The BEST episodes directed by Ward Kimball
#1 - It's Tough to Be a Bird!
Disney Animated Shorts - Season 1969 - Episode 1
Part cartoon and part documentary, this film offers a humorous look at birds and the ways people perceive them.
#2 - Melody
Disney Animated Shorts - Season 1953 - Episode 4
An owl teaches his class full of birds about melody. It's all around in nature. Only birds and man can sing; man "sings" even when he speaks. We see a quick survey of the stages of life, as captured by songs: the alphabet song for primary school, Here Comes the Bride, The Old Gray Mare, etc. Some inspirations for song are outlined in song: love, sailing, trains, the West, motherhood, etc., but "we never sing about brains." Finally, an example of how a simple melody can be expanded into a symphony: an elaborate version of the simple tune that opened the lesson.
#3 - Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom
Disney Animated Shorts - Season 1953 - Episode 11
In this short subject (which mostly represents a departure from Disney's traditional approach to animation), a stuffy owl teacher lectures his feathered flock on the origins of Western musical instruments. Starting with cavepeople, whose crude implements could only "toot, whistle, plunk and boom," the owl explains how these beginnings led to the development of the four basic types of Western musical instruments: brass, woodwinds, strings, and percussion.