"A Silly Symphony"

Synopsis

Three kittens are heartlessly abandoned during a snowstorm. They try to take refuge in a nearby house and playfully begin to tear the house apart.

Characters

Three Orphan Kittens

Mammy Twoshoes

Credits

Director : Dave Hand

Animation : Ken Anderson

Story : Bill Cottrell

Layout : Ken Anderson

Cut Scenes

A black doll exclaiming "Mammy!" was cut out of this short.

Awards

Academy Award winner (Short Subjects - Cartoons)

Videos

United States

Cartoon Classics : Limited Gold Editions 2 : How the Best Was Won : 1933-1960

Germany

Meister-Cartoons von Walt Disney

Italy

I Capolavori di Walt Disney

France

Les Chefs-d'Oeuvre de Walt Disney

Laserdiscs

United States

How the Best was Won 1933-1960

Japan

The Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons

The Three Little Pigs

Television

The Ink and Paint Club : #1 : Award Winners

The Ink and Paint Club : #27 : Meow! The Disney Cats

Donald's Quack Attack : Episode 9

Technical Specifications

Color Type : Technicolor

Animation type : Standard

Sound mix : Mono

Aspect ration : 1.37 : 1

Negative format : 35mm

Print format : 35mm

Cinematographic process : Spherical

Original language : English

Released by United Artists

Title Cards

Click on thumbnail for full sized picture

(Note : Titlecards and screenshots taken from the 2006 DVD Disney Treasures : More Silly Symphonies.)

Click here to submit a comment of your own.

Three kittens are discarded in a snow storm, but find refuge in a warm house. After several mishaps that result in broken dishes, the kittens are about to be thrown out by the maid. But the little girl of the house rescues the kittens by asking to be allowed to keep them. The unusually high animation design and use of perspective is considered the key to this short winning the Oscar. Although nicely done and enjoyable, I just don't consider this short Oscar quality. I would have chosen "Music Land" myself.

Overall this short was good. I thought it was kind of cute. One thing that puzzles me is that the mother was black and her daughter was white. How the heck did this happen? Perhaps she was adopted.

In this short the use of perspective is extraordinary. in some sequences look at the background: it's not stationary, it moves while the point of view changes. The movement of the camera is not so complicated such as in the ballroom sequence from Beauty And The Beast, but they had not CGI technologies.

This was the first of three shorts starring the politically incorrect maid Mammy Twoshoes. Although a similar maid apperad in the 1943 short "Figaro and Cleo" she was known as Aunt Delilah; perhaps she is a sister to Mammy Twoshoes!

Referenced Comments

Plane Crazy (1928)

The Robber Kitten (1935)