Short of the Week: An early gem from Walt Disney, ‘The Skeleton Dance’
The current state of Disney regularly generates heated conversations amidst polarised fans, but there are no ambiguities when it comes to the vastly influential history of Disney’s early animation. Those early works from the brilliant mind of Walt Disney paved the way for modern animation, creating a universal language through which artists could express the beauty of the medium. To this day, many animators refer to those gems because of their innovative techniques.
For this edition of Short of the Week, we revisit one of the most beloved shorts from the early Disney era – The Skeleton Dance. Primarily animated by the great Ub Iwerks, the five-minute short from 1929 imagines a delightfully macabre scenario where four skeletons rise up from their graves to dance the night away. Busting out some of the slickest dance moves in history, they adopt a transgressive approach to human anatomy while worshipping the rhythm.
A part of the Silly Symphony series, the idea was actually suggested by composer Carl Stalling who thought it would be fun to create animated shorts for pre-recorded music. During a 1969 interview, Stalling revealed that Disney had initially misunderstood his plans for the Silly Symphony project and thought that the composer wanted music videos. Stalling recalled (via Cartoon Research): “He thought I meant illustrated songs, but I didn’t have that in mind at all.”
While talking about The Skeleton Dance, the composer added: “The Skeleton Dance goes way back to my kid days. When I was eight or ten years old, I saw an ad in The American Boy magazine of a dancing skeleton, and I got my dad to give me a quarter so I could send for it. It turned out to be a pasteboard cut-out of a loose-jointed skeleton, slung over a six-foot cord under the arm pits. It would ‘dance’ when kids pulled and jerked at each end of the string… Ever since I was a kid, I had wanted to see real skeletons dancing and had always enjoyed seeing skeleton dancing acts in vaudeville.”
A significant deviation from the Mickey Mouse works, The Skeleton Dance is an essential work from Disney’s illustrious filmography. It showcases everything the pioneering animator was capable of, featuring a truly funny premise that is presented in a hilarious format. Ranging from the skeletal xylophone to a skeleton using a cat’s tail to fashion an improvised stringed instrument, The Skeleton Dance is bursting with ideas that feel fresh even after a century.
Watch the film below.
