A Whole New World I (The Theme Park Rundown, Pt. 1)

And so Started By A Condor has reached 60 posts - hooray for arbitrary numbers! Since post #1 was an introduction, however, I suppose this one would actually be “review #60” - except we won’t be reviewing anything today. Going back to an idea I had while starting the blog (pushed aside in my initial feverish dash to write too many reviews,) today we’ll begin a recurring series of entries looking back at the films we’ve reviewed so far and run down what presence (if any) each one has at Disney’s theme parks. Since tackling every one of these in one post would be tedious (to write and to read,) we’ll take them 10 at a time, with a new entry in the series every once in a while.

Sound like fun? Well, too bad, I’m doing it anyway.

So now come along with me as we journey into imagination (!?) and depart for the exotic cities of Anaheim, Orlando, Urayasu, Marne-Le-Valle, Penny’s Bay and Pudong for a journey through the turnstiles (or MagicBand readers,) as we go a-hunting for references!

Condorman
Looking first for a reference to our beloved blog namesake, we find … precisely diddly-squat. Seriously - there’s nothing in any of Disney’s 12 theme parks (or their resort hotels and shopping districts, as far as I  know) referencing our winged wonder. And why should there be? One of the requirements of a cult film, by definition, has to be it’s non-presence in the mainstream - and Disney doesn’t get much more obscure than Condorman (well, almost - let’s not bring up Midnight Madness just yet.) Unfortunately my emails to Walt Disney World management, urging them to re-paint the cars at the Tomorrowland Speedway to resemble the Condormobile, have thus far fallen on deaf ears.

We tried to start a meet and greet, but kids kept poking their eyes out on my wings!

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Okay, this one’s much easier to spot. Disney’s original animated film features prominently in the theme park world, and has from day one. Beyond Snow White and the Dwarfs themselves making innumerable appearances in shows and parades, Snow White’s Adventures (later renamed Snow White’s Scary Adventures) was an opening day attraction at Disneyland, and still operates there today - albeit in a heavily-modified version partially based on Florida’s 1971 re-make. That version, which was first toned down in 1994 and then removed completely in 2012 (to make way for Princess Fairytale Hall, a meet-and-greet location,) is the one I find most fascinating.

Tasked by Roy Disney with replicating the three opening day dark-rides from Disneyland (after their original plans for ones based on Sleeping Beauty, Mary Poppins and the “Sleepy Hollow” segment of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad were cut,) WED Enterprises’ Imagineers decided to alter them in different ways. Thus the new Peter Pan’s Flight became more detailed and scenic, and the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride redux became twice as large (and twice as manic.) With their new Snow White ride, the Imagineers apparently decided to scare eager young riders shitless, as it featured wailing skeletons, a darkened cottage full of terrified forest animals, the shadow of a horned demon that chased the Dwarfs away (!), and a pursuit by a gaunt, relentlessly shrill Witch that leaped out suddenly at several points during the experience. At the ride’s conclusion, the Witch appeared above the ride track in the Dwarf’s mine, seeming to tip a giant diamond onto riders’ heads. This lead to the final room before riders departed, in which strobe lights flashed as the hag’s cackle echoed like a skipping record; basically, the Witch killed you. God, I’m sorry I missed this one!

We all float in here, dearies...

Versions of the ride exist in Disneyland Paris (Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains - a clone of the current California version) and Tokyo Disneyland, which is an interesting hybrid of Florida’s original first half and California’s “happy ending.” Additionally, Magic Kingdom received a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train attraction in 2014 to replace it’s defunct dark-ride, which is a nicely detailed “family-friendly” roller coaster that was later duplicated at Shanghai Disneyland. It’s well worth a ride if you can snag a FastPass (you won’t see me waiting no two hours in line - I could be spending that time eating, like, 24 Citrus Swirls.)

The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin
Well, you’d think one would be hard-pressed to find this little gem represented in the parks - and yet there exists a shout-out at Florida’s Magic Kingdom. Inside the Main Street train station, right at the front of the park, there is a railroad bulletin board chock-full of references to some of Disney’s older live-action films. Among them, there is a train that’s listed as arriving from “Bullwhip,” which is then then scheduled to depart for “Griffin Gulch” (and which is noted as having a flood delay.) A small reference, to be sure, but it’s better than nothing!

