A Little History:

‘Round about the mid 1970s, animator Don Bluth was being groomed as a director at Disney Feature Animation, but he had a problem: he wasn’t learning fast enough. It’s long been a rule of thumb that it takes around ten years of dedicated study to become a master animator and Bluth had roughly five years to do it in before more of the fabled Nine Old Men were scheduled to retire. Being sincerely devoted to the art of animation, Bluth and several cohorts decided that they would take on a side project to accelerate the speed with which they were growing as artists. They set up a makeshift production studio in Bluth’s garage and set about creating a thirty minute film which eventually became known as Banjo the Woodpile Cat. They did this with the blessing of the more senior animators at Disney who understood that “Banjo” was designed from the outset to bring its makers up to speed in the techniques of Disney hand-drawn animation. The problem was that those techniques were either rapidly deteriorating or becoming lost all together under a post-Walt management which was severely cost-conscious (and, it might be said, not particularly creative). Bluth and his little band — all of them weaned on such opulently-styled Disney classics as Snow White, Pinocchio, and Bambi –became increasingly disenchanted with the direction of the studio until, finally in 1980, they decided to strike out on their own. “Banjo”, originally designed to prepare them for their future at Disney, became their calling card for a future without Disney. The piece was sufficiently polished to land them a feature deal at MGM, and production began on The Secret of NIMH.  Though not a box office bonanza by any means, “NIMH” recalled the Disney style of old well enough to not only garner critical acclaim but also attract the attention of Steven Spielberg. Bluth’s second feature as director was a co-production with Spielberg: An American Tail. Roughly concurrent with these two productions were the now classic laser disc arcade games Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace for which Bluth et al did the fabulous traditional animation.

It could probably be argued that Bluth’s films became progressively (and perhaps ironically) less and less Disney-like as they went on. Though Don Bluth had a career stretching into the late 1990s, his latter work is generally pretty lackluster both in terms of production value and story quality. Oddly enough, it was Bluth’s defection (along with eighteen other Disney-ites) in 1980 which spurred the studio to rebuild its animation department and eventually rise to great heights again with films like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. Disney was able to “re-Disney-fy” itself, returning to some of the core aesthetic that Walt helped found, while Bluth fell further and further away from the “true faith”. (The less said about films like Rockadoodle and A Troll in Central Park, the better.)

The Banjo DVD:

Bluth himself (who must be pushing 70 by now) just issued a 30th anniversary commemorative edition DVD of Banjo the Woodpile Cat. The show wasn’t just a portfolio piece — it did air on network television in the early 1980s (so it’s not just a footnote in animation history). Having just sat through the program and all of its accompanying extras, I can now say that I wish I had watched the extras first. I watched “Banjo” first and found it to be fairly mediocre; even awkward in places. It was only after I watched the interviews on disc two (and learned some of the history related above) that I appreciated the film in context. Though it’s still not great, it helps to know that “Banjo” was the work of students, attempting to learn their craft in a sincere way which paid homage to the traditions of the medium. As a transitional piece into The Secret of NIMH (which I have fond, if fuzzy memories of) “Banjo” is an interesting curiosity as well. All in all, I’m glad I made this purchase — although I readily concede that it’s probably an item that only animation nerds (such as myself) are likely to pick up.