Although we've talken a little break, I had to share this with you...

The Geography of many Disney films.

Peter Pan (1953)

The Spiro girls unite again for another season of the Magical marathon! Brie had the day off, so she joined us for breakfast and a movie. Brie played Nana (the dog) in Peter Pan production and was delighted through the whole thing.

Moments I enjoyed:

• The lost boys. Someone made the comment that they had forgotten how they dressed in animal costumes-- similar to the Max in Where the wild things are (1963). We wondered if the movie influenced Maurice Sendak's book at all.
• Finn's love of Tink. In case you have forgotten, Finn got to meet Tink (after waiting in line with his mama for like an hour) and see her fly over the castle last October with the family.
• Rewinding and watching Captain Hook Scream like a girl over and over again.

On a side note, I was searching for pictures from Peter Pan and found this little treasure. Whenever I enter comic book stores (okay, the one time I have,) for some reason I'm mostly only drawn to the muppet comics. But just LOOK at that. Animal as a lostboy? Perfect! Miss Piggy as the jealous moody Tinkerbell? Remarkable!

A bit premature...

But I had to share this. It's this kind of attention to detail and little gems that makes disney/pixar so great.

Name that voice...

I learn so much from my sisters. They'll hear a voice and say, "Where have we heard this before?" But they usually can call it before IMDB tells them. A common one is Sterling Holloway, best known for Winnie the Pooh. Here are some other voices he's done:

The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland

Kaa in the Jungle Book

Mr. Stork from Dumbo and Lambert the Sheepish Lion

Bridget was able to pinpoint that the mean flowers in Alice in wonderland

are also in Dumbo:

And Lucy knew that the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland...

...is Mr. Smee from Peter Pan. (Aka, Bill Thompson)

There's been a moon shot in every movie.*

Even when Alice falls down into what seems the middle of the earth, there's still this:

It's the cheshire cat, of course.

*I thiiink. At least the animated ones, maybe.

Every wondered where the pirate accent comes from?

Look no further than Robert Newton, in Treasure Island. You know, "Aye, mateys..." or "Arrrr!" or "I'll be tankerin' for some rum, I am..."

From Wikipedia:

Actor Robert Newton, who specialized in portraying pirates, especially Long John Silver in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island, and in the 1954 Australian film Long John Silver, and as the title character in the 1952 film Blackbeard, the Pirate,^[7] is described as the "patron saint" of Talk Like A Pirate Day.^[1] Newton was born in Dorset and educated in Cornwall, and it was his native West Country dialect, which he used in his portrayal of Long John Silver and Blackbeard, that some contend is the origin of the standard "pirate accent".^[8]

The archetypal pirate grunt "Arrr!" (alternatively "Rrrr!" or "Yarrr!") first appeared in fiction as early as 1934 in the film Treasure Island starring Lionel Barrymore,^[9] and was used by a character in the 1940 novel Adam Penfeather, Buccaneer by Jeffrey Farnol.^[9] However it was popularized and widely remembered with Robert Newton's usage in the classic 1950 Disney film Treasure Island. It has been speculated that the rolling "rrr" has been associated with pirates because of the location of major ports in the West Country of England, drawing labor from the surrounding countryside, West Country speech in general, and Cornish speech in particular, may have been a major influence on a generalized British nautical speech.^[10][11] This can be seen in the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance, which is set in Cornwall; although the play did not (originally) use the phrase "arrr", the pirates used words with a lot of rrr's such as "Hurrah" and "pour the pirate sherry".^[12]

Bridget was especially excited about the similarities between Treasure Planet and Treasure Island. Treasure planet (2002) is a sci-fi adaptation of the book. It would have been a great double feature, but we ran out of time.

Highlight: Our household pirate, Mr. Kris Riggio, made an appearance. Usually it's just the sisters, but we made an exception :)

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Watching Ichabod reminded me of watching the disney channel in October when I was a kid. I get nervous watching it with Finn-- is it too much for him? He sits between Lucy and me, and holds our hands.

We've been noticing that you can see the genesis of some ideas/drawings/characters. While watching Ichabod, it felt like Cinderella. Lucy replied, "I KNOW! AND THAT'S THE NEXT MOVIE!"

We really have been delighting in watching these together. We usually eat together, and it's been really great bonding time for us girls.

I've never read The Wind in the Willows, which is what Mr. Toad is based upon. However, I have been on Mr. Toad's wild ride too many times to count, so the characters felt familiar. (Especially mole and ratty, who make an appearance in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983). Side note: searching for "mole rat" in google images does not yield any disney results.)

I loved how Mr. Toad had "mania" -- I generally am interested in how human emotions are represented in these films. There's been a lot of depression thus far, so it was interesting to see Mr. Toad's mania, and his friend's responses to it.