Disney &Frame Grabs 03 Sep 2008 07:50 am
more Skeletons
- After last week’s popular post on cartoon skeletal systems, there’s only one thing that can top it, in my book.
Here are frame grabs from The Skeleton Dance. It was a monumental piece of film making at the time, using the soundtrack for more than noise. It advanced the music score by Carl Stalling to the front and made an important and historic attempt at animated art, It was “drawn” by Ub Iwerks (but not by himself.)
The short is part of the dvd, Disney Treasures : Silly Symphonies.
You can watch the film on line here.
.
(Click any image to enlarge.)
on 03 Sep 2008 at 10:21 am 1.EZG said …
I’ve loved this cartoon my whole life. Cool to see you posting this. I would have never thought of it as a “monumental” piece, I just know it’s a fantastic piece of animation.
on 03 Sep 2008 at 12:51 pm 2.Tom Minton said …
It was certainly monumental for its time. It’s amazing how well this film still plays for an audience, seventy-nine years after it was made. That six-armed, six-legged, quadruple-headed skeleton assemblage must have been animated by Ub himself. No one else could have pulled it off as well in 1929.
on 03 Sep 2008 at 2:05 pm 3.Michael J. Ruocco said …
What a coincidence! I just got out of my first day of Anatomy class @ SVA & we were discussing both ‘The Skeleton Dance’ & the cartoon skeleton exhibit(s).
I think the reason ‘Skeleton Dance’ has stood the test of time is mostly because of Ub’s animation. It’s one of those films that I can watch over & over & not get tired of watching (that & another of Ub’s Silly Symphonies: ‘Hell’s Bells’ which never fails to make my jaw drop). Although the cartoon is 80 years “out-of-season”, I still think it’s a more technically & comedicly pleasing film than some of the films coming out today. A monumental film, indeed.
on 03 Sep 2008 at 6:21 pm 4.David Nethery said …
“It was “drawn†by Ub Iwerks (but not by himself.)”
—
Who else animated on The Skeleton Dance ? Jaxon ? Les Clark ?
I would guess that Iwerks did the majority of it as he was so fast , but I’d be interested to know if there is an extant draft showing who else may have worked on it .
on 03 Sep 2008 at 8:18 pm 5.Devon said …
Les Clark animated the scene where one skeleton plays the ribs of his skeleton buddy like a xylophone. It was one of his first animations.
on 05 Sep 2008 at 11:14 am 6.Michael said …
You’re right, Devon, that scene was the first scene Les Clark animated, according to Canemaker’s Nine Old Men book.