Willie the Whale's friends are characters featured in The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met, a segment from the 1946 Disney anthology film Make Mine Music.
Background[]
Personality[]
Willie's friends consist of seals, pelicans, and seagulls who are good friends with Willie when he meets them at the ocean. Often at times whenever Willie the Whale arrives at the spot where he would sing, they would become attracted to the songs he sings like "Shortnin' Bread" or "Largo al factotum" when singing in front of his friends. After Willie finishes singing, they would react by cheering for Willie's performance - whether at the ocean or at the Metropolitan Opera House and then they would bid Willie a farewell when he reminds them that he has to leave. Unlike Willie, many of them do not speak.
Appearances[]
Make Mine Music[]
The seagulls, seals, and pelicans are first seen listening to Willie singing "Shortnin' Bread", impressing them - seagulls standing atop Willie's head, seals sitting on a piece of ice, and two pelicans perched on top a buoy. This impressed Willie's friends who like his singing but not before a seagull named "Whitey" flies towards Willie who shows him a news article about Tetti-Tatti searching for a whale across the ocean, which the seagull misinterprets to the animals that Willie is going to be a star like an opera singer. Whitey shows the article to the seals and pelicans he is holding, telling them that Willie would be a star at the Metropolitan Opera House. Willie then bids a farewell to his friends, which the seals and pelicans wave goodbye to him.
Later, at the Metropolitan Opera House after Willie finishes his singing act, everyone applauds for his performance, including his friends (seals, pelicans, and seagulls) and Tetti-Tatti's Sailors who somehow appeared in the audience of people. The seals and pelicans appear in another balcony (supposedly a seat reserved for them) are seen applauding their idol whith seagulls flying above the crowd cheer him on just as everyone continues applauding for Willie's performance.
None of Willie's friends - the seals, pelicans, and seagulls, appear at the aftermath aside from Whitey who mourns Willie's death after he was killed by Tetti-Tatti, although the narrator tells the viewers not to be upset of what he did to the whale as he did not understand.
House of Mouse[]
One of the seagulls appeared in "Donald Wants to Fly" along with Willie, Whitey, and Big Toot and Little Toot from the Little Toot segment of Melody Time during the episode's version of You Can Fly.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The seals that appear in The Whale Who Wanted To Sing at the Met closely resemble sea lions more than actual seals.
- It is unknown of how the seals, pelicans, and seagulls arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House at the first place after Willie finishes his singing act.
- Development memos for Walt Disney World dated to Fall of 1971 showed a loose outline for an unbuilt "Willie the Whale Complex", an aquarium and marine mammal park themed after The Whale Who Wanted To Sing At the Met, one of the sections containing a seal and walrus show (presumably inspired by the seals that appeared in the short). This complex, however, was ultimately scrapped.[1]
References[]
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