anniversary being that year.
Hosted by Jiminy Cricket, the songs on this tape are pretty decent ones, starting with "The Bare Necessities" sung by Phil Harris as Baloo the Bear and Bruce Reitherman as Mowgli. It's a great song and I think it's because of this tape that I can't help but sing along to the song when I'm watching the actual movie. Trust me, I tried not to do that, but the tune is so catchy that I'll catch myself singing the song in the shower sometimes. Don't judge. Anyway the song was written and composed by Terry Gilkyson and was the only song that he composed for the movie that actually stayed in the movie, as the Sherman Brothers came in to compose new songs for the film.
The second song, "You Are a Human Animal" is from The Mickey Mouse Club and it's sung by Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket. It's an okay song, but it's definitely not one of my favourites on any of the Sing Along Songs tapes. It was written and composed by Jimmie Dodd.
The next song to be featured on this tape is "Work Song (Cinderelly, Cinderelly)" sung by the Mice in Cinderella. It's a nice little song from the movie, which showcases the thoughts of the Mice as they listen to Lady Tremaine, Drizella and Anastasia yell at Cinderella all day. While I didn't see Cinderella until it was re-released on VHS in 1995, because I had this tape, I recognized the song immediately when it got to that part of the movie. It was written by Mack David, Jerry Livingston, and Al Hoffman.
Up next is "Old Yeller" from the 1957 live action movie, Old Yeller. In fact it's actually the movie's theme song and the only song in the entire movie according to the Disney Wiki. I've never seen the movie and until I watched this tape for the purpose of this review, I actually forgot this song even existed. It's not super memorable and honestly I prefer the theme song for the '50s Zorro TV series, which is on Disney Sing-Along Songs: Heigh-Ho, which is the previous volume to this one if you're looking at the original release dates for the early volumes. The music for this song was composed by Disney composer Oliver Wallace while the lyrics were written by Gil George.
After that we go into the song "Figaro and Cleo" from the 1943 cartoon Figaro and Cleo, featuring the two characters from Pinocchio. I don't remember if I ever saw the actual cartoon, since I'm pretty sure this tape is the only thing I've seen with footage from the cartoon, but the song is okay. It's nothing super fancy since it's trying to tell the audience about the relationship between the two characters. A relationship that is better showcased in Pinocchio and can't really be summed up in a song that's as short as this one. It's harmless though. The music was composed by Disney composers Paul Smith and Leigh Harline and the lyrics were written by Disney lyricist, Ned Washington, who wrote the songs for Pinocchio.
This next song however is the second song on the soundtrack of my childhood, between "The Bare Necessities" and "Come Dream with Me Tonight" from the Teddy Ruxpin book and tape sets and the animated series. That song is "Winnie the Pooh" by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman, from the featurettes, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, and Winnie the Pooh and A Day for Eeyore and the feature film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. The start of the song, without the lyrics, plays over the traditional storybook opening to the featurettes, then it starts over from the beginning over clips from the first three featurettes, with the lyrics and Mickey, the Bouncing Ball on them. I have no ability to be objective when it comes to this song because like I said it is my childhood since I watched the Winnie the Pooh featurettes on VHS all the time when I was a kid and I love it.
We go back to The Jungle Book for "I Wan'na Be Like You" sung by Louis Prima as King Louie, Bruce Reitherman as Mowgli and Phil Harris as Baloo. Also written and composed by the Sherman Brothers, this is another childhood favourite of mine and the only person who does a perfect cover for this song is Christopher Walken as King Louie in the 2016 live action version of The Jungle Book. I love it.
Now we're going back in time to Dumbo for "Look Out for Mr. Stork" by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace, with lyrics by Ned Washington. I didn't see Dumbo until a few years after I got this tape so my introduction to Dumbo was at the end of this song where it shows the clip of him sneezing, exposing his large ears for the first time. Which I always laughed at that part because if Dumbo hadn't sneezed there'd be no movie.