I'll probably be using this board a lot in coming posts...

The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band
Aarrgh!! Anyway, this excruciating musical doesn’t seem to have a direct reference in any of the parks, though the time period portrayed in the film isn’t too far off from Main Street’s turn-of-the-century ethos. I wouldn't be surprised if instrumental versions of one or more of it’s Sherman Brothers tunes have shown up in Main Street’s background-music loop at some point. Louis Armstrong did a jazzy cover of “Ten Feet Off the Ground” on his Disney Songs the Satchmo Way album … and he performed a few times at Disneyland … so there’s that.

Admission costs how much now!?!

Darby O'Gill And The Little People
Despite being ripe with fantasy (and touched by the hand of Walt Disney himself,) Darby O’Gill is sadly without direct theme park representation, as well. There is a tenuous link, however, between Walt’s effects-heavy film about Leprechauns and an easy-to-miss curio at Disneyland. In 1955, Little Golden Books published a story entitled The Little Man of Disneyland, a cute little piece of marketing that told the tale of a Leprechaun who was displaced by the construction of Disneyland - until Mickey, Goofy and Donald helped to re-locate the wee man into his own private tree inside the new park. A tiny door, window and chimney can still be spotted on a particular tree in Adventureland. Why a little Irish Leprechaun was living in California is still a mystery to me, though.



Canya believe I've godda drag meself all the way ter Califahrnia Adventure fer a wee nip?

Donald In Mathmagic Land
Perhaps no other entry in this post points to the futility of this exercise more than Donald In Mathmagic Land. I mean, am I serious? Well, the narrator here is Paul Frees, who also narrates The Haunted Mansion and the long-shuttered Adventure Through Inner Space - and his is still the voice heard as Pirates of the Caribbean’s pirate-auctioneer in both California and Florida (I imagine this not to be the case overseas, since those pirates don’t speak English.) Plus, if you look closely, you can see that tucked behind every cash register in Disney’s gift shops sits a basic numerical calculator. Math!

This building, Donald, is shaped like a square. MAG-NI-FI-CAY-SHUN!

A Goofy Movie
Brace yourselves ChildrenOfThe90z, but our beloved Goofy Movie is sadly underrepresented at the parks. There is a rarely-seen Max walk-around character that sometimes accompanies Goofy, though his purple pants indicate that this is the junior Goof circa the Goof Troop series, rather than its' feature film follow-up. However, the pair have been spotted doing impromptu performances of “the perfect cast” dance, sometimes accompanied by the film’s Powerline song “I2I” (especially on Father's Day in recent years.) As noted in my original review, the films “Lester’s Possum Park” is a bare-faced parody of Magic Kingdom’s Country Bear Jamboree, but we’re not looking for reverse-references here - and it’s not like Disney added a “Lester the Possum” animatronic to the Bear Band line-up or something. That’d be silly.

Nobody else but you...

Tarzan
Passing through Disneyland’s Adventureland on your way to New Orleans Square you’ll encounter a giant fake tree, containing the walk-through Tarzan’s Treehouse attraction. Opened to the public in June of 1999 (exactly one week after the release of its' namesake movie,) this one caused a minor bugaboo amidst Disneyland die-hards, as it was a quick-and-dirty re-theme of the cherished (if infrequently traversed) Swiss Family Treehouse attraction that had shaded the western edge of Adventureland since 1962. While the closure of older attractions to make way for new ones is part-and-parcel to the life expectancy of Disney’s parks, this example of budget Imagineering (instigated by then-Parks and Resorts chairman and miserly bottom-line feeder Paul Pressler - aka The Dark One) was an unfortunate harbinger of such future IP re-brandings as the Tower of Terror/Guardians of the Galaxy redesign, and the impending transformation of Paradise Pier into Pixar Pier (poor California Adventure can’t seem to catch a break!) On the other hand, the attraction proved a popular enough draw, and was copied as an opening-day attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2005.

