John Carter of Mars: Disney’s Mars and Beyond
Long before Andrew Stanton got the green light to make John Carter (of Mars) for Disney, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars was included in Mars and Beyond, aired as a Tomorrow Land episode of Disneyland on December 4, 1957.
Walt Disney gave top animator Ward Kimball the job of creating a series of scientifically-accurate colour shorts about space exploration. In Mars and Beyond, he took the time to talk about the fascination with Mars and the fictions that had been created about it before moving on to what America could do with the coming space program.
The Burroughs section shows depictions of Barsoomian creatures, accompanied by humourous narration, all of which are shown below.
The episode was collected on DVD in 2004 in the Walt Disney Treasures Tomorrow Land set.
Edgar Rice Burroughs supplied his readers with a complete Martian dictionary.
Barsoomian: Warlike people of Mars. Human bipeds with variegated colour characteristics.
Banth: Martian lion. Dwells in dead sea areas. Is carnivorous. Has ten legs.
Calot: A pony-sized Martian dog with a frog-like head.
Thoat: A dog-sized Martian horse with about eight legs.
Martian Plant Man: Half human. Half plant. Ten feet tall. Has one white-ringed, protruding eye.
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I love this wacky thing! I’m so glad I found it. Man, it was HARD to locate!! That Banth’s humungous mouth is unforgettable. 😀
I owe this post to you. I had completely forgotten this section in the DVD. So thanks!
And I have many mixed feelings on the John Carter movie. Sad for several reasons.
I was first enthralled by the Marvel Comics adaptation when I was a kid. Gil Kane, was to me, the perfect artist choice to illustrate them. And I wish the movie had been more like those first 10 or so issues. I could go on and on about it all but that pretty much sums it up to me.
Again, a shame it didn’t hit the mark better or connect with audiences better. Still don’t see the logic of dropping “Of Mars” from the title. Oh well.