It's Tough to Be a Bird

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Fabrizio A After watching "It's Tough to Be a Bird," I thought it wasn't bad at all, contrary to what many people on Rotten Tomatoes suggest (they mistook this page for another show's). While it’s certainly not a masterpiece, it remains an important piece of animation history as the last short that Disney released before 2013's "Paperman," marking the end of the Golden Age of Animation. I genuinely found it funny, although it might feel a bit too slow-paced for today’s audiences. However, the film does take a rather pessimistic view of the aggressive and invasive nature of humans in relation to other species, particularly birds. Topics like hunting, shooting, and extinction are serious issues worth discussing, but I wish the film had approached them with a bit more hope for the future. You can tell this was made after Walt Disney's death, as the creators took creative liberties with some jokes that he would likely have disapproved of. The ending is quite shocking for a Disney movie, even for its time. The coda, reminiscent of Monty Python, features the wounded narrator looking sadly at the viewer, accompanied by the mournful ringing of bells during the "The End" titles, which is certainly somber. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 05/29/25 Full Review Audience Member The camp feels more desperate than funny. There's a lot of humor, but few hard laughs. The songs weren't really memorable, and the characters were fairly weak-Superman included. This TV musical is more painful than enjoyable. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 02/02/23 Full Review Audience Member Based on the Broadway production 'It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Superman!', this cheap, once-screened, made-for-television version of the well-received musical is infamously the Man of Steel's worst representation to date. David Wilson is an admittedly likeable presence, but is simply not right to play the iconic superhero, and Leslie Anne Warren, despite a wonderful singing voice, appears to be vying for the Worst Actress of All Time award (she auditioned to play the role of Lois Lane again when Richard Donner was casting his 1978 blockbuster). The song and dance routines here are fun and, really, the fact that the sets are made out of cardboard don't matter after a while, but the piece simply doesn't come together as well as it did on stage with Bob Holiday in the title role. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/20/23 Full Review Audience Member This campy musical about Superman aired only once on TV in the 70s. But the internet is a wondrous place where you can find any odd pop culture artifact seemingly lost in time forever. So I watched this, much like I watched the Star Wars Holiday Special before...and just like that odd special...this is pretty awful. This is decidedly better...but not by much. The music isn't great, and the production values are super lame and weak...but it is interesting if you like odd stuff the way I do. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/17/23 Full Review Audience Member I have seen student films that are better than this one. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/21/23 Full Review Audience Member I have seen student films that are better than this one. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/16/23 Full Review Read all reviews

It's Tough to Be a Bird

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