Monday, May 7, 2012

There's A Trope For That - Week of May 6, 2012

Hey, how bout another wholesome, Disney-themed trope?

This one's an old favorite: the Disney Acid Sequence!

"The musical number in an animated musical in which the animation stops pretending to depict things that are actually happening in the world of the movie and becomes a more abstract illustration of the music. The Disney Acid Sequence may be taken as occurring in the imagination of the characters involved, or may be a Mushroom Samba set to a musical number, but generally there is little, if any, effort to explain how the sequence fits in with the rest of the events of the movie, and the audience is left to assume that the random Art Shifts, sight gags, and other suspensions of the laws of physics otherwise in effect within the movie's setting did not actually happen."

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Sure, I didn't know there was a NAME for this trope when I was a kid, but I loved the heck out of acid sequences. They were colorful and wacky and cartoony and SO WHAT if they didn't fit in with the rest of the movie? WHY SHOULD THEY? WHY DO THERE HAVE TO BE RULES?

These were always my two favorites:


"Pink Elephants On Parade" from Dumbo

and


The "Heffalumps and Woozles" song from The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh.

Of course, not every animated acid trip brings back fond memories. The following little number, from the semi-obscure Heidi's Song, is a big old piece of crap that gives me nightmares. (Hit play at about 3:00 in... if you dare.)

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