  thumb|267px|1935 series poster silly symphony is a series of 75 animated short films produced by walt disney productions from 1929 to 1939. as their name implies, the silly symphonies were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music. as such, the films usually had independent continuity and did not feature continuing characters, unlike the mickey mouse shorts produced by disney at the same time. (exceptions to this include three little pigs, the tortoise and the hare, and three orphan kittens which all had sequels.) the series is notable for its innovation with technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera, as well as its introduction of the character donald duck in 1934. silly symphony won the academy award for best animated short film seven times, including the first six years in which the award was presented. the series also spawned a disney media franchise which included the newspaper comic strip silly symphony, the dell comic book series silly symphonies, as well as several children's books, many of which were based on silly symphony cartoons. ==production== within the animation industry, the silly symphonies series is most noted for its use by walt disney as a platform for experimenting with processes, techniques, characters, and stories in order to further the art of animation. it also provided a venue to try out techniques and technologies that would be crucial to disney's plans to eventually begin doing feature length animated films. among the innovations developed and/or improved upon in the series are technicolor film-making, true and believable character animation, special effects animation, and dramatic storytelling in animation. shortly after the switch to ua, the series became even more popular. walt disney had seen some of dr. herbert kalmus' tests for a new three-strip, full-color technicolor process, which would replace the previous, two-tone technicolor process. disney signed a contract with technicolor which gave the disney studio exclusive rights to the new three-strip process through the end of 1935, and had a 60% complete symphony, flowers and trees, scrapped and redone in full color. flowers and trees was a phenomenal success, and within a year, the now-in-technicolor silly symphonies series had popularity and success that matched (and later surpassed) that of the mickey mouse cartoons. the contract disney had with technicolor would also later be extended another five years as well.[http://www.widescreenmuseum.com/oldcolor/technicolor5.htm glorious technicolor 1932-19
Animated_film_series Animation_anthology_series Disney_animated_short_films,_1920s Disney_animated_short_films,_1930s Silly_Symphonies Visual_music