Walt Disney Treasures - Silly Symphonies
In 1928, when Walt Disney's artists completed "The Skeleton Dance," the  distributor of the Mickey Mouse shorts rejected the first "Silly Symphony"  with a two-word telegram: "MORE MICE." Disney arranged to screen "Skeleton  Dance" at the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles, where it received an  enthusiastic response, and the series took off. Seven "Silly Symphonies" won  Academy Awards, beginning with "Flowers and Trees." Disney used these  musically themed shorts to train young artists and test new styles, effects,   and technologies: every film represented an innovation of some sort. In  "Three Little Pigs," characters who looked alike demonstrated different  personalities through the way they moved. "The Old Mill" showcased the  newly invented Multiplane camera. The Sugar Cookie Girl in "Cookie Carnival"  was one of several female characters the artists created while learning to  animate a believable heroine forSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The  well-chosen selections in this set demonstrate how quickly Disney advanced  the art of animation during the '30s. Only eight years separate the crude  black-and-white version of "The Ugly Duckling" (1931) from the moving  Technicolor Oscar-winner of 1939. Over 60 years later, these films have lost  none of their charm. The jazz-dancing insects in "Woodland Café," the  wonderfully animated caricature of Mae West in "Who Killed Cock Robin," and  the instrument-characters in "Music Land" remain as delightful as ever.  Leonard Maltin makes a genial host, and two hidden cartoons include Walt's  introductions from the oldDisneylandprogram.--Charles Solomon