Evidence of a rushed makeover at Disneyland’s Treehouse soon came to light, however. Originally guests would ascend the attraction via a steep set of stairs that took you up into the Swiss Family Robinson’s jungle dwelling; for the Tarzan rebranding, however, a separate “rotting tree” (at least that what it looks like to me) was constructed out in front of the original, and guests would climb this before crossing a nerve-racking suspension bridge over to the main attraction. All fine and good - kids liked the new bridge, and it helped set the updated attraction apart from the original. However, the added stress of this extra structure soon took its' toll on the 37 year-old tree, and one day in March of 2007 the entire attraction was suddenly shut down without notice. It took crews over a year to assess and repair the structural damage. The attraction has operated without incident since then.

Tarzan and Jane: swingers

While the Treehouse in Florida’s Magic Kingdom has remained unaltered, Tarzan did inspire a memorably silly stage show at Animal Kingdom. Staged in the “Theater in the Wild” adjacent to Dinoland USA, Tarzan Rocks! (don’t ya love exclamation points slapped onto things?) featured energetic performers swinging on simulated vines, belting out less awesome renditions of Phil Collins’ songs from the film. Tarzan Rocks! ran for seven years before being replaced by a Finding Nemo musical show in 2007. But the likeliest reason it’s so fondly remembered can be summed up in two words: rollerblading monkeys.

Enchanted
Disney’s 2007 animated/live action rom/com is itself a treasure-trove of Disney references, but references to the film itself are lacking in the theme park world. In my review, I went into brief detail about Disney’s last-minute decision to pull Amy Adams’ Giselle from the roster of “official” Disney Princesses, primarily due to the fact that discerning theme park patrons (can you hear the sarcasm in my writing?) would call foul on a walk-around character who didn’t look like the actress. Since then, it’s been brought to my attention that both Disneyland and Walt Disney World did in fact have a Giselle character, who was featured in a “pre-parade” float promoting the film, which would preceed afternoon parades at Disneyland, Magic Kingdom and Hollywood Studios. Since then, the character has been a no-show, even at those ridiculously over-priced hard-ticketed events that annual passholders and Vacation Club members attend to stand in line for two hours to take pictures with “rare” walk-around characters. Various theories as to why this is the case are floating about in the internet’s ether - some say it’s because Disney’s feature animation didn’t do the animation in Enchanted, some say because the character’s elaborate dress is too expensive to maintain, others say it’s so they don’t have to pay royalties to Amy Adams (though this issue obviously hasn’t stopped Mary Poppins or Jack Sparrow characters from appearing - unless Amy Adams has a dynamite agent?)

I'm just as surprised as you!

A Far Off Place
It should be clear by now that we’d come up dry once again seeking any theme park references to Disney’s obscure 1993 adventure film. If you squint hard enough, one could possibly take portions of Animal Kingdom’s Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction as a close-enough substitute. And, as noted in my Animal Kingdom TV special post, the attraction did originally have a much heavier ivory-theft storyline behind it, which fit hand-in-hand with Disney’s “evil poachers as go-to villains” theme of the 1990s. Perhaps if one were to ride along with somebody who resembles a teenaged Reese Witherspoon or Ethan Embry, they could pretend … no, never mind, it’s not worth it.

Keep your eyes open, Mr. Giraffe - you might be replaced by a Marvel attraction any day now!

Well, that takes us through our first "Theme Park Rundown", and clearly we’re going to have our work cut out for us moving forward. As we’ve already seen, some movies have big, obvious rides and attractions, while others have more obscure references that typically go unnoticed by the casual guest; many, of course, have no presence whatsoever. Luckily, some of us have a gift for seeing references where none may actually exist!

Heavyweights

And now, Started By A Condor presents its' first guest review. Since today's movie is one that's not a nostalgic favorite of mine (nor one that I particularly like, if we're being honest,) I thought it'd be more fun to share the perspective of someone more familiar (and sympathetic) to it's charms. Without further ado, here's my better half, the HiddenQueen, with her look back at 1995's Heavyweights!

I'm not going to camp with a bunch of fat loads!

A few months ago, HiddenIan asked me to write a guest blog post about Heavyweights. Why he didn’t want to write about this movie - one of the greatest films of our generation - is beyond me. I’m not the best at reviewing movies, so I’ll just go over some reasons why I like this movie:

      •It’s awesome.

