Disney Sing Along Songs Miscellaneous Entries ReviewÂ
Theme Song by Brian Setzer and owned by Walt Disney Records
Theme Song by Patrick DeRemer and owned by Walt Disney Records
This next review is actually going to be a review of miscellaneous and what I believe to be lesser entries in the series. After volume 11 the Mr. Owl saga while still reasonably strong was beginning to wane and soon the numeric titles would drop and a new system of just the title song would be used to identify the episodes with the rerelease of all the previous volumes in this new format. Before that happened though there was technically a Volume 12. Let’s take a look at that now.
Volume 12: Twelve Days of Christmas
Yeah another Christmas episode. It was released in 1993. This one is just a mess. It has no elements of the Mr. Owl saga at all!!! It just jumps to Mickey and friends (live action costumed people not stock footage) working on a Christmas getaway cabin. All of the songs are very uninteresting, obscure and not catchy Christmas songs. I find this a disgrace to the numeral series. It’s just a flat out bore. Now the next few are born out of a spin off franchise that was eventually integrated to have the Sing Along name and those were the notorious Mickey’s Fun Songs. Which were in short Disneyland Fun wannabes that didn’t understand the song, stylistic, thematic, and emotional choices and representations that made Disneyland Fun well… Fun! They did get progressively better though and one of them is actually enjoyable and I’ll actually do a full review on that next time. But here is the first one and probably the worst.
Campout at Walt Disney World
Campout video (don’t mind the horrible 90s commercials)
Released in 1994 this disappointment was just painful. Not only are the song choices pitiful, but it’s destructive to the whole premise of the franchise. It’s just a bunch of kids and characters playing in the campground! There’s no real representation on how the campground entertains guests and why this place deserves recognition through musical expression it’s just a cold cheap advertisement. I felt like I was watching an ad instead of a musical representation of a Disney park’s magic. The song choices were generic children’s classics that we’ve all heard a billion times and have heard better versions on countless CDs and tapes and is just pure laziness. There were like 2 Disney songs, but they were handled in the worst manner! The other Sing Alongs had a fun and caring dignity to them. They were a showcase of Disney music history according to a theme and how these songs have withstood the test of time or became instant classics and how some enhance what Disneyland is all about. Here there’s absolutely NONE OF IT!!!!!!!!! It doesn’t deserve any Sing Along name!
Let’s Go to the Circus
The other 1994 release of Mickey’s Fun Songs is slightly better and in a lot of cases worse then Campout. It has its moments, but is still crap! First the worst thing about this is the fact that Mickey and friends and the kids are at a circus. Nothing else just the fact that they’re even at a circus makes this immediately suck. Now I never had any interest in the circus whatsoever. I never found it appealing not to say the people who work at a circus aren’t talented it’s just I’m not into that. I mean we’ve been to Disneyland and every Disney movie and these really cool environments and the warm and inviting homes of Jiminy Cricket and Ludwig Von Drake. So why the hell would we want to go to the circus??????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The song selection is just as bad as campout with no real theme other than the circus which I don’t care about. I wanna Be Like You shows up, but it’s the stupid and lame and immature kiddie version. Yeah I’m gonna watch the professionals in the Jungle Book film with Louis Prima and Phil Harris singing it. Why bother when you have the film or Volume 4? The other thing that bugs me is the fact that the kids’ reactions to the stuff happening seems so fake, insincere, and manipulated. It’s horrendous. They can’t even make it look engaging as if the kids really are interested. In Disneyland Fun you could tell that on some level these people were having fun. I mean they were on Thunder Mountain and the Matterhorn and eating food so I would assume that they are genuinely having fun! Now the only good part is the bell part. Where the head clown gets “volunterrs†two of them are Donald and Goofy and when the clown points to them they ring the bells that they were given. It’s fairly lengthy, but that is pretty funny. You’ll see, but it does get funny and that is enjoyable, but everything else is crap! In fact two songs are the same song. Make ‘Em Laugh and Be A Clown are virtually the same exact song. They have the same exact melody and music and they’re both clown related. Again I say LAZY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Aside from that one scene I’d say skip this one!
Pongo and Perdita
Okay we’re skipping ahead here because the other Sing Along Songs released in between these two listed entries are actually part of the Mr. Owl saga so I will review those individually. I lied I think this is the worst! Why because it goes against everything a Sing Along in general is supposed to be. In the original VHS release there were NO LYRICS ONSCREEN FOR THE SONGS!!!!!!!!!!!! What the hell is the point in a sing along with NO LYRICS ONSCREEN!!!!!!!!!  Ugh!!!!!  I think this is more boring than the circus because it’s basically about a live action Pongo and Perdita living in their own Mansion with Roger and Anita nowhere in sight (so much for continuity with the dismal live action remake of the animated classic) and their caretaker is a very boring lady that I forgot her name and no I’m not going to look her up again because I don’t really care about her or this stupid crappy installment in a series I once believed could do no wrong. Admittedly I did like the rendition of Zip a dee doo dah as the opening song. The only reason I liked it was because I was already familiar with the song and didn’t need lyrics onscreen. All the other songs are crap and I’ve completely forgotten them. I can’t tell you one thing about them. With Circus and Campout I could at least tell you something about them. Here I got nothing. This 1996 release is just a miserable failure!!!!!!!!
Collection of All Time Favorites
The next 3 volumes released in 1997 under the Sing Along name were 3 volume attempts of recapturing the Mr. Owl saga after the past few installments like the ones above were as I said crap. They split it up by Disney timeline into 3 parts Volume 1: Early Years, Volume 2: The Magic Years, and Volume 3: Modern Classics. These volumes compiled all the A list and B list Disney songs. They were good, but lacked the charm, warmth, and atmosphere of good feeling and professionalism of the Mr. Owl saga. Still they weren’t bad.
Honor to Us All
Now this is technically part of the Mr. Owl saga, but I did not grow up with this so I will put under the miscellaneous list. First there were other installments (non Mr. Owl) such as Happy Haunting Party at Disneyland and a Pooh based Sing Along that were just either okay or just Sing Along wannabes. Anyway Honor to Us All is special because it was the last installment of the Mr. Owl saga and unfortunately there’s nothing special about it. It wasn’t like Tom’s famous farewell when Toonami ended (so happy there are plans to bring Toonami back!) Still the song selection was decent I mean obviously it’s used to promote Mulan and it has songs from Hercules to promote that too. Here are videos of it now and it has really good tracks. Mostly from recent times. Not the way the Mr. Owl saga should have ended, but still good!
UK songs might be featured as a bonus!
Flik’s Musical Adventure at Disney’s Animal Kingdom
Flik’s “adventure” wow that attempt at PIXAR CG is horrible
Even after the Mr. Owl saga ended they still persisted with it by officially killing this entire franchise with another park episode! It’s not that this is the worst Sing Along ever it’s just that it’s not interesting, the complete stupidity of having a poorly animated Flik be our guide, complete lack of understanding of Disneyland Fun’s example and lack of focus. The songs are hit or miss, but one thing that’s no acceptable is the desecration of a beloved Sherman Brothers Song! This is what officially killed the Sing Along franchise and it wouldn’t be resurrected until the Princess franchise came out.
Join me next time where I review  the only enjoyable Mickey’s Fun Song Beach Party at Walt Disney World!
all footage owned by Walt Disney Home Video!!!
About Author
