The Hot Choc-late Soldiers

Last updated

The Hot Choc-late Soldiers
The Hot Chocolate Soldiers title card.jpg
Title card displayed in the film
Directed by Walt Disney
Story by Howard Dietz
Arthur Kober
Produced by Walt Disney
Narrated byFreeman High [1]
Animation byLeonard Sebring
Cy Young
Louie Schmitt
Ben Sharpsteen
Fred Moore
Roy Williams
Jack Kinney
Frank Oreb
Milt Schaffer
Bob Kuwahara
Ugo D'Orsi
Joe D'Igalo
Production
company
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
June 1, 1934, as part of Hollywood Party
Running time
5 minutes, 4 seconds
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Hot Choc-late Soldiers, also stylized as The Hot Chocolate Soldiers, is an American animated short film that was made by Walt Disney Productions for MGM's 1934 film Hollywood Party , [2] which premiered on June 1, 1934. [3] [4] It is prefaced in the film by a scene where Mickey Mouse appears at the party, performs a brief Durante impression, and then sits down at a piano, after which The Hot Choc-late Soldiers begins to play. [5] Due to stipulations in the contract between Disney and Turner Entertainment, the short was edited out of the film when it was screened on TNT, [5] however Turner was able to negotiate the licenses so that the footage was included in a 1992 VHS release of Hollywood Party and for subsequent releases. [6]

Contents

The short contains no vocals other than a song performed by Don Wilson that describes the events of the cartoon.

Synopsis

A group of confectionery soldiers go to war against a neighboring cookie castle. As the army parade through the city streets, Chocolate Ladies and Soldiers' wives blow kisses to bid them goodbye. After multiple thwarted attempts to enter, the soldiers successfully conquer the fort defended by a troop of Gingerbread Soldiers by using a cunning Trojan Horse shaped like a large, candy-colored pigeon. The soldiers then take their Gingerbread prisoners to their city, but the sun beats down on the soldiers and melts them into a river of chocolate.

Production

In 1933, MGM contracted Disney to create a "'Silly Symphony' type" sequence for the film (then called Hollywood Revue). [7] In the contract, MGM stipulated that they wanted a sequence that was 400 feet in length and that they would pay Disney $64,000 ($80,000 if it was in technicolor) in four installments. [7] The contract also stated that the short would not appear in 16 mm and television showings of the film and that Disney would create the musical score for the short, with MGM providing the musicians, sound effects, and recording equipment. [7]

One of the short's original concepts was to focus on movie-star caricatures, which was dropped in favor of the song "Hot Choc-late Soldiers", which was written by MGM songwriters Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed for the short. [7] Despite the earlier contract, the soundtrack was recorded at Disney's studio. Animation for the film was overseen by Ben Sharpsteen, who guided a group of young artists that included Cy Young and Ugo D'Orsi. [7] Production on the short occurred in the summer and fall of 1933 and a completed version of The Hot Choc-late Soldiers was sent to MGM in the beginning of November, only for the studio to return the short with a request to re-work the final scenes featuring the melted chocolate soldiers. [7] The final version of the short was delivered to MGM on January 22, 1934. [7]

The short is prefaced by a brief cameo by Mickey Mouse (who was voiced by Walt Disney himself), [8] which was not initially intended to be included in the film but came about after a pitch for the character to appear in the 1933 film Meet the Baron was dropped. [7] It represented Mickey's first actual appearance in a feature film, but was removed from the film upon its release to television. [9] Mickey's appearance was intended to be used as a way to segue to the short, but the scene was subject to a series of re-writes as at this point in time Mickey Mouse shorts were built around "visual, rather than verbal, humor". [7] The script went through so many re-writes that the scene's production took far less time to animate than it did to write. [7] Scriptwriting for the scene began in May 1933 and was completed around late September 1933. The completed scene was delivered to MGM in November 1933. [7]

Reception

Much of the reception for The Hot Choc-late Soldiers focused upon its appearance in the film Hollywood Party. During Hollywood Party's initial release the short was seen as a highlight of a film that was largely panned by critics, a viewpoint shared by J. B. Kaufman and Roger Dooley. [7] [10] Critics like the City University of New York professor David Bakish and Velvet Light Trap's Allen Larson would later comment on how the appearance of Mickey and the introduction of the short felt abrupt and unintegrated with the rest of the film. [5] [11]

