This is, well, amazing. Of the first four Silly Symphonies, fully half of them are Halloweeny, with skeletons and demons and bats and giant spiders and whatnot. These days, when most people think of Disney, they think of safe, family-friendly pablum. (This obviously isn't completely correct; the current run of Mickey cartoons are hilarious and irreverent.) But 85 years ago, the company was just struggling to come up with interesting ideas, and they put out 75 Silly Symphonies over a ten-year period (when they were also making Mickey cartoons and, eventually, the world's first full-length fully animated film). They used the shorts as a testing ground to try out effects and storytelling techniques, and even new technology (like Technicolor and the multiplane camera).
So like "Skeleton Dance," this begins with some scary animals setting the scene before our more anthropomorphic protagonists take over. I like that hell seems to have all manner of demonic animals, which can change shape if they eat something different, or give fiery milk.
And speaking of changing shapes, I really enjoy this fella here, who these days I can only think of as an 8-bit demon:
I'm still a little suprised at this cartoon, for two reasons: Number one, the more obvious one, is that it's set IN HELL. The second one is a bit less obvious: I think Satan just died, y'all. At the very least, what we've seen here is an uprising in one particular cavern of hell, Way to go, tiny smart demon!
No comments:
Post a Comment