Based on the tear-jerking children’s story by E B White, this cartoon features a piglet named Wilbur who is sold from Homer Zuckerman’s New England farm to a neighbour, where he learns that his fate is the family dinner table.
He befriends a motherly spider named Charlotte. Charlotte spins words of praise for Wilbur (“Radiant”, “Terrific” and “Some Pig”) into her web in the doorframe where Wilbur sits.
Soon Wilbur becomes a celebrity, and the amazed public flocks to Wilbur’s farm to see the Famous Pig.
Soon the little ham-sandwich-to-be is worth more alive than dead, earning a spot at the county fair and is ultimately saved from slaughter by a little girl of alarming precocity.
Poignant and heartbreaking, Charlotte’s Web was buoyed up by comic relief from a rat named Templeton and by songs from Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman, whose CV included Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) and the animated The Jungle Book (1967).
True to its pedigree, the movie became a classic itself, continuing to teach White’s valuable lesson of friendship, sacrifice and love.
Debbie Reynolds plays the voice of Charlotte.
“Flippity ippity jibbit!”
Charlotte
Debbie Reynolds
Wilbur
Henry Gibson
Templeton
Paul Lynde
The Goose
Agnes Moorehead
Jeffrey
Don Messick
Homer Zuckerman
Robert Holt
Mrs Zuckerman
Joan Gerber
Arable
John Stephenson
Mrs Arable
Martha Scott
Fern Arable
Pamelyn Ferdin
Henry Fussy
William B White
Mrs Fussy
Joan Gerber
Lurvy
Herb Vigran
Narrator
Rex Harrison
Director
Charles A Nicholas
Iwao Takamoto
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