      •It’s basically The Mighty Ducks, but without hockey - which makes sense since it’s
      written/directed by Steven Brill, writer of all 3 Mighty Ducks movies (and writer/director
      of 2000’s Little Nicky - when are we finally going to see that film?).

      •It’s basically The Mighty Ducks, but with no Queen song at the end.

      •It’s basically The Mighty Ducks, but with Ben Stiller.

      •It’s funny.

      •They eat a lot of junk food, which makes me hungry.

      •“BUDDY!!”

      •I really related to the kid when he couldn’t throw the ball over the fence.

      •Jeffrey Tambor.

You can clearly see why this movie is so amazing. Another fun fact: the movie is co-written by Judd Apatow (yes, that guy).

So this is your basic “kids go to fat camp and it gets bought by a crazy fitness guru making an infomercial” story. Gerry (Aaron Schwartz, from The Mighty Ducks), a really sweet kid who can’t throw a ball over a fence, gets forcibly sent to Camp Hope (a weight loss camp) by his parents. They literally don’t tell him he’s going until a guy comes to their house and shows him a promotional video for the camp. Here’s my first question: does this guy just go around to various houses showing them videos? He’s making house calls to promote the camp! When Gerry gets to camp, he realizes it’s really fun with other fat kids who are just like him. This summer will be awesome! Some of his friends include Roy (Kenan Thompson, from Kenan & Kel and Mighty Ducks 2) and Josh (Shaun Weiss aka GOLDBERG!). See - I told you it’s basically The Mighty Ducks.

We're as good as anybody, it's time we started acting like it.

The adults in the movie are all kind of incompetent in some way, but I do like them. There’s the fat counselor played by Tom McGowan (also seen on TV’s Frasier), and the skinny counselor played by Paul Feig (known for writing and directing many popular shows like The Office, Parks And Recreation and 30 Rock) - who was also a “dining room guest” on Hell’s Kitchen. Cool. The nurse (played by Leah Lail) is kind of boring and she’s basically just there to be a pretty lady and love interest. She was also in Mighty Ducks 2 (what did I say?!?!?!?!). Another fun fact: she retired from acting and she’s now a real estate agent.

Okay, enough about the actors.

It’s all fun and games at Camp Hope until they find out that fitness entrepreneur Tony Perkis (Ben Stiller) bought the camp from the nice, sweet old owners (played by Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara).

So Ben Stiller bought his parents’ camp and bankrupted them? Cool.

Can you smell it? There's a life force in here tonight.

Perkis plans to turn the camp into a serious, extreme weight loss camp and also make an infomercial out of the whole experience! He’s a typical crazy fitness guy, and he’s basically their worst nightmare. He makes them go on crazy long hikes and cuts off contact from the outside world. He also gets rid of fun stuff like the big inflatable thing in the lake that makes them bounce around, and the go-karts - which were two things Gerry really liked. Perkis also takes away all the hidden junk food (camp is so fun because of junk food and go-karts). More importantly, Perkis humiliates them all when they do a forced public weigh-in. He’s basically insane.

He also brings in mean “fit” camp counselors who make the kids do ridiculous things like exercise and eat health food. The best new counselor is Lars (Tom Hodges), because he has a funny accent and he’s not too smart. But we like him because he turns into a good guy at the end.

Please put your fat finger down!

Jeffrey Tambor, by the way, doesn't give a flip that his son is unhappy at camp. I guess he really wants his kid to lose weight.

After much time is devoted to the kids being humiliated, both emotionally and physically, they decide to take back their camp. They trap and imprison Perkis and have a huge party where they eat a whole bunch of junk food(!!!). On parents day, the kids show their parents a video of everything Perkis has done to them. Perkis, who’s escaped, does some crazy backflips and is exposed as the psycho he really is. End movie … roll credits.

You have one of those fish-and-chip farts there, Nicky?

