Quick Disney Review – ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’

16 Replies

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

It’s time to talk about ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’, the 1936 Disney sequel to the 1935 Disney short film ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’. It was nice to see it again. I first saw this short film with Disney’s ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ in the ‘Storybook Favourites Shorts’ collection of ‘Silly Symphonies’ cartoons.

This was on VHS back in the 1990s. I recently revisited both ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ and ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’ on Disney+. In ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’, Toby competes with Max Hare, not in a race, but in a boxing match. I guess Max wanted to get back at Toby since he lost the race to him. 😀

Surprisingly, audience members still cheer for Max whilst laughing at Toby. Did they forget that Toby won the race against the Hare? 😐 At first, it seems Max is winning the boxing match against Toby. But it’s amusing when Toby gets to outwit Max, especially once he chants “You never touched me.”

After that, Max gets his hand caught in a mouse trap in the Tortoise’s shell. Did Tom and Jerry put the mouse trap there? 😀 It’s also funny when the Hare fills Toby’s shell with water and it doesn’t work. The same thing happens with filling Toby’s shell with fireworks. 😀 Soon, Tony wins the match.

Interestingly, characters from other Disney short films are in ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’ like the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf from 1933’s ‘Three Little Pigs’. I must revisit Disney’s ‘Three Little Pigs’ and its sequels sometime. Overall, Disney’s ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’ is another fun-filled short film. 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Bye for now!

Tim. 🙂

16 thoughts on “Quick Disney Review – ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’”

  1. zack613's avatarzack613

    Great review. You absolutely should watch the Three Little Pigs shorts
    1. The Little Pigs (1933)
    2. The Big Bad Wolf (1934) w/ Little Red Riding Hood
    3. Three Little Wolves (1936)
    4. The Practical Pig (1939)
    5. The Thrifty Pig (1941) a propaganda short for the National Film Board of Canada. (“Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf, Union Jack still waving…)
    The pigs also appear as spectators in Mickey’s Polo Team and Who Framed Roger Rabbit & the new Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers movie.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓
    1. Tim Bradley's avatarTim Bradley Post author

      Hi Zack,

      Glad you enjoyed my review on ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’. I hope to check out some of ‘The Three Little Pigs’ shorts on Disney+ soon. Thanks for providing me with me with the list of shorts they’ve been in. I recall the pigs being in ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’. I’ll have to revisit the ‘Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers’ movie as well as check out ‘Mickey’s Polo Team’.

      Many thanks for your comments.

      Tim 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
      2. Tim Bradley's avatarTim Bradley Post author

        Hi Zack,

        I’ll have to check out ‘Mickey’s Polo Team’ on YouTube sometime, as it’s not on Disney+. I see Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Harpo Marx and Charlie Chaplin are in the short, which is so amusing and exciting for me to enjoy. 😀

        Many thanks,

        Tim 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

    1. Tim Bradley's avatarTim Bradley Post author

      Hi Zack,

      I’m pleased the Disney cartoon short films like ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ and ‘Toby Tortoise Returns’ are available to check out on Disney+, as I have fond memories of watching them on VHS when I was a kid and it’s nice to revisit them.

      Tim 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓
      2. Tim Bradley's avatarTim Bradley Post author

        Hi Zack,

        Good for you. I’m afraid I gave away my Disney cartoon VHSs a long time ago. I always enjoyed checking out the ‘Storytime Favourites’ VHSs when I was a kid in the 1990s, especially ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘The Tortoise and the Hare’ VHS tapes.

        Many thanks,

        Tim 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

      1. scifimike70's avatarscifimike70

        Having once worked at Value Village where VHSs, even in the DVD and Blu-Ray phase, could still somehow appeal to people enough to buy them, such collector’s items and certainly with cinema and TV classics are easy to appreciate. Maybe it’s just how they might refresh our memories of how the wonders of Disney and all that impacted us in our younger years. I must say, certainly for when Dr. Who became available on VHS, it’s nice to be reminded of the days for the specifically appealing home videos.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Tim Bradley's avatarTim Bradley Post author

        Hi scifimike,

        Thanks for sharing your memories of VHS tapes. I never saw ‘Doctor Who’ on VHS as a kid, but I recall enjoying Disney classics in films and cartoon shorts on VHS as well as other kids TV shows like ‘Postman Pat’, ‘Sooty’, ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’, ‘Power Rangers’ and ‘Beast Wars’ in the 1990s. Here’s a blog post containing some of my video memories, which I posted back in January 2017 – https://bradleybasement.wordpress.com/2017/01/04/tim-bradleys-video-memories/

        Maybe there’ll come a time when VHS tapes will be back in fashion. It happened with vinyl/LP records, why not VHS tapes.

        Many thanks for your comments.

        Tim 🙂

        Liked by 2 people

      1. scifimike70's avatarscifimike70

        Quite agreeably the kinds of characters that we recognize best in animated form, certainly in our early childhoods, might not sit as well with the live action universe. I think it’s because of the unique diversity that a character in an originally animated form would most naturally have. It can be different enough in casting a woman or a black person as Dr. Who. Or maybe even rebooting an originally male character as female like Starbuck for Battlestar Galactica or Dr. Smith for Lost In Space. But that ambition must always be tempered with wisdom and clearly a lot of people in the industry still have a lot to learn.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Tim Bradley's avatarTim Bradley Post author

        Hi scifimike,

        Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Disney live-action remakes and whether well-loved characters from our favourite Disney films in animated form should be in them. I’ve grown to acknowledge that certain live-action remakes won’t be as good as the original films, but it’s always interesting to check them out and I do have my favourites. I prefer the live-action versions of ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Beauty and the Beast’ over the animated films, but then I prefer the animated versions of ‘The Lion King’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’ over their live-action counterparts. It’s down to preference, but as long as both animated and live-action versions of these Disney films are there for us to enjoy, I can enjoy them especially when comparing and contrasting their similarities and differences and what’s good and bad in each version.

        Many thanks for your comments.

        Tim 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

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