Disney Silly Symphonies - The Wise Little Hen
The Wise Little Hen - Donald Duck's Debut
In the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen, a mother hen asks Peter Pig and Donald Duck to help her plant her corn. "Who, me?" they each exclaim. "Oh, no! I got a bellyache!" In the end, the little hen and her chicks have to do all the work themselves... although Donald and Peter are more than eager to help them eat the corn!

Disney Silly Symphonies - The Pied Piper
The Pied Piper of Hamlin
From Snow White to Beauty and the Beast, Disney is synonymous with fairy tales. But long before Disney started making full length animated films, the studio was borrowing from fairy tales to create Silly Symphony cartoons such as this one: The Pied Piper. The town of Hamelin is overrun by rats, and the mayor promises a bag of gold to anyone who can get rid of the pesky rodents. A stranger lures the rats away by playing his pipe, but the mayor refuses to give him the promised gold. You probab...

Disney Silly Symphonies - Three Little Pigs
Three Little Pigs - A Disney Classic
The Three Little Pigs was one of Disney's most popular Silly Symphony cartoons. It made such a splash after it was released in 1933 that it ran in the theaters for months, and it won the 1933 Academy Award for best animated film. The song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" became something of an anthem that lifted people's spirits during the Great Depression. The Three Little Pigs is based on a fairy tale of the same name. Of course, Disney made some changes to the tale to make it less depr...

Disney Silly Symphonies - Flowers and Trees
Flowers and Trees
Flowers and Trees is a Silly Symphony Disney cartoon that tells the story of three trees. Two of them are in love with each other, but an old stump of a tree tries to come between them. Produced in 1932, Flowers and Trees was a technological marvel at the time: It was the first cartoon to ever be produced in color. Originally it was going to be in standard black and white, and in fact was more than halfway done when Walt Disney had the whole thing scrapped and redone in color. The experimen...

Disney Silly Symphonies - The Old Mill
A Disney Masterpiece
The Old Mill is one of Disney's most beautiful, realistic, and atmospheric Silly Symphony cartoon shorts. It is the first Disney cartoon to make use of the multiplane camera, giving it realism and depth. It's the story of an abandoned mill, which is now a home for wildlife such as field mice, sparrows, and bats. We see the animals inside the old mill settling in for what promises to be a peaceful evening. But everything is thrown in chaos when a violent storm threatens to destroy the mill.