OK not really. We still have to have the smart (but overweight) kids triumph over the athletic camp next door. Because I guess they really need a win (besides, you know, defeating a crazy Ben Stiller)? They have a competition and of course the kids at Camp Hope win, then at the end the counselor from Frasier kisses the pretty nurse. The movie should have ended earlier - I always thought these last scenes were lame.

I know you can do it, I have faith in you. But for now, observe the silence of the chi.

So, it’s not the deepest movie. It’s full of stereotypes: the fat kids like to eat and they’re bad at sports - we get it. The athletic kids are good at sports but bad at academics - we get it. What’s funny is that half of these kids are in The Mighty Ducks where they are amazing at playing hockey. I don’t like how the purpose of one of the few women in the movie is just to be someone’s love interest. And she’s good-looking, so this proves that an overweight guy can win the heart of an attractive lady - we get it. This movie would be nothing without Ben Stiller. He’s so funny in his role as Tony Perkis, that the minute he shows up, the movie improves. Every scene he’s in is comedy gold. He really steals the show.

Lars, his head “fit” counselor, also makes the movie. We seriously love him and everything he says, and we love how he doesn’t understand the “Buddy System.” We crack up when he says “bahhdddeeeee!!!” He’s just a silly, funny character and we like him a lot.

So Lars, buddy - you with us, or against us?

But the scene that really spoke to me is in the beginning where Gerry can’t throw a ball over the fence. This was seriously me - I was not an overweight child, but I couldn’t throw worth a damn.

So it’s a fun movie, but it’s not as good as A Goofy Movie or The Mighty Ducks, or other movies that came out in the ‘90s. Most people haven’t really heard of it, but it holds a special place in my heart and I hope you’ll give it a chance.

The Gnome-Mobile

Following the hugely successful release of 1964’s Mary Poppins, Walt Disney Productions knew it had to get their pint-sized dynamic duo, Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber, back into action before puberty snatched away their box office appeal. Deciding to utilize the pair in another fantasy-fueled family romp, screenwriter Ellis Kadison and director Robert Stevenson (one of Disney's most dependable) loaded their upcoming film with elements from several of the studio’s past successes: a bit of Darby O’Gill magic, a Shaggy Dog car chase, some villainous Thomasina circus-folk, a dash of Summer Magic pastoral, maybe with loveable ol' Walter Brennan from Those Calloways thrown in (for warmth) and a sprinkling of That Darn Cat’s Richard Deacon (for stability.) Heck, why not dollop some Sherman Brothers in, just for the hell of it? Unfortunately, the resulting film - 1967’s The Gnome-Mobile - ended up being far less than the sum of it’s parts.

Based on a 1936 book by Upton Sinclair (yes, that Upton Sinclair,) the film tells the story of wealthy San Francisco-based lumber tycoon DJ Mulrooney (Brennan) and his visiting grandchildren, Elizabeth and Rodney (Dotrice and Garber, respectively) - who are English, obviously. Whilst picnicking in Redwood National Park,  the trio encounter a foot-tall Gnome named Jasper (Tom Lowell) and his irascible old grandpa, Knobby (Brennan yet again, sans dentures,) who are the last Gnomes in this particular forest thanks to Mulrooney’s logging company (natch.) To appease both his guilty conscience and his pleading grandkids, Mulrooney agrees to shuttle the pair of lonesome Gnomes to find more of their kind (and, most importantly, a bride for the young Jasper) in his customized 1930 Rolls-Royce - which the children thereafter refer to as the “Gnome-Mobile.” Hijinks soon ensue, as the Gnomes are spotted and captured by an unscrupulous freak show proprietor, Horatio Quaxton (played by Sean McClory,) and Mulrooney is locked away in an asylum by his doubtful right-hand man, Ralph Yarby (Deacon.)

Didja' ever hear the one about the 12-inch pianist?

