- “To play a simple tune, you will have to use four horns of different lengths.”
- ―Professor Owl
Professor Owl is a blue owl and schoolteacher from two Disney animated shorts--Melody and Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, and later host of Disney's Sing-Along Songs.
Appearances[]
Adventures in Music shorts[]
Professor Owl was first introduced in Melody as the teacher of a school of birds that takes place in a birdhouse that resembles the one-room schoolhouses of the time. Among his students were the beautiful teacher's pet Suzy Sparrow, the dimwitted class dunce Bertie Birdbrain, who often tested his patience, the harmonizing triplets the Canary Sisters, and the bookworm Penelope Pinfeather. While he appeared to teach other subjects, his primary specialty was music. The professor would often use visual aids for his classes, such as charts and encouraged creativity in his classroom. He often speaks in rhyme, a trait that would carry over in his Walt Disney Presents and Disney Sing-Along Songs appearances.
The professor returned in Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom in a similar capacity.
Walt Disney Presents[]
Professor Owl appeared in the Walt Disney Presents episode "Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom", where he was introduced by Walt Disney himself. While the episode also reused footage from the Adventures in Music shorts, new wraparound segments were made where the Professor taught his students about spelling, harmony, farming, and reading.
Disney's Sing-Along Songs[]
Utilizing archive footage from the original shorts (as well as animation from the Walt Disney Presents episode), Professor Owl would become the host of the early videos in the Sing Along Songs series, leading his classroom in the theme song of the video series in addition to his various transition segments. As the series went on, Professor Owl was phased out as the host of the videos, instead only appearing at the beginning to introduce either Jiminy Cricket or Ludwig Von Drake as the video's host. In the All-Time Favorites videos and the beginning of the "Honor to Us All" video, the Professor was only heard in voice over.
House of Mouse[]
Professor Owl can be seen in the opening sequence to House of Mouse as well as in the episodes "Where's Minnie?" and "Ask Von Drake".
Trivia[]
- The character Merlin in Legend of the Three Caballeros bares a striking resemblance to Professor Owl.
- Professor Owl usually speaks in rhyme.
- The shape of Professor Owl, among other things, served as the inspiration for the character of KnowsMore in Ralph Breaks the Internet.
- In Melody, the Professor's spectacles were black, but in Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom, they were red. In the Walt Disney Presents episode, they were changed back to black.
- In the original storyboards for Melody, the teacher character was originally going to be a blackbird. This was most likely changed to avoid the racist stereotype of the jive-talking rhyming Black bird.
Gallery[]
