Sing Me A Cartoon #22: Original Mousetracks
You would think that, by 1936, the folks at the Walt Disney studios would have every way figured to promote their product. Toys . . . newspaper comic strips ….
You would think that, by 1936, the folks at the Walt Disney studios would have every way figured to promote their product. Toys . . . newspaper comic strips ….
In December of 1933, The Walt Disney Studios released its own version of the classic Clement Clarke Moore poem as its fortieth animated Silly Symphony cartoon.
The Disney music department was pinning its hopes on a song in a cartoon that was based on a poem that had first been printed around 1744 – Who Killed Cock Robin?
“The Three Little Pigs” spawned two sequel songs–one of which we may never hear. Here’s what I know about them.
The tunes from other Silly Symphonies weren’t nearly as successful as Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf? But that didn’t mean that the songwriters at Disney weren’t trying!
Victor was interested in covering songs from the latest “Silly Symphonies”, so they turned to an musician familiar with these selections. That bandleader was Raymond Paige.
This is one of my favorite Silly Symphony shorts because it had no dialogue and relied solely on the visuals and music to tell the story.
Frank Luther recorded “Mickey Mouse And Minnie’s In Town”, and “In A Silly Symphony”. They were released on picture discs in early 1934 – and they didn’t sell at all!
“Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf?” was a huge hit all over the world – no more so than in the early days of Nazi Germany.
Three Little Pigs premiered on May 25th, 1933 in New York and in LA on July 13th. It didn’t take long for the first records of “Who’s Afraid Of The Big Bad Wolf” to hit the music shops.