A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.
Winter is coming, but the GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANTS have very different ways of preparing for it. While the ants are diligently storing food, the Grasshopper is only dancing around & playing his fiddle. When the snows come, perhaps he'll play a different tune...
Aesop's Fables provided the source for this very enjoyable cartoon. The intricate labors of the ants give lots of interest for the eye. `Oh, The World Owes Us A Living', the Grasshopper's song, would eventually become, with a slight revision, the theme for Goofy; Pinto Colvig voiced both characters.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.
Winter is coming, but the GRASSHOPPER AND THE ANTS have very different ways of preparing for it. While the ants are diligently storing food, the Grasshopper is only dancing around & playing his fiddle. When the snows come, perhaps he'll play a different tune...
Aesop's Fables provided the source for this very enjoyable cartoon. The intricate labors of the ants give lots of interest for the eye. `Oh, The World Owes Us A Living', the Grasshopper's song, would eventually become, with a slight revision, the theme for Goofy; Pinto Colvig voiced both characters.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.