“Noah’s Ark”

Disney has actually animated Noah’s Ark three times. The first time was a Silly Symphony from 1933 called “Father Noah’s Ark.” The third, of course, was the “Pomp and Circumstance” segment from Fantasia 2000. (There is also The Last Flight of Noah’s Ark, a 1980 live action film starring Elliott Gould that I haven’t seen possibly since childhood, but it is, obviously, not quite the same story.) It’s a fairly easy story to tell, though in order to make it child-friendly you have to think about the implications as little as possible.

In this version, Noah gets a whole week to make the Ark. Which he does with the help of his sons. Only after they’re done and have the animals loaded does he assure them that they’ll be coming along, which is a little alarming. The animals get restless being trapped on the boat, and “Mrs. Noah” suggests that a little music will help. So they have a dance party. Harry the Hippo dances with every animal but his wife; Noah manages to convince her that Harry is just thinking of her. Then the Ark lands on Mount Ararat as per Genesis, and animals brag about having descended from people who came over on the Ark as though that weren’t by definition universal.

I spend a disturbing amount of my time watching anti–creationism content on YouTube. I can cite you chapter and verse as to why the story of Noah’s Ark has to have been a miracle if it happened at all. And the short touches on one reason, very briefly—showing kangaroos, which would have had quite the trip to Australia from the Middle East. It’s also one of those versions that mostly just shows the charismatic animals and implies they would’ve had a whole lot more room than they actually would have. Ironically, it’s the version of the story that Ken Ham opposes for giving people a false view of what it would look like.

All that said, this is one of the most interesting experiments from Disney back in the days when they still experimented with animation. It’s their first-ever stop motion outing, and it’s an even more found aesthetic than Aardman. Sourcing Plasticine? Nonsense. No, let’s pull stuff out of the junk drawer. Corks. Erasers of varying sorts. Scraps of fabric. So many pipe cleaners. It’s actually pretty cool. Maybe a handmade aesthetic from Disney is a little weird, but I don’t care. It works, and I wish they’d do more interesting things like that again.

I mean, maybe not the Bible part. There are so many stories out there. I don’t even think you need to tell comedic stories this way. If my kids had more patience, it’s the sort of thing I might work with them on, but I can’t imagine their taking the time to crate an entire stop-motion short, let alone one as long as this—it’s roughly twenty minutes. This isn’t the best version of it imaginable, but it’s worth watching just for pure interest factor, at least.