"Everybody Wants to be a Cat" is from The Aristocats, a movie that didn't get a home video release until 1996 and it didn't air on TV, so until the movie came out on VHS I didn't get to see it. This song is pretty cool though. It's a big jazz number and I sang along to it every time I watched this tape...including last night. The music and lyrics were composed by Floyd Huddleston and Al Rinker.
Which brings us to the worst song on this entire tape and that is "The Ugly Bug Ball" from a live action movie called Summer Magic. The song itself, composed by the Sherman Brothers and performed by Burl Ives, who sang the main theme for the 1964 stop motion animated Christmas special, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and voiced the Snowman narrator in the film, isn't bad. What's bad about this song is the visuals. For whatever reason they took footage from two different short cartoons and edited it together for the song, but there's so much going on on screen that it becomes tedious trying to see what's happening on screen while following along with the song. Like I said, the song itself is fine, but the images, while of bugs, don't work. It might've been easier for the footage to be from Summer Magic itself, a Disney movie that is pretty obscure and is pretty hard to find on home video aside from digitally on iTunes.
The tape then ends with a reprisal of "The Bare Necessities" where Baloo and Mowgli are floating down the river just before the Monkeys nab Mowgli in time to meet King Louie for "I Wan'na Be Like You".
As I mentioned at the start of this review, I first got this tape for Christmas back in 1989 and I was only 3 years old. My grandmother even has photographic evidence of me unwrapping this tape on Christmas morning that year. Of course it's the original 1987 release that I owned growing up. It was the first VHS tape I ever got when I was a kid, and it, along with Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, was my introduction to Disney as a whole as I wouldn't see my first Disney animated feature film until the 1990 theatrical re-release of The Jungle Book. I watched this tape, along with The World of Teddy Ruxpin: Guests of the Grunges, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, and Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Collector's Edition - Encounter at Farpoint on rotation all the time when I was a kid to the point where I'm pretty sure I was close to wearing the tapes out. How I didn't wear them out is beyond me considering how often I watched them. Especially this one.
As I mentioned earlier, very few of the early Sing Along Songs tapes were re-released on DVD in the early to mid 2000s. The Bare Necessities was one of them, having been released on DVD in 2006. The image on the front cover is ported over from the 1994 VHS release's cover (shown at the beginning of this review), which in turn had been ported over from the 1990 VHS release (shown earlier in the review).
This tape actually holds up for me. Being that it's been so long since I watched it last, I was afraid that it was good when I was a kid, but wouldn't hold up for my adult self. Thankfully that was not the case. Despite being an early volume in the series, it actually stands as the standard for what the Sing Along Songs tapes would be like until the mid-'90s when they started doing more story driven installments like Beach Party at Walt Disney World. If you're a Disney fan like I am, but have never had the pleasure of experiencing the Sing Along Songs, I would definitely recommend checking this tape out. And if you're like me and these tapes were your gateway into the wonderful, magical, world of Disney, I recommend revisiting this tape.
That's my review of Disney Sing-Along Songs: The Bare Necessities. I promise that this review is the only long one since I wanted to provide some background information on the series as a whole before I got into the meat and potatoes of the review. Plus I probably won't be going as in depth on each song like I did this time either. This was my favourite of the Sing Along Songs tapes growing up and I had a lot to say about it. Join me next week for another Disney review. I don't know what I'm going to review yet, but I've got lots to choose from. Also, if you're a fan of classic Barney like I am, be sure to join me on Wednesday for my review of Barney & The Backyard Gang: The Backyard Show. Bye for now.
Links
The Review Basement Blog Update (November 9th): https://reviewbasement.blogspot.com/2020/11/out-with-old-and-in-with-new-review.html
Disney's Sing Along Songs: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disney%27s_Sing-Along_Songs
Disney's Sing-Along Songs: The Bare Necessities: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Disney%27s_Sing-Along_Songs:_The_Bare_Necessities
*All images are taken from the Disney Wiki unless otherwise specified by me.
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