The Man from Button Willow

• Written and Directed by David Detiege
• April 3, 1965

Voice Cast

• Justin Eagle, Himself in the live-action prologue-Dale Robertson
• Jeremiah “Sorry” Baker-Edgar Buchanan
• Stormy-Barbara Jean Wong
• Ship Captain, Man in Saloon-Herschel Bernardi
• Abner Hawkins, Man on Trolley, Man in the Saloon, Various Animals-Pinto Colvig
• Andy Svenson-Ross Martin
• “Doc” Redland, “The Whip”-Cliff Edwards
• Mrs. Pomeroy, “Doc” Redland’s wife, Lady on Trolley-Verna Felton
• Reverend of Button Willow, Man in Saloon-Thurl “Tony the Tiger” Ravenscroft
• “Shanghai” Kelly, Chinese Singer in Saloon, Man in Saloon, Trolley Conductor-Shep Menken
• Montgomery Blaine, Man Who Gives Justin A Tip-John Hiestand
• Senator Freeman, The Cougar-Clarence Nash
• Man in Black Cape-Edward Platt
• Doc’s Son, Newspaper Hawker-Buck Buchanan

The first US undercover agent helps Western settlers fight landgrabbers.

I had never heard of The Man from Button Willow until it was mentioned in a Facebook group that I follow. I can count the number of animated Westerns on one hand and have fingers to spare most likely. Thus my curiosity was piqued. Given how obscure it was based on what I read I had some serious doubts that I could find it but as always ask YouTube and it shall provide.

The Man from Button Willow (a real place) was produced by TV Western legend Dale Robertson who also does the voice work for the titular character. His character is named Justin Eagle and lives/works his ranch The Eagle’s Nest while working pro bono for the Federal government. The plot itself is your basic landgrab scheme that’s been used dozens of times in Westerns in one form or another. The issue is never the idea. It is how they use it and here it just lingers in the background. The mentions become fewer until it is forgotten to the point you are not sure why Justin finds himself in his final predicament.

The character designs look straight from a Disney film. Then again, Disney was the big dog in American film at the time so that’s understandable. Weirdly for Dale Robertson’s character they use a much more realistic style than any of the other characters. Ego? Marketing purposes? Either reason is a bad reason. Both create a character that looks as if it does not belong in the environment in which it is placed.

Stormy really jumped out at me. She is the orphaned daughter of Justin’s Asian best friend. Nothing wrong with that, but to be fair the way she is portrayed could certainly be construed as a bit racist today. Yet the other characters treat her no different than they do anyone else in the movie. She’s treated as an equal.

There’s maybe 45 minutes or less of story that they pad out with some cute songs and unimportant events that happen to the animal characters which do not connect to the main plot. They are just elements to bring this closer to feature-length.

The idea for the main story is not bad. But per the era the execution is milquetoast and today it is just bland. There is little investigation and minimal action. Nothing that was impossible to fix then. Develop the sinister characters seen in town. Build up Shanghai Kelly. Something! I can’t say much more than that about this because there’s not much to talk about.

The Man from Button Willow was a bit of a letdown. It’s not exciting, but it’s not boring. It’s quite possibly something you could have on as background noise while you did something else. As a curiosity you might want to check this out but don’t expect to be impressed. Pass.