Monday, November 12, 2007

Jiminy Cricket's Encyclopedia

Here's another clip from the 1955 Mickey Mouse Club featuring Jiminy Cricket. Some of these Cricket edutainment shorts were really terrific...very well animated and extremely entertaining. This one is in black and white, but even so, the animation is simply irresistible to watch...the design is great, the movement cool and even the song by Jimmie Dodd is extremely catchy. I really love neat animation like this...it's just sad that there isn't more of this stuff being done today. I believe Disney vet Bill Justice Directed this as well as some other Jiminy Cricket shorts for the MMC.
Does anyone know who animated this?

2 comments:

Keith StClare said...

I like the site. It is friendly and a little funny in a warm way. I am working on a paper in one of my Master's classes for the School of Education. In particular I am writing about some of the newest brain chemistry and physiology i.e. how - mechanically -- it works. Bottom line, a lot we thought we knew, was wrong. What's right is that emotions, art and fun are a much bigger part of education than rote learning, drab silences and near-penal situations, and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic appeals to the stimulus to learn and to like at the same time -- like the "work" of Jiminy Cricket. I am looking therefore immediately for what I can find about any classroom quality work he did and anything that Disney or his team said about Learning 2 Like Learning 2 Like (the working title). Unfortunately I need it all this week. What is I need? Reference material...specific sites, songs or materials either about Jiminy education or ditties like "Conjunction Junction, What's Your Function?" any links would be appreciated. My thesis statement is a condensation of what I have written, plus a value statement that schools that are fun, happy and light hearted are likely to be successful and less stressful. I can reached c/o this blog and, if allowed, my email stclarek@uhv.edu; that is at the University of Houston - Victoria (Texas). Thanks to all, Keith

Brian Mitchell said...

I think to sum up what I believe you're trying to say, ' A Spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down...'. If you're having fun watching something, you're going to pick up information a lot easier. Go to youtube.com and look up 'I'm no fool' 'Donald In Mathmagicland' 'Donald and The Wheel' and you'll see some of the classics of the genre. There's others including some instructional science films directed by Frank Capra from Bell.