Starting the Discussion

Silly Symphonies: The Triumph of Technology

Maltin, pp. 29-82

In your notebook: After the death of Walt Disney, the studio continued to produce animated features, but Maltin's survey ends in the mid-1980s. For this journal, I'd like you to go on from there and survey briefly what the Disney studio has done in animation since 1985. The survey should flow into your own examination of some of the ways in which the productions of the past 17 years or so can be connected with the tradition established by Walt Disney and, conversely, some of the ways in which they have moved into areas that might have surprised or even horrified Walt. (This should be done by Thursday.)

Maltin's chapter on Walt Disney is a fairly long one. Some of the basic information should reinforce your reading in The Disney Version last week, but Schickel's interest is primarily social and psychological, whereas Maltin's is primarily technical and artistic, so you should be seeing the same development in a different context.

In reading the chapter, you should pay particular attention to the way in which Disney defined the medium of animation in the years between Steamboat Willie (1928) and Snow White (1937) or Fantasia (1940).

  1. How inventive were Disney's early cartoons, like Alice in the Jungle, which we watched in class? What made the early Mickey cartoons different, according to Maltin? What was the role of Ub Iwerks in this period?
  2. How many different stories do we have of the origin of the character later known as Mickey Mouse? What does this tell us about the men involved in his conception?
  3. Be ready to describe the process through which Disney was able to synchronize the sound and image in Steamboat Willie.
  4. What made the Skeleton Dance (1929) a breakthrough animated short?
  5. How did the series known as the Silly Symphonies differ from the character animation in the Mickey cartoons?
  6. As his popularity grew, what happened to Mickey Mouse as a character? How was this related the the establishment of the Hays Office in Hollywood in the early 1930s?
  7. What's a storyboard and why was it so useful to Disney animators? What other technological advances originated at the studio during the 1930s?
  8. What did color add to Disney animation? How was he able to keep a competitive edge in this area through 1935?
  9. What was Disney's motivation in paying for (and requiring) attendance at art classes for his animators?
  10. When did the studio introduce Pluto, Goofy and Donald? Why was it so important to develop more character, given the popularity of both Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies?
  11. What is a model sheet and what purpose does it serve?
  12. What were Mickey's most memorable roles as a solo actor, according to Maltin? Is there a pattern here?
  13. The look that we now think of as characteristically Disney in the late 1930s and from there on is at least partly a result of the invention and use of the multiplane camera. What was it and how did it work? What did it allow Disney's animators to do that they had not been able to do before?
  14. We'll be coming back to Snow White, but for now you should be ready to recap the process through which Disney and his animators invented a new form, the feature-length cartoon, which would outlive the cartoon shorts by decades in movie theaters.
  15. Everyone loved his first few feature length cartoons, so why did Disney find such a different reception for his Fantasia? What do you think caused him to misjudge nearly all his audiences? What happened to short cartoon production at the Disney studio in the 1940s, particularly the late '40s?
  16. Disney had prospered during the Depression, but how was his studio affected by World War II? We'll be returning to the wartime cartoons, but what practical realities did the War bring into being for Disney Studios? What else was looming negatively on the Disney horizon as the US moved toward war with the Germans and Japanese?
  17. How would you characterize Walt Disney as a boss? Would you have considered working for him? Why or why not?
  18. After World War II, Disney's production of even feature cartoons began to be replaced by live action films. Why?
  19. What was the appeal of television for Disney in the 1950s? Why might he expect that audience to be particularly receptive to his work?
  20. After Walt's death in 1966, the studio continued to produce both live action and animated features. Maltin ends his survey in the mid-1980s; where has Disney gone since then?

Time permitting, we'll be watching the following Silly Symphonies in class:

 

Back to Home Page