Walt Disney Treasures: Tomorrowland

In a 2-minute introduction to this piece, Leonard Maltin briefly discusses Disney animator Ward Kimball's impact on the series, for which he was director and producer. He also explains the reception to this episode. He reveals it was later edited into a featurette, accompanying Davy Crockett and the River Pirates and meriting an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Short. As the title implies, this episode looks into the potential of people traveling to space. This new series is launched with a brief, and often light-hearted history of experiments with rockets. The possibilites of satellites are considered. And then a practical look at what a spaceman shall have to physically and psychologically face: momentum, weightlessness, radiation, and perhaps space sickness. These animated sequences on the spaceman are most inspired, providing a factually accurate and visually amusing fashion. The episode concludes with a simulation of a launch into space.

The first twenty minutes of this episode are highly enjoyable. Man's fascination with the moon is explored, in a variety of lighthearted ways. With basic, appealing animation, the moon is considered in terms of cultural beliefs, the moon's role in Shakespeare and children's rhymes, lunar superstitions, and scientific research. From Kepler to Cyrano de Bergerac, from Jules Verne to green cheese, a delightfully wide range of perspectives are covered with a fast pace and a great sense of humor. An array of animation techniques are employed, from simple line animation to drawings meant to look like children's art. After this highly inspired first third, Ward Kimball comes on with some information on the moon, supplemented by graphics. Kimball then introduces Dr. Wernher von Braun, who discusses plans for a trip around the moon. Though effective efforts are made to make this not feel like a lecture, it still comes off much dryer and information-based than the spirited opening. Braun's hypothetical runthrough of a voyage to the moon becomes a narration of some detailed and interesting artwork. Eventually, a live action simulation from inside and outside a rocket dramatizes what such an expedition might be like. The episode ends with a preview of next week's episode "When Knighthood was in Flower" (the 1953 film released theatrically as The Sword and the Rose) and the feature film The Littlest Outlaw.

In his interesting introduction to the piece, Leonard Maltin recalls how he and his friends would breathe sighs of relief at the "Walt Disney Presents" opening titles during educational films in school. The special begins discussing Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with fullscreen footage of the 1954 Disney film. Walt then comes on and tells how the subject of this is of great importance, so great that he reports on plans for an atomic exhibit at Disneyland. Walt turns over to Dr. Heinz Haber, who opens with an animated story of a fisherman and a genie. The rest of the special relies on this analogy that atomic energy is like a genie that the fisherman ("society") finally has power over. Haber proceeds to discuss how tools like a Geiger counter and a microscope allow us to explore things that are unnoticeable to the human eye. Certain well-known theories, formulas and experiments are brought to life, such as E=mc² and a light beam passing through a gold sheet. To illustrate chain reactions in nuclear fission, a table filled with mousetraps represents the atoms and pingpong balls stand in for the new neutrons created from the split. Though the material may not greatly differ from a high school science class, Maltin's observation that these are the same people who made Snow White and Bambi is astute. Atomic science is a lot more fun the Disney way.

Garco the Robot introduces Walt, who introduces this exciting episode of "Tomorrowland" which covers life on other planets. We begin with a history of man, who seeks to understand the world they inhabit and begin to notice patterns in the stars. Mankind begins to develop certain beliefs regarding the celestial bodies. Theories from scientists and philosophists are covered. Ptolemy's inaccurate, but accepted theories, and then Copernicus. Then life on other planets is considered. Some wonderfully imaginative imagination depicts the theorized inhabitants of other planets. Soon, Mars becomes the focus of this episode. Ideas from H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs are brought to life with more colorful animation. Pulp science fiction comics of the time are parodied in the same straightforward tone as everything else. As the segment plays out, you can see freedom in the production, Ward Kimball's comic tone, and even a cameo from Donald Duck. After this, the program adopts a more serious tone as it profiles each of the planets in the solar system, from the perspective of what would happen to a man on them. Life in Mars could almost be normal, the program declares. Something that is of increasing importance for the future, we're told. Dr. E.C. Slipher, a foremost Mars authority, discusses the red planet and the possibility that life is there. More animation speculates what the conditions in Mars might be like. This section is filled with striking, inventive and decidedly atypical Disney animation. The program wraps up with what a trip to Mars would entail for a space crew and its vessels. Over the end credits, Old Yeller is advertised.

Released initially as a featurette to theaters, this show came to the "Disneyland" show three years later. The focus is on the weather. There is a portion devoted to water, and how it changes forms. Then, satellites and weather prediction are covered. The subject matter may not be the most exciting, which makes the abstract animation and unusual jazz music the highlights.