Mars and Beyond, etc.

1955, 1957 fun-ucational Disney programming

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Writer/Director Ward Kimball, several charismatic scientists (or folks dressed as scientists), and Walt himself explain the history of man's interest in space and potential human interaction with that space with the use of animation, models, and a robot named Garco.

I watched three and a half of these "Tomorrowland" short features--Man in Space, Man and the Moon, Mars and Beyond, and another one about weather satellites. Really, I only had interest in the Mars one which was 95% animation. Clever animation, too. There were segments I rewound to watch again, probably because of the Disney magic everybody's always talking about. There's a cartoon spoofing pulp sci-fi stories with surreal flourishes and clever humor. Notable in all the featurettes was the historical and philosophical background on human being's obsessions, superstitions, experimentations, and speculations having to do with outer space or the stars or the moon or the planets. As an added bonus, Georges Melies' Voyage to the Moon, the first science fiction movie from 1902, is in there somewhere. Details about Cyrano de Bergerac's supposed trip to the moon were also amusing. Fun, creative animation reminds of just how cool Disney is. As if anybody needs to be reminded about that!

Here's a picture of what I look like in 2008: