The Aristocats on Blu-Ray - Purrfection!

The Aristocats was the last movie Walt Disney approved before his unfortunate and untimely passing. It’s an adorable movie about Duchess and her kittens catnapped from their Madame Adelaide’s mansion - it goes wrong, they’re stranded, meet Thomas O’Malley “the alley cat,” and all go on a journey back home.


Full review below...

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I want to start off by saying the menu for The Aristocats is great. It plays clips from the movie in the background while the opening theme plays; the menu immediately appears on the left. Nothing annoys me more when you have to wait for some long interactive menu to load, which then lags when you are trying to select your option. Thanks, Disney, for keeping it simple.

You’ll notice when you select to play the movie it’ll ask you if you want the lyrics to appear during the songs – I like this feature a lot for the kids who are eager to learn the words to their favorite songs. The movie itself is nice and bright and you can see plenty of sketch lines everywhere – it may bother the younger generations as today’s technologies have cleaned up animation in general, but for the older people like myself, it gives it a nice, classic touch. You can bet that the sound is awesome.

THE LOST OPEN

Richard Sherman walks us through a lost introduction to the film through nicely colored storyboards (and later some black and white ones). He makes note of a deleted character and a delete song. Elvira the housemaid was to sing a duet with Edgar the Butler, “How Much You Mean to Me/Court Me Slowly.”

OUI OUI MARIE MUSIC VIDEO

Basically, a Pogo style music video but apparently by someone named D!tto – short and sweet.

CLASSIC DELETE SONG: “SHE NEVER FELT ALONE”

Richard Sherman walks us through a deleted music number about Madame Adelaide’s adoration for her cats by performing it live – all while we are shown some lovely storyboards again. “Pourquois? (And why)” is a back and forth tune between Madame and her cats. After the walkthrough, we get to hear the actual track which was performed by Hermione Baddeley, the voice of Madame. The song is reprised later in the movie by Duchess but re-titled, “She Never Felt Alone (I Never Felt Alone),” and is about Duchess’ saddening feelings toward Madame, fearing how lonely she must be feeling without her and her kittens as they make their way back to the mansion. One interesting note I didn’t realize until today – while Eva Gabor voices Duchess, her singing parts were actually performed by the incredible Robie Lester – I say incredible because she’s a master of sounding just like Gabor!

CLASSIC BACKSTAGE DISNEY

Two sections inside await you – one is a behind the scenes look at the music of the film by the Sherman Brothers. The other is a special Walt Disney did in 1956 about everything cats.

CLASSIC MUSIC & MORE

This is basically an area for you to access all the musical numbers in the film.

CLASSIC BONUS SHORT: “BATH DAY”

A classic cartoon short starring Figaro –adorable!

The DVD has an interactive virtual kitten game and a language game. There's also a nice behind the scenes look at pictures and drawings from the movie – look for it in the Backstage Disney section under The Aristocats Scrapbook.

I've been waiting for this one to come to blu-ray ever since Disney started launching their titles on the format. The special features are wonderful, primarily focusing on the music -- and who doesn't love the Sherman Brothers? It hits shelves tomorrow -- go out and adopt a copy!