Best movie of this year hands down!

Memorable, crazy movie

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

"Ferdinand the Bull" is a Walt Disney cartoon from shortly before World War II. It won the Oscar in a year where no less than 4 out of 5 nominated cartoons were by Walt Disney. This one here takes another journey into the wonderful world of animals. It has to be one of Disney's most harmonic works. However, I felt that it lacks somehow the emotion of films about the likes of the Ugly Duckling, Lambert or Elmer. Nonetheless, it's a good watch and has some funny moments such as the bumble-bee who was at the wrong place wrong time. And so was Ferdinand as he gets taken to the bull-fighting arena. All the other bulls would have been so happy, but not him. Another scene I liked was when the bullfighter shows us his naked breast and we see the tattoo and the music implies that maybe the red color will get Ferdinand finally angry and let him attack, but nope. He is just too peace-loving, so in the end it's back to the green grass for him. nice to see he wasn't killed as bulls frequently are after fights in the arena. Entertaining short film, but not among Disney's best.

Ferdinand the Bull tells the story of a bull who likes smelling flowers, instead of fighting like a typical bull in a bullring. Ferdinand himself is a very charming character, and is well drawn. All of the other characters are well done, with the exception of one or two lifeless backgrounds. Then Ferdinand is sent to Madrid, where he is expected to fight a toreador, but that isn't what Ferdinand wants to do. The music is also good, and Don Wilson's narration was very satisfying indeed. It is such a shame that few people know more about this gem, I don't think it is the best short in the world, but it is certainly entertaining and I would definitely watch it again. 9/10 Bethany Cox.

From a two-page trade-paper ad on November 2, 1938: "WALT DISNEY'S Production of FERDINAND THE BULL. Never in all motion picture history have any but the most important feature attractions been given such nation-wide plugging!...Stories, articles, art and pictorial layouts, editorials and fashion announcements in magazines whose NET PAID CIRCULATIONS TOTAL 15, 542, 945! Look at the list already committed: LIFE...PHOTOPLAY...CUE...SCREEN GUIDE...VOGUE...MICKEY MOUSE MAGAZINE...LOOK...McCALLS...HARPER'S BAZAAR...STAGE...YOUNG America...MOVIE LIFE...LIBERTY...WOMAN'S DAY...MOVIE STORY...THEATRE ARTS...SCHOLASTIC...ROCKEFELLER CENTER WEEKLY.Add to this a total of sixty-four licensees signed up for one hundred and two separate articles of merchandise. Big window displays everywhere. Big fashion parades in department stores. A PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGN THAT CAN BE COMPARED ONLY WITH SNOW WHITE.'" THANKSGIVING WEEK ATTRACTION AT LEADING FIRST RUNS EVERYWHERE.NEXT Disney RELEASES * MERBABIES -Release Date, December 9 * MOTHER GOOSE GOES Hollywood - Release Date, December 23 Mr. Disney knew how to go to market.

"Ferdinand" has the same lush art direction and is based on the same kind of sweet parable as a Silly Symphony, and was released while that series was still going (it would end on a high note with "The Ugly Duckling" in 1939), but it's something else altogether: the first of Disney's "storybook" cartoons. It is, in fact, based on a children's storybook, but that's not the point. The point is that there is spoken narration, and the drawings ILLUSTRATE the narration, much as they would illustrate the printed text in a picture book.So far as I know this is the first cartoon from ANY studio to attempt this kind of thing. It's not the best; narration and illustration are too independent of one another. I'm not saying that Disney should have used any of those old cartoon gimmicks - characters arguing with the narrator, etc. - which postmodernists delight in as though they weren't half obvious; such gimmicks would not, in a sincere work such as this, have worked. But words and pictures should partner each other in a subtle dance; each should know when to withdraw and place the narrative burden upon the other. I can't put it more precisely than this; but watch two "storybook" cartoons that Disney produced later - "Lambert the Sheepish Lion" from 1951, "Pigs is Pigs" from 1954 - to see the dance perfected, resulting in an animated storytelling sessions that FLOW, from beginning to end.To be fair, unqualified successes like these are rare. Most of Disney's later "storybook" cartoons also get it wrong, some of them are dreadful, and not a single one apart from the two I've named can match the charm of the first.