August 22 - The Skeleton Dance

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On this day, in 1929, the first Silly Symphony, The Skeleton Dance, is released to theaters nationwide. In 1928, as Walt travelled by train to New York City to get the soundtrack to Steamboat Willie recorded, he made a stop in Kansas City, Missouri. He had a proposition for an old friend of his, an theater organist by the name of Carl Stalling. Synchronized sound was clearly the future of film, so would Carl be willing to compose music for the other two Mickey Mouse shorts that had already been completed without sound? Not only was Carl willing but during the course of the between the two men, he made a proposition to Walt. What about doing a cartoon series where the animation was drawn for a specific piece of music, rather than writing the music for the animation? For example, maybe have some skeletons dance through a graveyard to some spooky music.

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Even though he had a lot on his plate at that precise moment (what with trying to keep his studio from going under and all), the idea stuck with Walt throughout the whole process of getting the Mickey Mouse series up and running. As things began to roll successfully with his little mouse, he was able to give this new idea his full attention. It probably also helped that Carl was well on his way to becoming the studio’s staff composer. In order to create a second stream of revenue (in case, God forbid, their new star suffered the same fate as their previous one), the Silly Symphony series was born and it was as much of an experiment as anything else.

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As the concept of dancing skeletons developed, a musical piece called March of the Dwarves by Edvar Grieg was chosen as the soundtrack. Animation for the short was turned over to the Studio’s resident technical genius, Ub Iwerks. Like the first couple of Mickey shorts, Ub would do most of the drawings for The Skeleton Dance himself. And, something you would never know considering how marvelous the short is, he banged it out in about six weeks. That’s how good he was. The music was tacked on to an already scheduled recording of the soundtrack for the Mickey short The Opry House in February 1929, helping to keep costs down on the untested new series. At the end of production, The Skeleton Dance cost just under $5,500 to make (about $80,800 today), so Walt wasn’t betting the whole studio on its success but it was still a chunk of change. Now came the dance to find a distributor.

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When Walt sent a print of The Skeleton Dance to the distributor of the Mickey films, the reply was reportedly a terse, two word rejection: “More mice.” Undaunted, Roy Disney arranged to have the short played in two theaters on the West Coast, the Fox Theater in San Francisco and the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles. Pat Powers, who owned Cinephone (the process Disney used to marry sound and image for their shorts) and made him a party interested in the studio’s continuing success, managed to convince the Roxy Theater in New York City to play it as well. The Skeleton Dance was a hit in all three venues, although it did garner a bit of controversy. The short was considered by some to be too gruesome for children (the skeletons literally scare a couple of cats right out of their fur) and was reportedly later banned in Denmark for the same reason. Columbia Pictures disagreed, however, and agreed to distribute the Silly Symphony series nationwide starting in August. Interestingly, when it played again at the Roxy under the Columbia deal, The Skeleton Dance became the first film to ever play a return engagement there.

Over the decade or so that the Walt Disney Studio produced Silly Symphonies, the series proved to be groundbreaking in so many ways. It includes the first cartoon made in three-color Technicolor, Flowers and Trees (1932), which was also the winner of the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Short; the first use of Disney’s technically superior multi-plane camera in The Old Mill (1937); the studio’s first hit song, Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf? (1933); the first appearance of Donald Duck in The Wise Little Hen (1934). Mostly, the 75 films in the series were used to try out new techniques and push the envelope of what animation could do. The fact that their popularity eventually outpaced that of Mickey Mouse was just icing on the cake. Over the course of its run, the series would pick up seven Oscars with an additional three nominations.

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Everything the studio learned from producing the Silly Symphonies culminated in their first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The success of Snow White was the beginning of the end for the series, however. Features required so much time and energy to produce that one of the Silly Symphonies, Merbabies, was actually produced by an outside company in exchange for more artists to work on Snow White. Within two years of the studio’s first princess gracing the big screen, the Silly Symphonies ended their triumphant run. And although every other studio in town would try to imitate Disney’s success (the world would be subjected to Looney Tunes, Merry Melodies, Happy Harmonies and Swing Symphonies, all with varying degrees of popularity), the originals still stand out as pieces of art that will continue to be enjoyed for years to come.

December 21 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

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On this day, in 1937, Walt Disney's first animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, had its world premiere at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California. For the first decade or so that the Walt Disney Studio existed, it did what every other animation studio did. It made short cartoons with silly characters to make people laugh before the main feature at the movies. Walt had already pushed the boundaries of the form by pairing classical music with lush artwork in his Silly Symphony series. Sometimes the Disney artists were able to evoke tender emotions without the characters ever saying a single word. But Walt longed for more. Not only did he want the potentially (much) larger revenue that feature films would bring in to his little company, but he felt that the medium of animation could create a movie going experience like no other. He was pretty much the only one who felt that way but, thankfully, he was also the only one he was listening to.

