The Disney Song Encyclopedia - fieldi

20 “THE BIRD AND THE CRICKET AND THE WILLOW TREE”
Gogan family (Shelley Winters, Jeff Conaway, Charles Tyner, and Gary
Morgan) find the runaway orphan Pete (Sean Marshall) living with the
lighthouse keeper, Lampie (Mickey Rooney), and his daughter, Nora
(Helen Reddy), they produce a bill of sale that says the boy belongs to
them. In counterpoint to their jaunty song, Nora sings her observations of
the disreputable Gogans and charges them with cruelty and abuse.
“The Bird and the Cricket and the Willow Tree” is the frothy list song
about melody written by Paul Francis Webster (music) and Sonny Burke
(lyric) for the film short Adventures in Music: Melody (1953), the first 3-D
animated movie ever made. Professor Owl (voice of Bill Thompson) instructs
his classroom full of birds on how to find melody in nature. Sung by
the Disney Studio Chorus over a sequence showing animated birds chirping,
crickets rubbing their legs together, and wind blowing through a willow
tree, the song has a pleasant tune and lyrics that are simply a list of these
musical nature sounds. Parts of the movie, sometimes listed as Melody (Adventures
in Music), were used in the 1956 film 3D Jamboree that was shown
at the Fantasyland Theater in Disneyland. Although 3-D movies did not
catch on as Hollywood had hoped, this short film was a popular attraction
at the theme park for many years. It was part of a planned series of movie
shorts about music, but only one other one, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom
(1953), was made.
“Blame It on the Samba” is the Latin number the Dinning Sisters sing
on the soundtrack of the anthology film Melody Time (1948). During the
musical sequence, Donald Duck and his parrot pal Joe Carioca, reunited
from The Three Caballeros (1944), dance and frolic while a live-action
Ethel Smith plays the organ. Ernesto Nazareth composed the exotic music
for the original Brazilian song and Ray Gilbert provided the nimble English
lyric for the film, describing the ingredients that go into the samba. The
song sequence was re-released as a movie short in 1955.
“Bless Us All” is the harmonic song of thanksgiving the Cratchit family
sings in the holiday movie The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992). Paul Williams
wrote the warm and gentle number and it is sung by Bob Cratchit,
played by Kermit the Frog (voice of Steve Whitmire), Mrs. Cratchit, played
by Miss Piggy (Frank Oz), Tiny Tim (Jerry Nelson), and other members of
the family as they sit around the table and share their humble Christmas
feast.