Since it’s October, it only made sense to start off with something spooky. Way back to the 1920’s, before Disney became the multi-billion dollar juggernaut that it is today, Disney released three horror-themed shorts: The Skeleton Dance, Hell’s Bells and The Haunted House- a series of “musical novelty” cartoons that combined animation and music.
A Silly Symphony: The Skeleton Dance (1929) is the first and most successful of the shorts. The five minute animated short features four human skeletons dancing and making music in a spooky graveyard. It was produced and directed by Walt Disney, and animated by Ub Iwerks. The idea originated from Carl Stalling, who suggested they create a series of whimsical shorts focused entirely on the accompanying score, which led to the birth of the Silly Symphonies series. While it was not Disney’s first sound cartoon (which is Steamboat Willie), it was the first to fully take advantage of the recent technological breakthroughs- which was that the music and the animation were planned and created simultaneously.
Ub Iwerks animated the majority of it in just six weeks. He stated in an interview that he had done all the animation but he did it rough, in line form. Les Clark and Wilfred Jackson put in the rib cages and teeth and eyes and bones. It was done in black in white, using hand drawn cel animation.The soundtrack was recorded at Pat Powers’ Cinephone studio in New York in February 1929 and according to Roy O. Disney’s records, the total cost for the film was $5,485.40.
Despite some initial excitement, previews for distributors in both New York and Los Angeles didn’t go quite as well as Walt Disney had hoped. An interesting takeaway was, at the time, critics warned parents to leave their kids at home as the content was deemed so morbid. Denmark banned the short entirely, possibly due to the film being an example of medieval European “danse macabre” imagery.Walt Disney still persevered though, and after The Skeleton Dance was shown theatrically at Los Angeles’ Carthay Circle Theater, it went on to achieve success. Audiences enjoyed every moment of it. In early August, Columbia Pictures signed a contract to distribute the Silly Symphonies nationwide and after a screening, it became the first picture in the theater’s history have a return engagement.In 1994, The Skeleton Dance was voted #18 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field.
The Skeleton Dance is a whimsical cartoon of four skeletons dancing and rattling along throughout the night. To many, it it represents the memory and nostalgia of Halloween. It presents horror themes in a form that is child-friendly, making it more fun in a lot of ways- sillier, more predictable, and idiosyncratic in nature. Later shows such as Scooby Doo and The Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror episodes built from this theme and continued this idea. It’s in these types of creations that, while spooky and even terrifying in a way, we find a happy pay-off in the end. It’s these happy endings that allow children to come back to again and again. And it starts with things like Silly Symphony, Goosebumps and Scooby Doo, that can lead to a lifelong interest in the Horror genre.
If you’re interested in reading more about this film or watching it, here are some links to get you started!