In 1934, Walt knew in his bones that his crew was ready to take on a bigger challenge. In June of that year, he announced to the world that the Walt Disney Studio would be producing a feature length film based on the fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The news was met with resounding derision. Walt’s brother (and business partner), Roy, and his wife, Lillian, both did their best to talk him out of the project. Everyone else in the industry looked at him funny, realized he was serious and began snickering. They figured if he wanted to bankrupt himself with such a harebrained idea, then by all means, we can’t wait to see… what’s it called again? Disney’s Folly? But Walt had a gleam in his eye and pushed forward anyways.

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Walt figured that Snow White could be produced for around $250,000. He could make 10 Silly Symphonies for that amount and his feature would probably be about ten times longer. He underestimated a little bit. The final costs would run over $1,488,000, an almost ridiculous total for any movie in 1937. But Walt figured in for a penny, in for a pound and not only mortgaged his house to the hilt, but he kept pushing his brother Roy to the edge of sanity trying to keep the studio afloat. I’m sure more than once over the four years of production, Roy looked at his brother and wondered if he’d gone absolutely batty. Walt had, but in a good way.

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In order to get his staff fired up about the project, Walt held a now famous story meeting one evening. He acted out the entire story with crazy voices, antics and so much enthusiasm no one could possibly come out of that room without being convinced that this was a great idea. Walt immediately began pulling his best people from every department to begin developing the picture. In the beginning, Walt felt that the picture would center on the seven dwarfs. He felt that each of them could be given a name that defined their basic nature and that they would get into all sorts of situations and gags. The rest of the characters, when discussed at all, were almost incidental. At one point the evil Queen was even being described as “fat and batty” (and even though she is usually referred to as Snow Queen or Evil Queen, she does have a name: Queen Grimhilde. Now you know). The story languished in development for the rest of 1934 and the start of 1935.

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Walt was getting discouraged and thought he’d bitten off more than his boys could chew, but apparently his European trip during the summer of 1935 revived his enthusiasm. When he returned, work began again with a new fervor, albeit in a different direction than before. Walt felt that the overly comic tone of the film wasn’t right and more attention should be paid to the relationship between the Queen and Snow White. As a result of this shift in focus, several sequences involving the dwarfs, that had already been fully animated, were scrapped. Ward Kimball, who would become one of the Nine Old Men, had poured himself into those scenes and was seriously considering leaving the studio once they were cut. Luckily for the Disney legacy, he stuck it out (the fact that he was made a supervising animator on Bambi probably helped).

Image copyright Disney; music copyright Bourne

Walt had decided that he wanted more of a European illustration look to his movie, which brought darker, richer colors and themes to it. Over the next two years, dozens of art classes were held at the studio. Many of the animators were great at cartoons but didn't have much (if any) formal training. The skills the entire staff gained through the process helped cement the domination of the Disney style of animation for years to come.

Music was, like always, an incredibly important addition. The songs in Snow White are so catchy and moving that the picture would become the first film to release a soundtrack album. Since Disney didn't have a way to publish their own music (yet) they would go through Bourne Company Music Publishers, an unfortunate turn of events since Bourne still owns the rights to Heigh Ho and Whistle While You Work today.

Photo courtesy of d23.com

Finally, after four years of blood, sweat, monumental cost overruns, toil and tears, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was ready for the public. At the premiere, the audience was packed. Many of the attendees were basically there just so they could say they were when the great Walt Disney fell flat on his face. Needless to say, what they saw stunned them. People laughed at the antics of the dwarfs, gasped at the cruelty of the Queen, openly wept as the dwarfs payed respect at Snow White's glass coffin and rose as one in a rousing standing ovation at the end. The New York times statement could be summed up in the line "Thank you very much, Mr. Disney" and Variety simply fell all over themselves with praise. Snow White enjoyed an exclusive run at the Radio City Music Hall, moved on to Miami and was put into general release in February of 1938. It would go on to make four times the amount of any other film released that year. By the end of its original run, Snow White would gross over $7.8 million giving it the highest grossing movie ever crown until Gone With the Wind came along.

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Once again, Walt had followed his gut, put everything he had (literally) behind his idea and changed the face of entertainment forever. For his efforts he was awarded a special Academy Award consisting of one large statue and seven little ones. The success of Snow White financed a new $4.5 million studio on a new plot of land in Burbank (the studio still sits there today) and assured the world that there would be many more animated features to come. The naysayers found themselves in the position of scrambling to catch up. They never did.