Let me come right out and state that, despite going into this film with fairly low expectations (at the end of my Mary Poppins review, I referred to it as a “silly little movie” despite never having seen it - shame on me,) I was still pretty disappointed. While I wasn’t expecting a grand film like Poppins, a small part of me was hoping that the movie about “Gnomes in a car” would at least be a bit eccentric. Alas, beyond the fact that the Gnomes are presented as itty-bitty hillbillies (and briefly confab with some extremely fake-looking animals,) the film plays out in a very pedestrian manner, with few surprises along the way. The obvious bellwether for this film is 1959’s Darby O’Gill And The Little People, Disney’s previous foray into “wee-folk faerie stories“ - and when held up to that film, The Gnome-Mobile pales considerably. Not only is the story much less engaging than Darby’s, but the special effects are somehow less convincing - despite the fact that this film was made nearly a decade later. Perhaps a victim of the studio’s increased film output, the rotoscope and back-projection work here is serviceable, but far less believable than in Disney’s Saint Patrick's Day favorite.

Wow! An actually real totally not-fake Gnome!

To briefly touch upon the music, fans of the Sherman Brothers are not going to be happy with me (again.) Perhaps exacerbated by the fact that I watched this one right after Poppins (which contained the duo’s greatest work by far,) I found the songs written for this movie just awful. Hell, I shouldn’t even say "songs," since really there is one melody (identified as “The Gnome-Mobile Song” in the credits - how original) repeated a few times, with slightly altered lyrics; most of which consist of repeating the title over and over again (“In the Gnome-Mobile, the Gnome-Mobile, ridin’ around in the Gnome-Mobile…”, repeat endlessly.) To be fair, though, I may be damning the Shermans unfairly here, since their songs aren't helped by the fact that they're performed by the characters while they travel in the titular car. Already mediocre songs become sapped of any potential life when every musical number consists of an old man and two kids sitting in a car, singing their hearts out while staring at the windshield.

Time for rehearsals - to the Gnome-Mobile!

On the other hand, the score by Disney stalwart Buddy Baker (composer for Summer Magic and Rascal, among many others) is nothing but wonderful. The scenes set amid the California redwoods are enhanced by a mysterious musical passage featuring low strings, reminding one of the well-known “Aquarium” movement of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des Animaux. Baker’s music goes a long way in setting the mood for these forest-set scenes, since once again the filmmakers made the bewildering decision to mix fantastic location footage with obvious studio-bound sets. One moment we have Karen Dotrice walking amongst the beautiful redwoods, the camera catching rays of sunlight breaking through the misty air, and then suddenly we cut to the actress passing a fake log, in front of a big flat backdrop overly-illuminated by bright arch lights. I can understand the need to film shots involving the Gnomes in a studio environment (to better accommodate the special effects,) but was there a real need to shoot Matthew Garber rummaging through a picnic basket on a set? Especially when the real actors (not stand-in’s) have already been shot on-location anyway? It’s an ongoing issue with Disney’s canon, and it continues to boggle the mind.

The cast following the first script read-through...

Not to be a complete downer, there is still much to like in the film. The performances are all fine, with Brennan providing a solid lead that brings enough believability to help carry the concept. His slightly unhinged take on the Knobby character, however, veers precariously from irascible to outright annoying in many scenes. Once the wizened old Gnome learns that his human chauffeur is the very man who owns the logging company responsible for the loss of his beloved trees, he spends the better part of the next twenty minutes of screentime ranting and howling angrily, basically giving he and his grandson's presence away to the human world and drawing the attention of the villainous Quaxton.

Garber channels Damien...

Dotrice and Garber (“The Mary Poppins Kids,” as they’re actually credited in the movie) continue to demonstrate their unique chemistry in this, their last performance for Walt Disney Productions. I have to admit that I was slightly shocked at how much the pair had grown in the few years since Mary Poppins. The two are still recognizably kids, but no longer the squeaky-voiced youngsters from previous films. This does have the unfortunate side-effect of making Dotrice’s pair of dramatic scenes, which were her greatest strengths in Thomasina and Poppins, come off a bit less believably. That, or the actress just couldn’t throw herself into the insipid scripted material given to her this time around. Garber, meanwhile, seems to have taken his youthful wise-ass routine up a notch, his character typically being somewhat detached from the central action in each scene before capping it off with a sarcastic quip.

