Friday the 13th is my lucky day.
I discovered my work on the Juxtapoz website today.
Juxtapoz is an arts and culture magazine specializing in the Low Brow and Pop Surrealism Art movement. Juxtapoz is one of my very favorite publications, and I am thrilled to be on their radar.
Do you think Walt Disney is all princesses and sunshine? After all, this is the man that killed Old Yeller to make you cry. Bambi’s mother was executed on his order. Walt Disney may be princesses and sunshine, but he had a dark streak the size of Montana.
Walt Disney is one of my favorite artists. 42 years after his death, he remains the most significant figure in the history of animation. His films are cultural touchstones that are handed down from generation to generation. My children, who balk at the idea of watching a black and white movie, will sit effortlessly through a Disney movie that was created literally decades before their grandparents were even born.
That’s good art.
Walt Disney had a love for the macabre. Most people do not realize that he was a pioneer in the American Horror genre. He was virtually the only animator of his era that made Horror cartoons.
The first Silly Symphony cartoon ever made was called THE SKELETON DANCE, and features a group of skeletons dancing and making music in a spooky graveyard. This cartoon was drawn single-handedly by Ub Iwerk for Disney, and was made in 1929, two years before DRACULA was released in 1931. DRACULA is regarded as the film that officially marks the beginning of the Classic Horror Era that developed at Universal Studios.
In Tim Burton’s CORPSE BRIDE from 2005, the skeletons in the underworld perform several of the routines from THE SKELETON DANCE.
My favorite short Horror cartoon from Walt Disney is MAD DOCTOR from 1933. This was made only 5 years after Mickey Mouse’s debut, and already demonstrates sophisticated techniques in every department. There is a particularly nasty shot of the Mad Doctor slicing Pluto’s shadow in half while the dog watches in horror. There is even the suggestion that he’s about to feed Pluto his own shadow. Freaky stuff.
Walt Disney began work on SNOW WHITE in 1934. The film would cost a million and a half dollars at a time when Disney was spending ten to thirty thousand on his short cartoons. Doubts arose from all sides. The press called the project ‘Disney’s Folly’, believing nobody would sit through a movie length cartoon. Doubters included his financial backers, his wife Lillian, and his brother and business partner Roy, who was certain they would be in debt for the rest of their lives.
Despite their concerns, Walt pressed forward relentlessly for three years. The key to SNOW WHITE, as far as Disney was concerned, was the Evil Queen/Peddler Woman. Snow White was sympathetic, the dwarfs humorous, but the villain had to be horrifying enough to scare the audience. Disney’s calculations were correct and SNOW WHITE was a hit throughout the entire world in 1938, despite numerous protests over how scary the film was.
Horror films were banned in Italy until the mid 1950’s. Consequently, for the generation of Italian filmmakers born in the 1930’s and 40’s, SNOW WHITE was their only taste of cinematic terror. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of SNOW WHITE to Italian Horror, as it was a stylistic influence on many seminal Italian horror films, including Mario Bava’s THE MASK OF SATAN and Dario Argento’s SUSPIRIA.
In fact, this scene of Snow White and her terrified flight through the forest was recreated in Mario Bava’s THE MASK OF SATAN in 1960.
While THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW (1949) may be a close second place, Walt Disney’s masterpiece – as far as Horror goes – is the Night On Bald Mountain segment from FANTASIA. This was released in 1940 and directed by Wilfred Jackson.
This may be my favorite piece of animation ever:
So there you go, kiddies. Walt Disney – Master of Horror.