Notes

Warner Bros. Pictures (via Turner Entertainment Co.) and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (via Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Studios) currently rights shared of this short film as well as the feature film, Hollywood Party because of both Turner's ownership of pre-1986 MGM library and most of Walt Disney Productions classic library owned by The Walt Disney Company, which currently stored in Disney Vault. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment also published several Disney video games including: Cars 3: Driven to Win and Lego The Incredibles . Warner Bros. Home Entertainment also currently handled home media distribution of MGM's post-April 1986 library (under distribution licensed by MGM Home Entertainment), which already owns and distributes the studio's pre-May 1986 library through their ownership of Turner Entertainment Co., after the MGM/Fox home media worldwide deal expired (since most of the 20th Century Studios titles currently owned under Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment banner). Merry Little Batman was released on December 8, 2023 on Amazon Prime Video by Amazon MGM Studios, making it the first Amazon MGM Studios animated production that was not produced, distributed, or owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This is also the first of few Disney animated short film produced and distributed by an outside studio.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mickey Mouse</span> Disney cartoon character and mascot

Mickey Mouse is an American cartoon character co-created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. The longtime icon and mascot of the Walt Disney Company, Mickey is an anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large shoes, and white gloves.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ub Iwerks</span> American animator and special effects pioneer (1901–1971)

Ubbe Ert Iwerks, known as Ub Iwerks, was an American animator, cartoonist, character designer, inventor, and special effects technician, known for his work with Walt Disney Animation Studios in general, and for having worked on the development of the design of the character of Mickey Mouse, among others. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Iwerks grew up with a contentious relationship with his father, who abandoned him as a child. Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney while working at a Kansas City art studio in 1919.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jimmy Durante</span> American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist (1893–1980)

James Francis Durante was an American comedian, actor, singer, and pianist. His distinctive gravelly speech, Lower East Side accent, comic language-butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and prominent nose helped make him one of the United States' most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. He often referred to his nose as the schnozzola, and the word became his nickname.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Golden age of American animation</span> Period of animation where theatrical sound cartoons were common and popular

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 and gradually ended in the 1960s when theatrical animated shorts started to lose popularity to the newer medium of television. Animated media from after the golden age, especially on television, were produced on cheaper budgets and with more limited techniques between the 1960s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bosko</span> Warner Bros. theatrical cartoon character

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.

<i>Orphans Benefit</i> 1934, 1941 Mickey Mouse cartoon

Orphan's Benefit is an American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions in black-and-white. It was first released in 1934 and was later remade in Technicolor in 1941 under the corrected title Orphans' Benefit. The cartoon features Mickey Mouse and his friends putting on a vaudeville-style benefit show for a group of unruly orphans. It contains a number of firsts for Disney, including the first time in which Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck appear together, and was the 68th Mickey Mouse short film to be released, and the sixth of that year. It was also the cartoon which had the first story to be written that featured Donald Duck, though it was the second Donald Duck short to be produced and released, after The Wise Little Hen.

<i>The Chain Gang</i> (1930 film) 1930 Mickey Mouse cartoon

The Chain Gang is a 1930 Mickey Mouse animated film produced by Walt Disney Productions for Columbia Pictures, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the twenty-first Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the sixth of that year. It is one of a group of shorts of strikingly uneven quality produced by Disney immediately after Ub Iwerks left the studio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disney's Hollywood Studios</span> Theme park at Walt Disney World in Bay Lake, Florida

Disney's Hollywood Studios is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Experiences division. Based on a concept by Marty Sklar, Randy Bright, and Michael Eisner, the park opened on May 1, 1989, as the Disney–MGM Studios (Theme) Park, and was the third of four theme parks built at Walt Disney World. Spanning 135 acres (55 ha), the park is themed to an idealized version of Hollywood, California, and is dedicated to the imagined worlds from film, television, music, and theatre, drawing inspiration from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laugh-O-Gram Studio</span> A studio founded by Walt Disney

The Laugh-O-Gram Studio was an animation studio located on the second floor of the McConahay Building at 1127 East 31st in Kansas City, Missouri, that operated from June 28, 1921, to October 16, 1923.