Not-so-Mad Men

Brennan’s future Family Band cohort, Richard Deacon, is here playing the same character he plays in everything he’s in - which is not necessarily a bad thing. It seems that whenever Disney (or any contemporary casting director, really) needed a starched-shirt, middle-manager type of character, they had Deacon on speed-dial. His nondescript businessman persona actually works in the film’s favor, as his eventual turn to de facto antagonist (sending business-partner Mulrooney to an asylum and taking control of the company) comes as a surprise in a film otherwise devoid of shock. Once we’re into the wacky car chase that precedes the film’s climax (in which Deacon’s car incrementally falls apart around him - amusingly scored to a peppy jazz number by Baker,) his growing befuddlement becomes a joy to watch. Clearly, this character didn’t realize he was in a wacky comedy until the very end.

I once knew a Gnome with a woolly beard named Smith...

Once we reach the aforementioned climax, only then does the film start to offer up a bit of hoped-for strangeness - though it comes about in a sadly regrettable sequence. Arriving at their wooded destination, Knobby and Jasper are welcomed by a thriving colony of little people, led by a “Gnome-king” named Rufus (played by a predictable silly Ed Wynn, in the last of his eight roles for Disney.) Once he’s identified as an “eligible Gnome,” Rufus calls for all the young female Gnomes to display themselves for him (“Line up, girls!” he cries, in an especially teeth-clenching moment,) as he goes down the line naming off each one. Jasper is then informed, however, that <gasp!> the prospective bride chooses the groom (or, as Rufus puts it - in the sole moment that made me crack up - “It’s not the male that picks his mate, it’s the she-male that picks the date!”) Jasper is soon doused in soap bubbles and becomes the prize in a “greased-pig” style contest, with the colony’s bevy of attractive young females all fighting over him. Audiences are thus treated to a series of “something for the Dads” shots of little Gnome women in multicolored mini-dresses swinging on vines, jumping over one another and dog-piling atop the hapless young man. The slippery Jasper, meanwhile, continually finds himself flying around inside a giant soap-bubble, which he attempts to steer toward a shy lady-Gnome that's struck his fancy, played by Cami Sebring (who's named Violet, naturally ... as in "shrinking violet" ... geddit?) Our trio of human leads, meanwhile, are left to stand nearby and pull the occasional “well golly, look at that” face as this climax plays out without their involvement. Besides the fact that this bit of eccentricity comes off as too little, too late to inject any life into the film, the played-for-laughs sexism on display here is honestly rather appalling. This fictional mating ritual isn’t really a “woman chooses the man” situation, so much as an “interchangeable women fight over a man” one; or, more bluntly, a “Disney does foam wrestling” one. I came out of the film in disbelief of what I’d just seen, and unfortunately not in the goofy manner I was expecting.

Character selection screen from "Dead Or Alive: Gnome Tournament Edition"

The Gnome-Mobile had potential to be quite a memorable entry in Disney’s live action line-up, but sadly falls short in most of its attempts to emulate their past successes. Much of the humor falls flat (and is occasionally offensive,) the story is lifelessly pedestrian, and the attempts at charm largely misfire. Sadly, the film would be Ed Wynn’s last, as the legendary comedic actor passed away from throat cancer a year before it’s release. Walt Disney, just six months from his own passing, served as one of Wynn’s casket bearers. This movie would also be the last acting role for young Matthew Garber, whose entire body of work consists of the three films reviewed here. A decade following The Gnome-Mobile’s release, Garber contracted hepatitis from bad meat while traveling through India with his family. By the time they returned to England, the disease had affected his pancreas. Garber passed away on June 13th, 1977, aged 21 years. Karen Dotrice, meanwhile, went on to a steady acting career throughout the 1970s, mostly on British television, and has made the occasional film and TV appearance since then. She and Garber did not keep in touch following their time together, a fact that Dotrice later lamented. In an interview found on the 2004 DVD release of Mary Poppins, she stated:

I remember his mum, Margo, calling to let us know that Matthew had died. That was so unexpected ... I wished I had picked up the phone over the years, I wished I had treated him more like a brother. But he's indelibly printed in all of our minds. He's eternal ... an amazing little soul.

While The Gnome-Mobile may serve as a less-than-perfect note for these talented actors to go out on, their contributions to the field of entertainment will always live on, thanks in no small part to the indelible impressions they’ve left on children around the world during their time at Disney.