Our Gene Kelly Lesson

We listened to Gene Kelly telling the classic story of The Shoemaker and the Elves last week in class. The idea was to give the students a taste of old fashioned "listening" -- with no video or illustrations . We talked about what things were like before tv, the Internet, DVDs, etc.
The story was a big hit with some of the kids; others could not have cared less. It was interesting to see the diversity of attention spans and curiosity/willingness to try to "use their imaginations" to "see" the story.

Audio Stream

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After they listened to the story we discussed story telling. That lead to the narrator, Gene Kelly. None of the children had heard of him so we went on a quest. We walked through the school conducting a survey of the teachers. The question asked was, "What was Gene Kelly famous for?" (Not a grammatically correct question, shame on me).
The results became a lesson on fractions. The resultant reduced fraction told an interesting story. 7/8ths of the teachers had heard of Gene Kelly and said that he was famous for his dancing. 1/2 of those added singing and acting to his claims to fame. It was a cool lesson extender. Next week we take a few minutes to watch Gene Kelly dance in some clips I am putting together. Here is one:

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MR. TOAD and TICKETY TOCK Week 02 Mr. Toad This is a very faithful audio rendition of the probably NOT so faithful (but exceedingly charming) Disney animated film version of Kenneth Graham's "The Wind and the Willows". The recording features most of the original cast including the wonderfully "fruity" (as very accurately described on the Weekly Recordings 2006 Message Board by member "Crispin"), Eric Blore as eccentric Mr. Toad and J. Pat O' Malley (a familiar character actor with an appearance like Alfred Hitchcock that has been seen and heard in hundreds of cartoons, movies and television shows), as Cyril the horse. Their performance of "No Where In Particular" has always been one of my favorites of the more obscure numbers in the Disney musical stable. The story is told quickly and adeptly though, curiously, sometimes in rhyming verse and other times not. The "action" is nicely realized, orchestrally, by the VERY facile Billy May and the story comes to a satisfying conclusion with the requisite (in children's programming), but vague moral about learning something, as Toad did. I also would like to note that the album art on this particular recording is made up of excellent 4 color illustrations of key moments in the story, very nicely rendered by the Disney studio for this recording. All in all a very nice package of a great little story, sure to appeal to adults as well as kiddies. Tickety Tock One of the great, simple little children's records, "Tickity Tock, The Clock That Couldn't Tell Time" is extremely well cast and produced. It is really a shame that the cover art on this offering does not live up to it's aural counterpart. I recognized a couple of familiar, unaccredited voices. Grandfather Clock and Farmer appear to be Pinto Colvig (Goofy, Bozo, Grumpy, etc) and then, of course, the Quintessential Arthur Q. Bryan (Elmer Fudd) as Tickity Tock. The story by Ted Pierce and Warren Foster is very cute and is augmented by a nice Billy May score. Looks like a lot of big people in the animation industry at that time did moonlighting for the Kiddie Records industry. Lucky for us, and in this case for "Tickity Tock", they did. Dave Pruiksma Mr. Toad Basil Rathbone and Original Cast Music by Billy May Capitol EAS-3048 ©1949 view record label (1) 12" 78RPM record in bi-fold sleeve Total Time: 10:34 Tickety Tock Knox Manning featuring Arthur Q. Bryan Music by Billy May Capitol EAS-3016 (1) 12" 78RPM record in bi-fold sleeve Total Time: 9:00 Download Option A Mr. Toad Tickety Tock Image Zip File Download Option B Torrent Zip File Audio Stream Click here to play both records

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