Author: Megan Williams

When I was little, my Nan used to own a collection of VHS video tapes, which contained various clips of cartoons she had recovered on TV over the years. Random snippets of Disney’s ‘Tailspin’, the ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ cartoon would cut in throughout the course of a tape, while shows like ‘Tom & Jerry’ and ‘Looney Tunes’ were always available to watch in full.

One Disney cartoon that was included on a tape, and was in full, was the short ‘Three Little Pigs’. This short is the earliest memory I have of seeing something Disney-related, and I watched it numerous times in my childhood. However, this is a short that I have not watched since then and has now been readily available on Disney+.

‘Three Little Pigs’ is an 8-minute short film that was made in 1933. Accompanied by a song that is performed by the titular characters, the film tells the story of three pigs who build their own houses to protect themselves from the wolf. One builds their house out of hay, second builds it out of sticks and the third builds one out of bricks and cement. The three characters then get chased by the wolf, who easily destroys the first two houses but fails with bringing down the brick house.

While I vividly remember the story, there are other aspects that I don’t remember. The short is more fast paced than I remember it being and feels a lot shorter because of this. The hand drawn animation is beautiful and memorable, and the colours and imagery are vibrant. It does have a slightly violent, but similar, sense of humour to cartoons like ‘Tom & Jerry’ and ‘Looney Tunes’, which works here.

An example of this is towards the end, when the wolf tries to get into the brick house via the chimney and consequently gets his behind burnt by the fire below; this was another aspect that I didn’t remember at all.

The message of the short is timeless and still relevant today: hard work and dedication to your work pays off. While the first two pigs quickly put their houses together, the third pig spends a lot of time perfecting his house using bricks and cement, making his home a lot stronger. The other pigs prioritize play before work, and they suffer the consequences because of this. 

‘Three Little Pigs’ was a delight to revisit after so many years and felt extremely nostalgic, given my memories associated with the short. Disney+ features most of, if not all, of their originals shorts from the 1930’s and I would highly recommend giving them a watch, including this one.

Disney+ Talk With Megan Williams: Pixar in Real Life (series)

One type of film promotion I love is the public prank video. This is where a production company will bring the titular characters from the film they are promoting into the real world, and unsuspecting citizens react to it. This style of promotion can create some unique scenarios, which is why I love the series ‘Pixar In Real Life’.

‘Pixar in Real Life’ is a series made up of 5-minute episodes, placing a beloved Pixar character, or characters, into a public area in America. At the time of writing, there are four episodes: the emotion machine from ‘Inside Out’ is placed in a park and, when bystanders press a different emotion button, a few actors react to this; a Marine Life Institute tries to locate an escaped octopus and a familiar looking fish that are disguised as a pram; Wall-E helps a woman retrieve a missing wedding ring and Buzz and the gang hide under traffic cones and get Woody the cowboy out of Al’s Toy Barn.

The latter episode I especially loved; ‘Toy Story’ is my earliest cinema memory and I’ve seen the whole quadrilogy in cinema ever since. The whole series is charming and funny, and it is heart-warming to see how people react to the different scenarios.

Especially when it’s the adults reacting; the phrase ‘growing old is compulsory but growing up is optional’ definitely applies here as everyone that interacts with each scenario look as if they’re revisiting their childhood.

Overall, the series is charming and funny, and each episode is extremely short. It doesn’t overstay its welcome with its running time either.

Disney+ Talk With Megan Williams: Marvel Studios: Expanding The Universe

From this week to the foreseeable future, ‘Trailer Talk’ is now ‘Disney+ Talk’ and will be short articles revolving around the shows and films that I have watched on Disney’s new streaming service.

The first item that caught my eye was the short documentary ‘Marvel Studios: Expanding The Universe’. This is a 7-minute look into Marvel’s upcoming shows and films that will be coming to Disney+, with footage taken from their panel at San Diego Comic Con.

While it is essentially an advertisement for Marvel Studios, it’s still exciting to see what characters the studio is planning on bringing to life. 

The shows that was mentioned were ‘Loki’, a series based around the Thor character (played by Tom Hiddleston), ‘Wandavision’, featuring Scarlet Witch and Vision and starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, and ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ featuring Antony Mackie and Sebastian Stan.

While the above has already started filming and have the original cast returning, more shows were announced for the first time. ‘Ms Marvel’, an animated series based on the Marvel character, will be coming to the streaming service, as well as ‘She Hulk’ and an adaptation of the unique comic series ‘What If…?’, which looks at alternate pathways of the well-established characters.

Out of all the shows that have been announced, I’m looking forward to ‘What If…?’ and ‘Wandavision’. I find alternate story lines and the concept of ‘what if?’ fascinating, and it will be interesting to see how these characters, that we’ve come to know so well, will change. The animation also looks sleek and stylish.

Regarding ‘Wandavision’, I find Scarlet Witch’s story arc interesting and very human despite her destructive power. I think Marvel Studios handled these two characters poorly in the Cinematic Universe so, hopefully, this series will serve as a second chance to win its audience over, and fully focus on their character development and story.

It’ll be an exciting next few years for Marvel Studios and, while I may have lost interest in the cinematic films now that ‘Avengers: Endgame’ has been and gone, Disney+ is the way to go in regards of which direction the studio is taking.