(1982)
Cartoon
Heidi's Song
Animal
Swiss miss
Outfit: goat / hosen / alps
Tagline: "Binford Tools is proud to present, Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor! "
Plot summary: "Heidi's Song" is a feature-length film adaptation of Johanna Spyri's classic childrens novel about the life and adventures of a little orphaned girl named Heidi, who goes and seeks her unhappy grandfather, a dancing horse and dog, and what may or may not have been that living island what attacked the new X-Men. It was an attempt by Hanna-Barbera to put a little time and money into something for once and follow-up on the success of "Charlotte's Web." It was a commercial failure and never found an identity on home video, and has been, essentially, forgotten.
And you know what? That's a fucking shame. Lost somewhere between Shirley Temple's stank ass and the superior (of course) Miyazaki/Takahata adaptation, "Heidi's Song" is a landmark for HB because it's something those of us who experienced it can go back to and really still enjoy. Almost everyone I've ever met who remembers this loves it, and that's not a lot of people. It's just there, somewhere on a VHS on Amazon that gets bought every eight months, and God, it's about HEIDI for Christ's sakes, how do you LOOK for that? You don't. You can't. When Disney was making Aristocats and Rescuers, the rest of America was doing something pretty special. Even these jokers. The Magilla Gorilla people were trying to make something beautiful. (more)
User Comments: The most bizarre aspect of all is that the big forgotten and ignored classic from Hanna-Barbera's effort-vault was directed by Robert Taylor, the guy who directed "The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat." That's the sequel to the Ralph Bakshi original about cats who dress up like Hitler, do drugs, and fuck. Hanna-Barbera, the company who made 450,000 shows about teenagers with exceptional pets or possessions solving mysteries while in a rock band got together with the guy who made the SEQUEL to Fritz the Cat and made an anomalistic, nice, pretty movie about Heidi. They also filled it with trippy dream sequences, but who HASN'T done that? Walt Disney would knock Louis Armstrong to the ground just to interrupt a song with wavy gravy.
Humorously enough, Robert Taylor went on to direct every single episode of "Goof Troop." And if my acclaim for the film isn't enough, find it and watch it just so you can properly connect Sammy Davis Jr. to Peter Cullen in your next game of Bacon.
User Rating: 
8.0/10 (8 votes)