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Melody Time

1948 live-action/animated film

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ869741 ↗
Source-derived summary

Melody Time is a 1948 American musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney. It was released to theaters by RKO Radio Pictures on May 27, 1948. The live-action and animated film is made up of seven segments set to popular music and folk music, similar to Make Mine Music (1946) as well as Fantasia (1940). Melody Time received mixed-to-positive reviews.

Vignettes

According to Disney, the film's plot is as follows: "In the grand tradition of Disney's greatest musical classics, such as FANTASIA, MELODY TIME features seven classic stories, each enhanced with high-spirited music and unforgettable characters...[A] feast for the eyes and ears [full of] wit and charm... a delightful Disney classic with something for everyone". Rose Pelswick, in a 1948 review for The News-Sentinel, described the film as an "adventure into the intriguing make-believe world peopled by Walt Disney's Cartoon characters". It also explains that "with the off-screen voice of Buddy Clark doing the introductions, the... episodes include fantasy, folklore, South American rhythms, poetry, and slapstick". A 1948 review by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette described it as a "mixture of fantasy, abstraction, parable, music, color, and movement".

Editorial summary

“Melody Time” enters the record as 1948 live-action/animated film. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Melody, Time and live-action can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1948, 1946, 1940—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—1948-05-27, 1951-04-16—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Melody, Time and live-action.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Melody Time” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Melody, Time and live-action provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q869741. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1946 and 1940.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Melody Time”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Melody Time primary sources, Melody Time archive and Melody research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Melody Time”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Melody Time” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.