| Merbabies | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Rudolf Ising Vernon Stallings (both uncredited) Supervised by: the Walt Disney crew in the uncredited |
| Story by | Pinto Colvig Jonathan Caldwell Maurice Day (all uncredited) |
| Produced by | Walt Disney Hugh Harman (uncredited) Rudolf Ising (uncredited) |
| Starring | Pinto Colvig Leone LeDoux [1] |
| Music by | Scott Bradley (uncredited) |
| Animation by | Character animation: Lee Blair Thomas McKimson Carl Urbano Jim Pabian Pete Burness Michael Lah Melvin Shaw Rollin Hamilton Frank Smith Jack Zander (all uncredited) |
| Layouts by | Don Smith John Niendorff Maurice Day (all uncredited) |
| Backgrounds by | Art Riley Don Schaffer (both uncredited) |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date | December 9, 1938 |
Running time | 8:34 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Merbabies is a Silly Symphonies animated Disney short film. It was released on December 9, 1938. [2] It is a collaboration between Walt Disney and Harman and Ising, the latter studio having donated artists to Disney to work on the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). It is one of the last shorts of the Silly Symphonies series.
 | This article needs an improved plot summary.(September 2015) |
A large number of identical redheaded "merbabies" materialize out of the crashing surf and are summoned to a playground on the ocean floor for an underwater circus in which marine creatures such as seahorses and starfish also take part, beginning with a parade. When a whale blows all the merbabies to the surface inside bubbles, they disappear into the waves from which they came. [3]
The short was released on the DVD of The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and again on December 19, 2006, on Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies, Volume Two . [2] It was released to Disney+ on September 8, 2023, with a 4K restoration. [4]
Plane Crazy is a 1928 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The cartoon, released by the Walt Disney Studios, was the first appearance of Mickey Mouse and his girlfriend Minnie Mouse, and was originally a silent film. It was given a test screening to a theater audience on May 15, 1928, and an executive from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer saw the film, but failed to pick up a distributor. Later that year, Disney released Mickey's first sound cartoon, Steamboat Willie, which was an enormous success; Plane Crazy was officially released as a sound cartoon on March 17, 1929. It was the fourth Mickey film to be given a wide release after Steamboat Willie, The Gallopin' Gaucho and The Barn Dance (1929).
Silly Symphony is an American animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the Silly Symphonies were originally intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music. As such, the films usually did not feature continuing characters, unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts produced by Disney at the same time. The series is notable for its innovation with Technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera, as well as its introduction of the character Donald Duck making his first appearance in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Seven shorts won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
The golden age of American animation was a period in the history of U.S. animation that began with the popularization of sound synchronized cartoons in 1928, began to decline around 1957, and ended by 1969, when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the Golden Age were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited animation techniques by companies such as Terrytoons, UPA, Famous Studios, Jay Ward Productions, Hanna-Barbera, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, Rankin/Bass and Filmation. In artefact, the history of animation became very important in the United States.
Bosko is an animated cartoon character created by animators Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising. Bosko was the first recurring character in Leon Schlesinger's cartoon series and was the star of thirty-nine Looney Tunes shorts released by Warner Bros. He was voiced by Carman Maxwell, Johnny Murray, and Billie "Buckwheat" Thomas during the 1920s and 1930s and once by Don Messick during the 1990s.
Hugh Harman was an American animator. He was known for creating the Warner Bros. Cartoons and MGM Cartoons studios and his collaboration with Rudolf Ising during the Golden Age of American animation.
Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising were an American animation team and company known for founding the Warner Bros. and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation studios. In 1929, the studio was founded under the name "Harman-Ising Productions", producing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for Leon Schlesinger from 1930 to 1933. From 1934 to 1938, Harman-Ising produced the Happy Harmonies series, with William Hanna as their employee.
Rudolf Carl Ising was an American animator best known for collaborating with Hugh Harman to establish the Warner Bros. and MGM Cartoon studios during the early years of the golden age of American animation. In 1940, Ising produced William Hanna and Joseph Barbera's first cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot, a cartoon featuring characters later known as Tom and Jerry.
Sinkin' in the Bathtub is the first Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon short as well as the first of the Looney Tunes series. The short debuted in April 1930, at the Warner Bros. Theater in Hollywood. The cartoon features Bosko, and the title is a pun on the 1929 song Singin' in the Bathtub. The film was erroneously copyrighted under the same title as the 1929 song. It is now in the public domain in the United States as the copyright was not renewed.
Donald's Nephews is a 1938 Donald Duck animated cartoon which features Donald being visited by his three nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. This cartoon is Huey, Dewey, and Louie's first appearance in animation. Al Taliaferro, the artist for the Silly Symphony comic strip, proposed the idea for the film, so that the studio would have duck counterparts to Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, the nephews of Mickey Mouse. The Walt Disney Productions Story Dept. on February 5, 1937 sent Taliaferro a memo recognizing him as the source of the idea for the planned short.
Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid is a 1929 live-action/animated short film produced to sell a series of Bosko cartoons. The film was never released to theaters, and therefore not seen by a wide audience until 2000 on Cartoon Network's television special Toonheads: The Lost Cartoons. The film was produced on May 29, 1929 and directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising.
The Skeleton Dance is a 1929 Silly Symphony animated short subject produced and directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks. In the film, four human skeletons dance and make music around a spooky graveyard—a modern film example of medieval European "danse macabre" imagery. It is the first entry in the Silly Symphony series. In 1993, to coincide with the opening of Mickey's Toontown in Disneyland, a shortened cover of the cartoon's music was arranged to be featured in the land's background ambiance. The short's copyright was renewed in 1957, and as a published work from 1929 it will enter the US public domain on January 1, 2025.
Walt Disney Treasures is a series of two-disc DVD collections of Disney cartoons, television episodes and other material. They cover material from the studio's earliest days to its more recent work. There were nine waves, each containing two to four sets, for a total of 30 titles. All content is presented uncensored and uncut with digitally restored picture and remastered sound.
Happy Harmonies is a series of thirty-seven animated cartoons distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and produced by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising between 1934 and 1938.
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio was an American animation studio operated by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) during the Golden Age of American animation. Active from 1937 until 1957, the studio was responsible for producing animated shorts to accompany MGM feature films in Loew's Theaters, which included popular cartoon characters Tom, Jerry, Droopy, Butch, Spike, Tyke, and Barney Bear.
Owen Earl Duvall was an American artist and animator best known for his work on Disney comic strips in the early 1930s and for a handful of animated short films he directed at Warner Bros. Cartoons.
Three Orphan Kittens is a 1935 animated short film in the Silly Symphonies series produced by Walt Disney Productions. It was the winner of the 1935 Oscar for Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons). It was followed in 1936 by a sequel, More Kittens.
Wynken, Blynken & Nod is a 1938 Silly Symphonies cartoon, adapted from Eugene Field's poem of the same name. Like other Symphonies at the time, it utilized the multiplane camera. It was directed by Graham Heid, produced by Walt Disney Productions, and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The three children bore similarities to Michael Darling in the 1953 Disney feature film, Peter Pan.
George Vernon Stallings was an American animation director and writer. He started working for Bray Productions in 1916 where he directed the Colonel Heeza Liar series of shorts, and the Krazy Kat shorts. He invented "the animation disk placed in the centre of the drawing board" in the 1920s. Its primary use by 1930 was as an aid in inking cels. He then worked for Van Beuren Studios from 1931 through 1934.
Arctic Antics is a Silly Symphonies animated Disney short film. It was released on June 26, 1930.
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