tek's rating:

Ferdinand the Bull (7:50)
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This was released in 1938. It's based on the 1936 children's book "The Story of Ferdinand", which I haven't read. I probably saw the short sometime in my youth, like on The Wonderful World of Disney or something. But I don't remember for sure. I rewatched it in 2023 because I had recently watched the 2017 feature film Ferdinand, which was made by Blue Sky Studios (which itself was purchased by Disney not long after they made the movie). Anyway... the story is told by a narrator, Don Wilson, who I assumed provided all the voices of the few characters, but I was wrong. Walt Disney himself provided the voice of Ferdinand's mother (who doesn't appear in the remake). And Ferdinand was voiced by someone else. I don't know about the matador, maybe he was voiced by Wilson.

Well, Ferdinand is a bull who isn't interested in fighting, like the other bulls. He just wants to sit and smell flowers all day. But a bee sting causes him to go into a frenzy, which impresses men who have come to select a bull for a bullfight. So Ferdinand gets taken to fight a matador, who becomes frustrated when Ferdinand doesn't do anything but smell flowers. So they send Ferdinand back home. That's it, that's the whole story. I thought parts of it were mildly amusing, but on the whole... I don't want to say it was boring, but it wasn't particularly interesting. I feel like my rating of one smiley is a little bit generous. It's not a bad short film, though.


Disney shorts index
animated shorts index