Lady and the Tramp

NewMexiKen has been watching Lady and the Tramp — and watching it and watching it and watching it. I’m certain we’ve seen the scene with the Siamese cats (Si and Am) at least a dozen times.

And, you know what? After 50+ years, it’s pretty darn good. It has some typical Disney pathos and a touch of anxiety for the little ones a few times (when mean dogs enter the picture), but considerably less than in the Disney animations of Grimm fairy tales. And much less of the singing and nonsense that I didn’t like in Disney films when I was five-years-old — and still don’t.

If you’ve got young ‘uns to entertain (under 5 especially), I recommend Lady and the Tramp. It’s good.

And a word about Verna Felton, the character actress who was a voice in many Disney animations — a matriarchical elephant in Dumbo, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp. I recognized her voice and did a little research. As I remembered, Ms. Felton played with Harry Morgan in an early fifties show, December Bride — and its 1960 spinoff Pete and Gladys. She died in 1966, but Morgan kept Felton’s photo on Sherman Potter’s desk on the M*A*S*H set to portray Mrs. Potter. Nice.