A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.
It is WINTER, and when not braving the icy winds the forest animals are gliding on the ice. They don't neglect their trip to Mr. Groundhog, though, to get a forecast of the coming weather...
More action/reaction animation in this black & white cartoon. Also more posterior gags, in dubious taste, from the Disney animators. The bear cub having a face almost identical to Mickey Mouse was probably no accident.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most interesting of series in the field of animation. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.