"A Silly Symphony"

Release Date August 27, 1931

Running Time 6:20

Synopsis

An inquisitive spider explores the creepy interior of an Egyptian tomb, causing mummies and strange wall paintings to spring to life.

Credits

Director : Wilfred Jackson

Animation : Roldolfo "Rudy" Zamora

DVD

Disney Treasures : Silly Symphonies

Television

The Ink and Paint Club : #38 : Infested Silly Symphonies

Technical Specifications

Color Type : Black and White

Animation type : Standard

Sound mix : Mono

Aspect ration : 1.33 : 1

Negative format : 35mm

Print format : 35mm

Cinematographic process : Spherical

Original language : English

Released by Columbia Pictures

Gallery

Click on the thumbnail for the full-sized picture

Comments

From Rod Bennett : This atypical Silly Symphony plays more like a Fleischer short of the same period; filled with technical gimmicks and inanimate objects rising up to join the fun. Very odd.

From Jerry Edwards : A spider's misadventures with mummies and moving hieroglyphics in a pyramid tomb frighten him away. The spider is shown playing a web like a harp. When the spider is surprised by some mummies, he does an Al Jolsen-like routine "Mummy!" The spider then hides in an Egyptian urn as teh hieroglyphics come to life. When the hieroglyphics figures start fighting and snakes appear on the hieroglyphics, the spider is frightened away, running into the desert. As with most animated spiders (Disney or non-Disney), this is a "handicapped" spider - only 6 legs instead of a spider's 8 legs. Of course, this is to give the animators less work to animate. This spider had shoes on 4 feet and gloves on 2 "hands." Backgrounds of tunnels in the tomb that the spider tumbles through were reused as backgrounds in the 1933 Mickey short "The Mad Doctor."

From Brian : The same spider from "Midnite in a Toy Shop." returns in this crazy black-and-white short where Egyptian hieroglyphics that come to life and get into a fight cause the terrified spider to quickly run away from the tomb. Be cautious; this short is too intense for the RUGRAT crowd.

From Ryan : I find this to be a very nicely animated cartoon. I enjoy the scenes where the hieroglyphics come to life and start dancing to music. As mentioned before, the scene where the spider goes through the pyramid tunnel was reused in the 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon "The Mad Doctor."

From Gijs Grob : This is one of those silly symphonies that offers quite a dull dance routine only (and no story). Nevertheless, the introduction of the cartoon is well worth seeing: when we follow a six-legged spider into the pyramid, we experience some astonishing 3D-effect animation, creating the feeling that the camera wanders through corridors and staircases. This unique exercise in perspective would not be repeated in animation until labyrinth computer games were introduced in the nineteen-eighties.

Besides this great introduction this cartoon also offers a great finale: it is one of the earliest nightmare-sequences, in which the montage of images is diffuse and increasingly sped up, in order to suggest the feeling of getting insane.

This predates similar sequences in films like "Der Fuehrer's Face." by many years.

Referenced Comments

Mother Goose Melodies (1931)