In honor of the upcoming Independence Day holiday, well be posting some Floppy 4th of July animated specials. Todays Floppy 4th of July animated special is from 1953, story by Bill Peet (based on the book by Robert Lawson); screenplay by Winston Hibler, Del Connell, & Ted Sears; directed by Hamilton Luske. Voices by: Sterling Holloway (Amos Mouse) Hans Conried (Tom Jefferson / Crook) Charles Ruggles (Ben Franklin) Bill Thompson (Governor Keith) June Foray (Unnamed cat who resembles Lucifer from Disneys Cinderella) in a now-deleted scene (see comment section below to view deleted scene) (all voice actors uncredited) Fun facts: Ben and Me was Disneys first animated two-reel short subject. It was adapted from the childrens book Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos, written & illustrated by Robert Lawson and first published in 1939. Though both book and film deal with the relationship between a mouse and Benjamin Franklin, the book focused more heavily on actual historical events and personages. This short received an Academy Award nomination for Best Short Subject. When originally released to theaters, this 21-minute cartoon short was double billed with the 69-minutes Disney True-Life Adventure documentary called The Living Desert (1953) as a 90-minute package deal. This package deal (Ben And Me plus The Living Desert) was notable for being the first release on the Buena Vista Distribution label. When Disneys regular distributor RKO Pictures resisted the idea of distributing a full-length True-Life Adventure documentary film, Disney formed his own distribution company to handle it & future Disney releases. Errors: Governor William Keith was the benefactor who took over the teenage Benjamin Franklins newspaper apprenticeship in 1723 (sending him from Pennsylvania to London)--and later made Franklin the scapegoat for his own (Keiths) financial mistakes. But the film does not show the two meeting until after Franklin is already an established publisher. In a now-deleted scene (see comment section below to view deleted scene), Amos tells of the Mayflower sea voyage (1620) and then segues into the life of painter Hans Holbein (died 1543), but he doesnt tell the viewer that these scenes are out of order. Benjamin Franklins 20-year-old son William was his assistant in the kite experiment, but he is nowhere to be seen in the extensive sequence recreating the famous event. Benjamin Franklin was not the founder of the Pennsylvania Gazette, which predated Poor Richards Almanack (and was not the same publication under another name). He bought the Gazette in 1729 and published it until 1766 when it was bought by other publishers. Poor Richards Almanack, which ran from 1732 to 1758, was a publication unrelated to the Gazette, and ran concurrently with it.
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 19:27:16 +0000
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