Hello and welcome back to Thoughts While Watching, where we watch vintage Disney media and react to it in real time! Today we will be tackling a curious hybrid: The Reluctant Dragon, a Disney feature film that premiered in 1941.
WHAT’S SO CURIOUS ABOUT THE RELUCTANT DRAGON?
The Reluctant Dragon is ostensibly a Walt Disney Studios feature film… but it’s also secretly a behind-the-scenes look about the process of animated moviemaking in the early- to mid-twentieth century.
The film is a pastiche of cartoon segments and interstitials explaining how elements of the animation came to be. Real-life author, humorist, and actor Robert Benchley plays himself as he wanders around the Disney backlot, allegedly attempting to have a meeting with Walt Disney while at the same time avoiding the appointment. As he bumbles his way through buildings and departments, he runs into ink and paint girls, Imagineers, voice actors, and more.
WAIT, SO IS THIS A CARTOON OR A DOCUMENTARY?
Yes.
In much the same way as many of his episodes of “The Wonderful World of Disney” (or “of Color” or “Disneyland” or or or…), The Reluctant Dragon contains two complete Disney cartoon shorts: the first ever “How To” episode with Goofy, and the eponymous – and so so so cute!!!!!!! – Reluctant Dragon story.
In addition, there are multiple sequences where brief snippets of animation are shown, largely to illustrate how the images are brought to life in sound and motion. The film also employs some magical realism, as Benchley and other characters sometimes interact with the cartoon characters as though they were real.
In between, we travel through the “Rainbow Room” of the ink and paint department, are sold a new short in storyboard form, witness the creation of maquette models, see an elephant drawn from life, and even admire the workings of the multiplane camera.
However, with the exception of the multiplane camera scene, the sets were recreated on soundstages. Heck, half the Imagineers who appear are just actors, up to and including Alan Ladd, although a handful, like Ward Kimball, are the real deal.
So it’s more of an approximation of life at Disney. Hey, at least the outdoor scenes were shot on location.
OH, DON’T BE SUCH A RELUCTANT DRAGON
C’mon, doesn’t all that sound fun for the Disney historian and enthusiast? And the Dragon in question really is so funny and charming, I promise. I know 74 minutes is a bit of an ask, but you’ll watch it with me, won’t you?
Unfortunately, this being a full movie, I can’t embed it from YouTube. The good news is that it’s available on Disney+! Here, click this link. Go ahead! It’s for you!
18 THOUGHTS I HAD WHILE WATCHING THE RELUCTANT DRAGON (1941)
1 Robert Benchley! I’m a huge fan… of your grandson.
2 Do you think this fact-spewing Disney Studios Scout is related to The Human Clock that will someday hang out with Kurt Russell?
3 Darn it, different times do insist on being different times, every time. But at least the animator group is kinda diverse?
4 Once upon a time Florence Gill performed as a chicken, and many decades later this led to the ubiquity of Disney’s bird man Alan Tudyk.
5 I bet all these sounds, such as the train cartoon they’re recording for now, would be isolated individually and layered in the modern era. And I’m sure that’s easier, but there’s a certain electricity to everything happening together in real time that can’t be matched.
6 This is an old school multiplane camera I take it? Gorgeous. I miss hand-painted animation for realsies.
7 In another life I was an ink and paint girl.
8 “Now put the top hat on the baby” is an aggressively ’40s approach to show business.
9 I spend days on Disney property – how come I never get rushed by a cadre of Imagineers who insist on walking me through their latest storyboards?
10 “Weems Reassembles Smashed Atom” is my favorite bit so far.
12 Lol, never expected miniature golf to catch a stray.
13 Yay!! I love it when Goofy does sports! He makes me seem so competent.
14 As a certified Horse Girl, I can confirm that they are largely dumb. Also unhelpful. Also I love them. Should we just go riding real quick?
15 How did that zebra girl sneak past the Hayes code?
16 Okay, the Reluctant Dragon is adorable and I LOVE HIM. Who wants to do a group race costume and be my Boy and Sir Giles? (Just kidding; I’m gonna run as Humphrey.)
17 From now on, please address me as a Punk Poet.
18 Ah, yes, the prevailing sentiment of the ’40s and ’50s: take my wife… please!
IN CONCLUSION
I don’t know about you, but I wound up enjoying The Reluctant Dragon much more than I anticipated. All the backstage, behind the scenes, movie magic, Disney history stuff was a ton of fun, and that I did expect. But the Reluctant Dragon’s story itself was delightful.
So often these older Disney media pieces require a boulder of salt as we grapple with the social mores of now versus then, and The Reluctant Dragon is not an exception to this rule. However, I do want to note that many critics have pointed to the Dragon’s depiction as feminine and foppish and the parallels to stereotypes of homosexuality.
That’s not surprising for the era. What’s interesting here, however, is that while the Dragon does have a certain flamboyance, he is never derided for being himself, and the townspeople ultimately welcome him into the village – without him changing a thing. Now that’s a moral I can get behind!
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