Fans of the runaway hit TV show Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) might’ve found themselves trying to pin down the strange, familiar, nostalgia they felt when watching last week’s episode, Sunflowers. Ted, struggling this season to focus both his own thoughts and the energies of his team, finds himself in a ridiculous, America-themed, restaurant in Amsterdam watching vintage basketball games when he is snatched, suddenly, into an animated world.
Disney fans of a certain age may remember those days — usually the summer, it was always hot and lazy outside — when the teacher would pull out the old 8-millimeter projector, turn off the lights, and show whatever vaguely educational, almost always Disney, film they had laying around. Sometimes it was the True Life Adventures: Seal Island (1948) or The Living Desert (1953). And, often, it was the glorious Donald in Mathmagic Land (1959)!
The Academy Award-nominated short was directed by Disney legend Hamilton Luske and features Donald being dragged through a series of practical interactions with geometry. The subject matter, with its emphasis on Donald tripping and falling through blocky geometrical figures, is fast-paced, fun, and well-suited to this era of less detailed, sketchier, animation.
Donald’s guide through this adventure is a disembodied narrator — voiced by the king of disembodied voices, Paul Frees (Haunted Mansion’s “Ghost Host” and Adventure Through Inner Space’s nameless scientist) — named “The True Spirit of Adventure.”
In what may be the first Apple/Disney cross-over since Bob Iger met Woody and brought him into the parks, The True Spirit of Adventure returns to guide Ted through a mathmagical re-invention of British football strategy based around — you guessed it — geometry. This time the Spirit is voiced by a modern Disney legend, Paul Frees’ protege, Corey Burton (Haunted Mansion Holiday, Ludwig Von Drake, Disneyland, and Magic Kingdom trams).
In the final series of Apple’s successful show, this tribute to Disney’s history is a delight.
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Kelly McCubbin is a columnist for Boardwalk Times
