Tag: Carl W. Stalling

Porky in Wackyland (1938)

Porky in Wackyland (1938). 7 minutes. Directed by Bob Clampett. Starring Mel Blanc (as Porky Pig and the Dodo). Animated by Norman McCabe, I. Ellis, Vive Risto, John Carey, and Robert Cannon. Layouts by Bob Clampett. Backgrounds by Elmer Plummer. Music by Carl W. Stalling. Produced by Leon Schlesinger.

Porky in Wackyland is one of only a handful of Warner Bros. cartoons that the U.S. Library of Congress has designated as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Its title may make it seem like a bit of a stale joke that is trying too hard; the word “wacky” always sounds like a marketing department’s corny way of exaggerating a movie’s quirky inscrutability in order to sell it as a wild ride that is in reality not so wild. Porky in Wackyland is legitimately zany, yet because it draws on Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) among other cultural touchpoints, the cartoon … Read the rest

Three Little Pigs (1933)

Three Little Pigs (1933). 8 minutes. Produced by Walt Disney. Directed by Burt Gillett. Featuring the voices of Dorothy Compton (as the piper pig), Mary Moder (as the fiddler pig), Pinto Colvig (as the bricklayer pig), and Billy Bletcher (as the big bad wolf). Animated by Fred Moore, Jack King, Dick Lundy, Norm Ferguson, and Art Babbitt.

Walt Disney’s Academy Award-winning cartoon short Three Little Pigs was a massive success when it was released in the early 1930s; it earned a tidy sum of money for Disney and was screened continuously for several months. But Three Little Pigs is also an artistic achievement. Drawing on innovations in sound and color technology that the Disney studio had established earlier in Steamboat Willie (1928) and Flowers and Trees (1932), the 1933 cartoon demonstrates further techniques of individuation that would influence Disney’s first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). But perhaps equally important is the way that … Read the rest

The Skeleton Dance (1929)

The Skeleton Dance (1929). 6 minutes. Produced and directed by Walt Disney. Animated by Ub Iwerks, Les Clark, and Wilfred Jackson. Music by Carl W. Stalling.

By 1929, Walt Disney had produced and directed the Mickey Mouse shorts Plane Crazy (1928), Steamboat Willie (1928), The Gallopin’ Gaucho (1929), and The Barn Dance (1929)—all of which chronicled the adventures of the small rodent. While these early exercises may loom especially large in the Disney legend, we should not forget that Disney concurrently launched the Silly Symphonies series as an alternative to the cartoons that were in development with the Mickey Mouse character. Frequently embracing classical music in continuous or near-continuous musical soundtracks, this new line of cartoons consisted mostly of non-recurring characters and scenarios, and represents some of the best, most creative work that Disney’s team produced.

The 75 Silly Symphonies shorts released between 1929 and 1939 included the perky and upbeat Flowers and Trees (1932) and Three Little Pigs… Read the rest