Actuakers
One of my all time favorites.
UnowPriceless
hyped garbage
Sexyloutak
Absolutely the worst movie.
vanillarose220
I grew up watching this as a part of the 1983 Disney Channel Christmas special. I wasn't born until 1989, but my parents taped it back when it aired, along with several other classic Christmas cartoons, and we watched the tape every Christmas. I always enjoyed this cartoon. It has a charming and old-fashioned Christmas feel with the horse-drawn sleigh, clothing, and music. I also love the interplay of the animals, almost more than the people. While the idea of the females having a temper tantrum and then fainting at the sight of danger is a terrible, tired stereotype, if you understand the context of the times in which this cartoon was made, you can overlook it. Once Upon a Wintertime will always be a Christmas Classic.
MartinHafer
This is the first short that was used to make up the full-length film from Disney, "Melody Time". Following WWII, Disney Studio was a mess--a terrible strike and the war (where many of the workers were drafted and many more were assigned to wartime animation work) decimated the studio and many of the old animators were gone. As a result, Disney did not get back to making traditional animated feature films for several years. In the meantime, their 'full-length' films were really odd compilations of shorts--and of a rather lackluster quality compared to earlier and later work.The animation style and quality of this short is hardly reminiscent of classic Disney (such as "Snow White" or "Bambi"). Gone are the lovely detailed backgrounds and fine drawn characters. Instead, splashy solid color backgrounds and super-simplistic drawings filled this cartoon--such that it's hard to recognize it as a Disney product.As for story, it's only fair--and something that seems intended for older audiences. The film has no dialog and has singing by Frances Langford. The story consists of two young lovers cavorting about--ice skating and enjoying the great frozen outdoors. Later, the simplistically drawn lady nearly falls down a simplistic waterfall and is saved by her simplistically drawn boyfriend--then away they zip through the simplistic countryside on a simplistic sleigh. If you haven't guessed, the word for the day is 'simplistic'--a great description of this fair cartoon that is easy to skip.
TheLittleSongbird
Once Upon a Wintertime is a truly beautiful short, one of my favourites actually. I know that the song takes up most of the 10 minute short, from Melody Time, but that is forgiven as the whole short is very beautiful. My ONLY complaint is that it drags only slightly. The animation is very nice to look at, with gorgeous winter settings, the idea of the couple in the horse-drawn sleigh, was a very good one. This was a fairly christmassy tradition, in the time the short was set, and I confess it is something I've wanted to do for a while now. I liked the couple who go ice skating, and they argue because the man makes fun of her inability to ice skate, and then has to save her when the ice breaks. I also loved the rabbits, the male rabbit was quite funny, and I loved the majesty of the chestnut mares. I think the main merit of the short is the song, which takes the name of the title of the short. A truly beautiful song, with wonderful lyrics, and was sublimely sung by Frances Langford. I don't know about you, but Langford's singing voice slightly reminds me of that of Judy Garland. She was sensitively accompanied by a very angelic choir, that two or three minutes in, have their turn to shine. Overall, a beautiful Christmas short, very imaginative and fairly idealistic, with a wonderfully romantic ending. 9/10 Bethany Cox
Mightyzebra
This is one of quite a few shorts from "Melody Time" an animated Disney film featuring short animated "episodes". This is the first one - and not the best. It is sweet, well-animated and includes good singing - but it is a bit too silly - and there are other shorts in Melody Time that succeed further than this does.In this particular one, two lovers, in the wintertime (duh) are riding a carriage to a lake, so that they can skate together. As the two young lovers begin to skate, two rabbit lovers join them and unfortunately, things seem to go wrong between both couples...To watch this, watch the whole of "Melody Time". As far as I know, it is easily available - and completely worth watching. Enjoy "Once Upon a Wintertime"! :-)
