Hello my friends and happy Saturday morning. Once again it is time for some classic cartoons.
Today's cartoon selection begins with an all-time classic, Bugs Bunny Rides Again (1948). This short film marks the third face-off between, Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam and one of the best. This movie offers one great gag after another and is simply a delight from start to finish.
Next up comes a great early Mickey Mouse cartoon, Mickey's Follies (1929). This cartoon brought about the first original song written for a Disney cartoon, Minnie's Yoo Hoo and Mickey ends the cartoon singing it himself. An instrumental version of this song would become the main theme for the Mickey Mouse cartoons through 1933. Singing this song would also become a ritual at the various Mickey Mouse clubs that formed in neighborhood theaters starting in 1929. Walt would create a sing along short of the song simply called Minnie's Yoo-Hoo (1930).
Now we join the Terry Bears in Pet Problems (1954).
Next is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit in Snappy Salesman (1930). Though most people today know Oswald the Lucky Rabbitt as a Disney character, Walt Disney was hardly the only filmmaker to make cartoons with him. After Walt Disney found out he didn't own the character (despite creating him) and essentially had the series taken from him, Charles Mintz would head the cartoon series. However Universal would take the rights away from Charles Mintz to have the cartoons produced in studio. Now heading these cartoons was Walter Lantz, who would later go on to produce the Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy cartoons.
Now it is time for a commercial break.
Next comes a silent Aesop's Film Fables cartoon, The Eternal Triangle (1922).
Next comes one of my favorite UPA cartoons, Fudget’s Budget (1954).
The Skelton Dance (1929) was the first of Disney's Silly Symphonies and one of the best. The idea for the series came from musical director Carl Stalling (who would later work on the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies). The Silly Symphonies were designed to revolve around music. Walt Disney loved the idea and felt that a second series would allow him to experiment more and not be tied down by the formula of a Mickey Mouse cartoon. The idea for the first film also is believed to have come from Stalling. Stalling would tell historian Michael Barrier about the genesis of the movie stating, "He thought I meant illustrated songs, but I didn’t have that in mind at all. The Skeleton Dance goes way back to my kid days. When I was eight or ten years old, I saw an ad in The American Boy magazine of a dancing skeleton, and I got my dad to give me a quarter so I could send for it. It turned out to be a pasteboard cut-out of a loose-jointed skeleton, slung over a six-foot cord under the arm pits. It would ‘dance’ when kids pulled and jerked at each end of the string. Ever since I was a kid, I had wanted to see real skeletons dancing and had always enjoyed seeing skeleton dancing acts in vaudeville.” Though Carl Stalling would use an excerpt from Edvard Grieg’s March of the Dwarfs, most of the music was an original by Stalling. The animation for the movie was completed in six weeks. The majority of the animation was done by Ub Iwerks, the Disney studio's main animator at the time. He animated some of the earliest Mickey films entirety by himself. On this film he was assisted by Wilfred Jackson and Les Clark. It is not known for sure what Les Clark animated as some sources state he animated the opening scene and others (including his own) state he animated one skeleton playing another's ribs as a xylophone. Wilfred Jackson most likely animated the scene where the rooster crowing (which was reused in The Cat's Nightmare (1931)). When Walt tried to sell this film, it did not go as smoothly as he excepted. Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, would later speak about this, “Father wasn’t easily discouraged. He took The Skeleton Dance to a friend who ran the United Artists Theater in Los Angeles and asked him to look at it. ‘We’re looking at some other things this morning,’ the man said, ‘and I’ll have my assistant look at it. You go with him’. Father sat beside the assistant while the film was run. It was just before the first morning show; a few customers had drifted in, and it was obvious they liked The Skeleton Dance but the assistant didn’t listen to them. ‘Can’t recommend it,’ he said. ‘Too gruesome’. Father got a hold of another friend and asked him if he could put him in touch with Fred Miller who managed the Carthay Circle, one of the biggest and most important theaters in town. Father’s friend sent him to a salesman on Film Row. ‘Maybe he can get him to look at your skeleton film’. Father found the salesman in a pool hall shooting a little Kelly (a game played on a standard pool table with sixteen pool balls where each player draws one of fifteen numbered markers called peas or pills at random from a shake bottle which assigns to them the correspondingly numbered pool ball, kept secret from their opponents, but which they must pocket in order to win the game). ‘Leave your picture here, Disney,’ the Kelly player said. ‘I’ll look at it. If I like it, I’ll get in touch with you’. It sounded like a stall, but he actually did look at the film. When he looked, he said, ‘I think Fred will like this. I’ll take it over to him myself’. As a result, Miller showed The Skeleton Dance with a feature picture he was running. It went over big. Father clipped the local press notices and mailed them to Powers with a note: ‘If you can get this to Roxy (the nickname of Broadway showman Samuel L. Rothafel who ran New York’s prestigious Roxy Theater), he’ll go for it the way Miller did. Powers got a print to Roxy and Roxy liked it. He ran it in his huge New York theater.” This movie premiered at the Carthay Circle on June 10, 1929, alongside F.W. Murnau's feature film, 4 Devils (1929). The Carthay Circle is where later Disney features like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Fantasia (1940) would make their Hollywood premiers.
Today's cartoon selection ends with a true country music classic.
Thanks for joining me. Come back next week for more animated treasures. Until then may all your tunes be looney and your melodies merry.
Resources Used
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-spooky-story-of-the-skeleton-dance/
The Animated Man: A Life of Walt Disney by Michael Barrier
Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons by Leonard Maltin
Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies: A Companion Guide to the Classic Cartoon Series by Russell Merritt and J. B. Kaufman.
Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History by J.B. Kaufman and David Gerstein
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