Musicana

Musicana is a never-made Disney animated film concieved and developed by Mel Shaw with the assistance of Wolfgang Reitherman.

Conception
Shaw returned to the Disney studios in the 1970s to do artwork for films such as The Rescuers. During that time he also started developing new ideas for features, one of which was a new version of Fantasia - a series of shorts set to music. The shorts would be set in different countries around the world using music from each of these countries. Reitherman and Shaw spent some time developing Shaw's concept into a film.

Program
Though the film was never made, all of the segments to be used in the film had been written and storyboarded.


 * Untitled Jazz Sequence Set in the Deep South, a colony of frogs in a bayou would take on the form a jazz band, playing instruments such as the piano, drums and trumpet. Two pieces of music were to be used in this segment, one by Ella Fitzgerald and another by Louis Armstrong. At the end of the sequence a riverboat would go by and wash all the frogs around.


 * Unitled South American/Yma Sumac Sequence A sequence set in South America, using a lot of Aztec and Incan mythology. The music would have been a song by Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac.


 * The Rain God Set in Africa, this sequence would have told the story of a monkey who steels a diamond from the rain god. Angered, the god refuses to make it rain again until his diamond is returned. As a result the rivers dry up and the animals have nothing to drink. They then set about catching the monkey and making him return the diamond. The art for this sequence was designed by Ken Anderson

, which causes the river to dry up. The other animals in the jungle then force the monkey to return the stolen diamond to the rain god.