Oh man, I’m so glad someone else remembers and appreciates Mathmagic Land. It’s very weird and trippy but it’s also really entertaining and fun to watch. I loved it as a kid and when I rewatched it years later I found that I still really liked it. The only thing better than it is Los Tres Caballeros, hands down the best Donald related animation out there. That and Mathmagic Land are somewhat obscure and more people need to see them 
P.S: I had a bunch of Disney shorts and movies that weren’t usually broadcast on VHS. Wish I could afford to collect them all on disk though i hear Disney is notorious for making a lot of older stuff hard to track down on physical media 
I remember The Wonderful World of Disney but could only watch it every other week–it was a compromise with others in the family who had another favorite show at the same time. So I must have missed this when it was broadcast, but I had a math teacher who showed it in class. It was amazing. My parents didn’t own a pool table, but I loved the game. I couldn’t get near a table without at least knocking a few balls around. I still love it.
Growing up in Nashville I heard about Rudolph Wanderone–AKA Minnesota Fats–living in the Hermitage Hotel downtown and I wanted so many times to go and play pool with him. I never got the chance.
If you’re ever in Nashville give me a ring. I even know of a place with a snooker table.
Yes! Mathmagic land is one of my favourite disney works. I was fascinated by the billiards section as well. What a trip, i need to rewatch that asap.
I credit that film with inspiring me with a genuine interest in patterns and the intrinsic beauty of knowledge (which I certainly wasn’t getting from learning the times table) - when I was still single-digits young.
Years later, as the internet started growing, I would search for this semi-remembered gem every few years, but with vague search terms : “golden ratio”, “Pythagoras”, “harmonics”, “Donald Duck” it took a while before I located it online. Eventually it surfaced on YouTube and I was 
to see it, …though I still feel like there was an"extended version" that’s not included here.
I have memories of other bits, so I must be merging this with a memory of another similar film that I may have absorbed at the same time.
I don’t think I ever saw this on TV, but I distinctly remember being shown the film in a 3rd grade class at school. As in, it is one of the most distinct memories I have of that year at school!
I had Mathamagic Land on VHS! I loved it, but I remember it being a bit scary… the narrator was kind of malevolent, and Mathamagic Land was trippy and scary. I love the scene where Donald has to clean up his mind with a broom! My brain could definitely use a sweep and a file cabinet reorganization.
I have it on DVD so I’m assuming it’s still out there.
They used to show this on the Disney Channel’s Donald Duck Presents all the time, and I always loved it, because I’m a Duck-loving nerd. The billiards segment definitely changed how I played pool, but it’s not easy figuring out angles and diamond math while in dark smoky bars drinking beer.
Thanks for the heads up that this is on Youtube. I know where my day is going.
This was required viewing (on VHS of course) in my elementary school math classes. For nerds of a certain age, this is in the Pantheon of what got us interested in what is now called STEM (because really, all applied science comes down to math).
Oh man this is awesome
I know what my kids (well, the one that’s old enough) will be watching next!
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
