The Skeleton Dance (1929)

Director:

Walt Disney

Writers:

(more)

Release Date:

29 August 1929 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Family | Short | Comedy | Horror | Musical

Tagline:

The greatest talking picture novelty ever screened! -- A laugh riot from start to finish! A comically clever cartoon classic with music, sound, and original effects

Plot:

The clock strikes midnight, the bats fly from the belfry, a dog howls at the full moon, and two black cats fight in the cemetery: a perfect time for four skeletons to come out and dance a bit.

Plot Keywords:

Skeleton | Cat | Dance | Owl | Midnight

Directed by
Walt Disney

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Carl W. Stalling		idea (uncredited)

Produced by
Walt Disney	....	producer

Original Music by
Carl W. Stalling

Animation Department
Ub Iwerks	....	animator
Les Clark	....	animator: "Xylophone" scene (uncredited)
Roy O. Disney	....	animator (uncredited)
Walt Disney	....	animator (uncredited)
Wilfred Jackson	....	animator (uncredited)

Production Companies

• Walt Disney Productions

Distributors

• Columbia Pictures (1929) (USA) (theatrical)
• Walt Disney Home Video (2005) (Germany) (DVD)
• Walt Disney Home Video (2001) (USA) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Runtime:

6 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Cinephone

Certification:

Canada:G (Nova Scotia) | UK:(Banned) | USA:Approved | Sweden:(Banned)

Company:

Walt Disney Productions

Trivia:

The first of Walt Disney's Silly Symphony series.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Hewy's Animated Movie Reviews: The Top 13 Scariest Animated Monsters" (2011)

Soundtrack:

March of the Dwarfs

The First Silly Symphony Cartoon

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

The powers of darkness are abroad one dark & stormy night. In a lonely churchyard, graves are opened and THE SKELETON DANCE is performed by four bony fellows who exhibit terpsichorean skills of the most sepulchral sort. The crowing of a cock signals the approach of daybreak and the ghastly hoofers hie themselves back into their grave.

Carl W. Stalling, Disney's music director in the early days, arranged Grieg's 'March Of The Dwarfs' as musical accompaniment to this first entry in the Symphonies series. With Ub Iwerks' masterful drawing, this black & white cartoon still packs a punch today. In 1929 it proved to be completely different from the Studio's Mickey Mouse productions. Indeed, some theater owners found it to be too macabre and refused to show it.

The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. 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.