Treasures from the Disney Vault, September 2019

It seems as though it hasn't been very long since the last installment of Treasures from the Disney Vault on TCM. That's probably because even though the installments come roughly once a quarter, the last one was at the end of June while the current on is at the beginning of September. Namely, Leonard Matlin will be around to host the movies again tonight.

The night starts of with what is technically an animated feature, Fun and Fancy Free at 8:00 PM, although it's really an anthology of two shorter stories and the second one, "Mickey and the Beanstalk" has some live-action mixed in courtesy of Edgar Bergen. It's also one of the lesser Disney animated movies.

Probably the best known movie of the night is The Love Bug, at about 9:39 PM after a one-reeler to kick off the 9:30 PM slot. Dean Jones winds up in possession of Herbie, a Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own. The two team up for some big road races. The movie was popular enough that it spawned a whole bunch of sequels.

After starting My Three Sons, Fred MacMurray pretty much gave up serious dramatic films and enjoyed the much lighter, lower-pressure stuff he did at Disney, such as The Happiest Millionaire, which is coming on at 11:45 PM. As for the rest of the night's films, I don't recall Snowball Express or The Misadventures of Merlin Jones, so I can't say much of anything about them.