Ben and Me (1953)

You won't be disappointed!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

"Ben and Me" is an animated short film from 1953, so this one will have its 65th anniversary next year and if you take a look at the cast, you will find really many writers for a 20-minute film. The director is Hamilton Luske, who won an Oscar a decade later and worked on pretty many films that are considered classics somehow these days. You can find the list in his body of work. This one we have here is about inventor Benjamin Franklin and the various impacts he had on American history. All this is told through the eyes of a mouse who is depicted as one of the driving forces behind Franklin's spirit. It is a bit of an odd idea admittedly, but it somewhat fits in nicely with Disney's fantasy take on things frequently. This one here is without a doubt among Disney's more educational films and it is fitting that it was nominated for an Oscar in the short reel category and not in the cartoon category. Maybe this is even a movie that was shown in schools at some point. By the way, it lost the Oscar o another Disney work. The story here is fine, even if I did not really develop any deep interest in Ben Franklin. Maybe the premise was a bit too odd for my liking. The voice acting is decent too, but that's really a given with Sterling Holloway in the cast. As a whole, a fairly good work I believe, but nothing near Disney's best in terms of animation or story-telling and the comedy aspect is really negligible here. Thumbs up.

If you are looking for this short, try the "Disney Timeless Treasures: Volume 3". It's there along with several other seldom-seen cartoon shorts.This is the story of a mouse that lived in the Colonies in the 18th century and was a friend to Benjamin Franklin. You'll immediately notice that the mice all look an awful lot like Gus and Jacques from "Cinderella"--which had debuted a few years earlier. Additionally, you'll no-doubt recognize the voice of the narrator. It's Sterling Holloway who was the voice for Winnie the Pooh--and he really did talk like Pooh in real life! Amos the Mouse is a nice fella and friend to Franklin. However, in this version of history, Ben isn't all that bright and it's actually Amos that gives him many of his best ideas--such as the Franklin stove, the volunteer fire department, improving his almanac, the kite experiment about electricity and so forth. However, Ben took advantage of their relationship--prompting Amos to leave. If you think about it, this really is the story that was later re-tooled into "Ratatouille"--about a rat who helped a hopeless aspiring chef to become famous in his craft. And, like in "Ratatouille", Amos does eventually return to help Ben when the Revolution approaches.All in all, a nice way to teach history to kids--albeit a tad inaccurately. However, as only stupid children will really believe a mouse was responsible for Franklin's successes, I guess there's no harm in it! Well animated, cute and clever--this is a pretty good cartoon that manages to make history fun.By the way, although you may not recognize them unless you are a fan of old films, the voice of Franklin was done by Charlies Ruggles and Thomas Jefferson was Hans Conreid (who also played Captain Hook in Disney's "Peter Pan").Oh, and by the way, although the film asserts that Amos helped Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence, it was actually George Mason--whose Virginia Declaration was liberally 'borrowed from' by Jefferson.

I have always loved films (animated and live action) and theatrical shorts based on books. This is one of my favorite literary shorts from my childhood, because I've watched it a bunch of times as a kid; I've even read the book too.This short has a great cast featuring Sterling Holloway as Amos Mouse/Narrator, Charles Ruggles as Benjamin Franklin; Hans Conried as Thomas Jefferson, I love the talents of Hans. I also love why they joined paintings and the animated characters in the backgrounds - excellent work! I recommended this short those who literary shorts and films like me.

This is by far one of the cutest animated "history" lessons anyone can watch or show to children. Of course it is fictional with a mouse as the hero and main character but does present the founding of our nation and the writing of the constitution in a very entertaining matter. Amos is really portrayed as the hero in place of Benjamin Franklin, with Franklin portrayed as somewhat of a bumbling, "absent-minded" professor type. We are also shown some of Benjamin Franklin's inventions as well as some of his famous sayings scattered throughout the short movie. We do have a video version of this and I believe it is still available. I highly recommend this very entertaining and educational 25 minute feature by Disney at his best.