Sure, we know our monsters. They were in black-and-white, usually on late night TV, the Universal Horrors of Frankenstein and Dracula, then the 50s monstrosities of science gone bad, and even the blood-drenched rampages of Hammer and Lee.
But all the while, even as we were shuddering at Karloff and Lugosi, something else was happening on Saturday, and then Sunday night, and later at the movies. Scares of a friendlier sort, but perhaps more long-lasting, were coming from the studios of Walt Disney.
The skeletons of Silly Symphony were unsettling, the witch in Snow White was disturbing, the banshee in Darby O'Gill and the Little People was downright horrifying, and not even the soothing voice of Bing Crosby could keep us from ducking when a flaming head of a pumpkin came right out of Sleepy Hollow's covered bridge, screaming and burning forever into our childhood faces, right there on the television screen.
Disney's legacy is an amazing thing. He educated us about the atom, he took us to the moon and then Mars, he profaned the dead during a Night on Bald Mountain -- Lugosi on a mountaintop! -- but offered redemption moments later with Ava Maria. The horrors of FANTASIA are many -- dinosaurs and centaurs and walking broomsticks and elephants on ice, but the mountain demon of Bald Mountain is a pure symphony of terror and dread. It is unforgettable...
And so much more:
-- What magician -- movie or comic or serial or stage -- can match the arched angry eyebrow of the sorceror demanding Mickey return his hat?
-- What adventure, Verne, Wells or Harryhausen, can match the perfect design of the Nautilus, or the battle with a giant squid in 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA?
-- And who but Hans Conreid could take us to so many haunted Disney adventures in his annual Halloween compilations? And who but Zorro made the sign of the Z?
There is so much horror, sci-fi and fantasy to choose from -- TRON, THE BLACK HOLE, THE ROCKETEER (with the Rondo Hatton wannabe on the blimp), RETURN TO WITCH MOUNTAIN -- that this folder is long overdue.
All things Disney are in play here -- from Disneyland and Spin and Marty to Texas John Slaughter, Perri, the Littlest Outlaw, and Charlie Russell, too -- We have em surrounded, Davy!
But most of all, the Disney chills. Ask many people what scared them the most as a kid and they don't say the Mummy or the Wolf-Man.
No, they say the witch in SNOW WHITE.
And that's why this folder exists. For the world of Disney Scares.
david
But all the while, even as we were shuddering at Karloff and Lugosi, something else was happening on Saturday, and then Sunday night, and later at the movies. Scares of a friendlier sort, but perhaps more long-lasting, were coming from the studios of Walt Disney.
The skeletons of Silly Symphony were unsettling, the witch in Snow White was disturbing, the banshee in Darby O'Gill and the Little People was downright horrifying, and not even the soothing voice of Bing Crosby could keep us from ducking when a flaming head of a pumpkin came right out of Sleepy Hollow's covered bridge, screaming and burning forever into our childhood faces, right there on the television screen.
Disney's legacy is an amazing thing. He educated us about the atom, he took us to the moon and then Mars, he profaned the dead during a Night on Bald Mountain -- Lugosi on a mountaintop! -- but offered redemption moments later with Ava Maria. The horrors of FANTASIA are many -- dinosaurs and centaurs and walking broomsticks and elephants on ice, but the mountain demon of Bald Mountain is a pure symphony of terror and dread. It is unforgettable...
And so much more:
-- What magician -- movie or comic or serial or stage -- can match the arched angry eyebrow of the sorceror demanding Mickey return his hat?
-- What adventure, Verne, Wells or Harryhausen, can match the perfect design of the Nautilus, or the battle with a giant squid in 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA?
-- And who but Hans Conreid could take us to so many haunted Disney adventures in his annual Halloween compilations? And who but Zorro made the sign of the Z?
There is so much horror, sci-fi and fantasy to choose from -- TRON, THE BLACK HOLE, THE ROCKETEER (with the Rondo Hatton wannabe on the blimp), RETURN TO WITCH MOUNTAIN -- that this folder is long overdue.
All things Disney are in play here -- from Disneyland and Spin and Marty to Texas John Slaughter, Perri, the Littlest Outlaw, and Charlie Russell, too -- We have em surrounded, Davy!
But most of all, the Disney chills. Ask many people what scared them the most as a kid and they don't say the Mummy or the Wolf-Man.
No, they say the witch in SNOW WHITE.
And that's why this folder exists. For the world of Disney Scares.
david
