Monday, January 31, 2011

I Hope We Don't Meet Il Calamaro Gigante Now!!!

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but I recently scored a copy of the first album I ever owned. An original, BTW, not a reissue, because there's never been one.

From 1954, the storybook to Walt Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.


With the film recreated as a sort of radio play on two (four-sided) 78rpm or 45rpm RCA Victor discs; I had the 45s. They predated any rock 45s I ever bought, incidentally.

Here's part one.



The Kirk Douglas part is played by the late great William Redfield, who you might recall as one of the loonies in One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. In any case, I think you'll particularly enjoy Snoopy the Seal barking and tooting.

Seriously -- Disney never recycled this version on LP or CD, and I hadn't heard it since I was, oh, maybe ten years old. Proust was right, though. After finally finding a copy on Amazon and then making a digital transfer, I listened to it again for the first time last week, and I remembered every idiotic word.