Richard James Lundy was an American animator and film director who worked at several animation studios including The Walt Disney Company, MGM, and Hanna-Barbera. Lundy was a pioneer of personality animation and is best remembered as one of the creators of Donald Duck. Throughout his career he worked as a primary animator on at least 60 films, both short and feature-length, and directed 51 shorts.

John Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts. Kinney is the older brother of fellow Disney animator Dick Kinney.

<i>The Mad Doctor</i> (1933 film) 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon

The Mad Doctor is a Mickey Mouse cartoon released in 1933. It is known as the first appearance of the title character "The Mad Doctor", or "Dr. XXX". It was the 52nd Mickey Mouse short film, and the second of that year.

<i>The Karnival Kid</i> 1929 Mickey Mouse cartoon

The Karnival Kid is a 1929 Mickey Mouse short animated film released by Celebrity Productions, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was directed by Walt Disney and animated by Ub Iwerks, with music by Carl W. Stalling. It was the ninth Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the sixth of that year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio</span> Division of MGM film studio responsible for producing animated shorts

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.

<i>Hollywood Party</i> (1934 film) 1934 musical film collaboration

Hollywood Party, also known under its working title of The Hollywood Revue of 1933 and Star Spangled Banquet, is a 1934 American pre-Code musical film starring Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges, Jimmy Durante, Lupe Vélez and Mickey Mouse. It was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Each sequence featured a different star with a separate scriptwriter and director assigned.

Mickey's Gala Premier is a Walt Disney cartoon produced in 1933, directed by Burt Gillett, and featuring parodies of several famous Hollywood film actors from the 1930s. It was the 58th Mickey Mouse short film, and the eighth of that year.

<i>Building a Building</i> 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon

Building a Building is a 1933 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Production and released by United Artists. A remake of the 1928 Oswald the Lucky Rabbit film Sky Scrappers, the cartoon depicts Mickey Mouse working at a construction site under the supervision of Peg-Leg Pete while Minnie Mouse is selling box lunches to the workers. It was directed by David Hand, his first directorial assignment at Disney, and features the voices of Walt Disney as Mickey, Marcellite Garner as Minnie, and Pinto Colvig as Pete. It was the 51st Mickey Mouse short film, and the first of that year.

Arctic Antics is a Silly Symphonies animated Disney short film. It was released on June 26, 1930.

The Birthday Party is a Mickey Mouse short animated film first released on January 2, 1931, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the twenty-fifth Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the first of that year.

References

  1. ↑ Scott, Keith (October 3, 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2. BearManor Media. p. 514.
  2. ↑ Merritt, Russell; Kaufman, J.B. (2006). Walt Disney's Silly symphonies: a companion to the Classic cartoon series. La Cineteca del Friuli. pp. 161, 215, 216–217, 234. ISBN   9788886155274 . Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  3. ↑ Beck, Jerry (2005). The Animated Movie Guide . Chicago Review Press. p.  333. ISBN   1556525915 . Retrieved June 4, 2015. Hot Chocolate Soldiers Disney.
  4. ↑ Goldmark, Daniel Ira; Keil, Charles (2011). Funny Pictures: Animation and Comedy in Studio-Era Hollywood. University of California Press. p. 91. ISBN   9780520950122 . Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 Bakish, David (1994). Jimmy Durante. McFarland. p. 72. ISBN   9780899509686 . Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  6. ↑ Kurtti, Jeff. "The Wonderful World of WALT: The Unexpected Walt Disney". Disney.com blog. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Kaufman, J.B. (June 1993). "Before Snow White". Film History. 5 (2): 164–172. JSTOR   27670718.
  8. ↑ Zimmerman, Steve (2009). Food in the Movies. McFarland. p. 85. ISBN   9780786455690 . Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  9. ↑ staff. "The Hot Choc-Late Soldiers". Big Cartoon Database . Retrieved June 5, 2015.[ dead link ]
  10. ↑ Dooley, Roger (1984). From Scarface to Scarlett: American films in the 1930s. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. p. 506. ISBN   9780156339988 . Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  11. ↑ Larson, Allen (Fall 2009). "Hollywood Party, Jimmy Durante, and the cultural politics of coherence.(Critical essay)". Velvet Light Trap. 64: 11. doi:10.1353/vlt.0.0038. S2CID   153670566 . Retrieved June 4, 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.