Day 13: Part 2 of our Christmas donkey double feature takes a deep dive into Don Bluth’s last Disney project, The Small One, a short film released in front of the 1978 re-release of Pinocchio.

On this episode

• Mike Westfall (@fallwestmike), a scrawny, undernourished little beast.
• Lindy Kempe (@ieatvideogames), a friendly face who’s gentle and true.
• Brandon Medley (@brandmed), good enough to be in a king’s stable.

Topics and tangents

• Like so many Disney movies, it’s based on a book — The Small One: A Story for Those Who Like Christmas and Small Donkeys.
• It’s directed by Don Bluth, so of course we get talking about Dragon’s Lair.
• The Land Before Time toys from Pizza Hut.
• Mouse in Transition: When Everyone Left Disney, Chapter 7 of Steve Hulett’s inside look at Disney Feature Animation deals with Don Bluth’s exit from the company after working on The Small One.
• Don Bluth Returns to Walt Disney Animation Studios after 40 Years.
• Assistant director Richard Rich went on to direct all 8 movies in The Swan Princess franchise. I’m sorry to have just informed you that there are 8 Swan Princess movies.
• The Small One’s Wikipedia entry includes a very strange line about the other donkeys in Small One’s stable.
• One piece of silver, Small One’s selling price, may be about $5 or $6 in 2018 money, if I did the math right.
• Edits on home video, including the Merchants’ song,and the Star of Bethlehem getting extra rays of light to look less cross-shaped. To avoid too much foreshadowing, I guess.
• Gordon Jump, the voice of Joseph, went on to guest star in a very special episode of Diff’rent Strokes. Yeah. Sorry.
• Somehow we end up talking about Pixar movies, including Cars 3, a.k.a. Rocky IV, but with Cars.

Previous episodes of this podcast mentioned

• The Adventures of the American Rabbit
• S2E12: Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey

You can visit the Advent Calendar House on the web at adventcalendar.house and on Twitter @adventcalhouse.