Originally part of the movie Make Mine Music, this cartoon was released later on its own as a theatrical short. The plot is about a feud between two mountain families, the Martins and the Coys (stand-ins for the Hatfields and McCoys). Eventually a boy from one side and a girl from the other fall in love. It's narrated through song by the King's Men group. It's a fun, lively cartoon with a cute ending. Unfortunately, it's also a cartoon that has become a victim of politically correct censorship due to it being full of guns and possibly (though not most likely) its depictions of Appalachian people. Censorship is the weapon of cowards and it seems everybody's armed these days. Hopefully you can look past the ignorance of Disney and the crybabies who complain about these things, find this fine old cartoon, and enjoy it in the spirit it was created in.
5 Reviews
Oh, the Martins and the Coys, they was reckless mountain boys
Coolguy-726 March 2001
This is my favorite segment from the Disney feature "Make Mine Music." I remember seeing that movie (or at least part of it since it was a school night)on the Disney Channel about three years ago. Disney released this feature on video for the first time ever in the spring of 2000. One time, I was looking at reviews on "Make Mine Music" and the people who bought the video or DVD were upset because one segment had been deleted. It was this one. I'm glad I never bought a copy of MMM. Disney did it again. They censored a classic work of art like this just to please some pathetic do-gooders. It's a classic ballad about two feuding hillbilly families who kill each other off (which is definitely why those PC #@#%$% censored it)and their descendants Grace Martin and Henry Coy fall in love and marry. At the end, however, the feud is carried on. As much as I hate to defend the Disney Company, I will say that Disney does not want to censor their works and would probably like to show them in their complete forms. They only do it because they're tired of getting complaints from do-gooders. Censorship is not the answer. Giving MMM a PG-rating would be better.
Most generic story that makes hardly any sense overshadows everything else
Horst_In_Translation4 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
"The Martins and the Coys" is a 7.5-minute Cartoon by Disney from 1946, so this one will soon have its 75th anniversary. It was written by the highly prolific Jack Kinney and this is one of their many works where there is at least asmuch focus on the music as is on the visual side. The King's Men serve as musical story-tellers here and I liked what I heard. The visual side was pretty good too and we should not take that for granted honestly at all, even if this is of course from the Golden Age of Animation, not the early days, but those days when World War II was already over, but it lasted until at least the beginning of the 1950s. While the world was in pieces, cartoons were doing amazingly fine. Now as for the story. It is in the widest sense a bit of a Romeo and Juliet tale. There are two enemy hillbilly families and one day it escalates and they all kill each other. Sounds brutal? Well, they sure did their best to keep it kids friendly. There are no images of violence or blood really. On the contrary, we even see all the hillbillies up on their clouds eventually where they pursue their feud. And witness how one girl from one famile and one boy from another fall in love. They are not amused. They even marry afterwards. And then, completely out of nowhere this takes the path of so many marriages really and they fight and argue and the ones up in heaven are happy again. Oh well, at leats they are. The ending came absolutely out of nowhere and this was the negative deal-breaker for me here to give a thumbs-down and negative recommendation. Everything before that was fairly forgettable, but music and animation were good enough for me to recommend this film to cartoon lovers. But yeah, it also lacks funny moments altogether basically and that is a negative deal-breaker. i hoped at least the ending could put a smile on my lips. But it wasn't a wise choice to go the path they were going. All in all, you should skip this one and watch something else instead.
Mayn't be to everyone's tastes, but I loved it!
TheLittleSongbird2 March 2010
Featured in "Make Mine Music", this is an enormously entertaining and delightful short. It mayn't be to everyone's tastes, it may be rather obscure to some people and true it does stereotype the Appalachian mountain men. However, I love the short for its entertainment value. It is really funny and truly great if given a chance.
The animation is fluid and colourful, and the music rollicking. If you like shorts with rollicking and country-sounding music, I also recommend "Pecos Bill" which appeared in "Melody Time". Also the vocals are fabulous. "The Martins and the Coys" has so many funny moments I really cannot decide which was my favourite. Overall, I loved this short for the entertainment value. 10/10 Bethany Cox
The animation is fluid and colourful, and the music rollicking. If you like shorts with rollicking and country-sounding music, I also recommend "Pecos Bill" which appeared in "Melody Time". Also the vocals are fabulous. "The Martins and the Coys" has so many funny moments I really cannot decide which was my favourite. Overall, I loved this short for the entertainment value. 10/10 Bethany Cox
A Rustic Ballad
Ron Oliver24 August 2003
A Walt Disney Cartoon.
THE MARTINS AND THE COYS carry on their senseless, bloody feud until only one member of each family is left alive.
Originally a segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946), this Disney short is perhaps deservedly obscure today, as it is a serious lack of good taste & common sense to continue the stereotyping of Appalachian 'mountain men' as lazy, drunken, thieving & murderous. The historical basis for the plot is the infamous Hatfield-McCoy Feud which livened up portions of the West Virginia - Kentucky border in the late 1800's. The King's Men provide the singing narration with the requisite amount of twang.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a storm of naysayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.
THE MARTINS AND THE COYS carry on their senseless, bloody feud until only one member of each family is left alive.
Originally a segment of MAKE MINE MUSIC (1946), this Disney short is perhaps deservedly obscure today, as it is a serious lack of good taste & common sense to continue the stereotyping of Appalachian 'mountain men' as lazy, drunken, thieving & murderous. The historical basis for the plot is the infamous Hatfield-McCoy Feud which livened up portions of the West Virginia - Kentucky border in the late 1800's. The King's Men provide the singing narration with the requisite amount of twang.
Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a storm of naysayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.
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