The Skeleton Dance and Frolic
It is hard to not find a contemporary cartoon that parodies or pays homage to “The Skeleton Dance” (1929). Who would have thought that the very first Silly Symphony short would also be one of the most iconic cartoons from not just the entire series but also in animation history? The music, animation, and humor of the piece stayed in our heads while growing up long before we realized its true significance to the artform. The premise of the cartoon was ghoulishly bold as it was based around the medieval concept of the "Dance of the Dead", a centuries old visual imagery where the dead celebrate their newfound freedom over life.
The film was important to the Disney Studios because it served as the launching pad for Walt Disney’s experimental "Silly Symphonies". It was a new series of cartoons which differentiated itself from the Mickey Mouse films through its standalone stories with a specific focus on showcasing different characters and stories. The storytelling in the series strongly relied on the music of the corresponding piece, which would foreshadow Walt's personal interest in playing animation to music. The original idea for the Silly Symphonies came from the famed Looney Tunes composer Carl Stalling, who was at the time Disney's composer and created the iconic tune for the cartoon.
The legendary Ub Iwerks, Walt's strongest animator at the studio, was the main animator behind the short. God only knows how long it took for "screwy" Ub to draw and animate all those skeletons while still maintaining his sanity! As any drawing student would know, skeletons are a very intricate object to draw from observation as it can take days to capture its pose. So for Iwerks to simplify the skeletons to its essence and animate them was a very daunting challenge to say the least. I think the reason why the cartoon resonated with audiences is because it is just fun to watch the skeletons dance and do their thing. They are filled with so much life in spite of them being dead already. It is Iwerks’ zany and crazy animation that makes the cartoon as memorable and special as it still is to this day. In fact, the cartoon was so popular in its day that Ub Iwerks even created a color sequel called "The Skeleton Frolic" (1937) when he was doing animation for Columbia Pictures.
