The Truth About Mother Goose is an animated short film released on August 28, 1957, by Walt Disney Productions. [1] The short was directed by Wolfgang Reitherman in his directorial debut, and Bill Justice, and written by Bill Peet.
In this short, a trio of jazz-singing jesters sing three Mother Goose nursery rhymes, while an off screen narrator explains their origins in three animated vignettes. The rhymes include:
The short was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1957, but lost to the Merrie Melodies cartoon Birds Anonymous .
The short was released on December 6, 2005, on Walt Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities – Celebrated Shorts: 1920s–1960s . [2]
The Alice Comedies are a series of live-action animated shorts created by Walt Disney in the 1920s, in which a live action little girl named Alice and an animated cat named Julius have adventures in an animated landscape. The shorts were the first work by what ultimately became The Walt Disney Company.
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.
Ben and Me is an American animated two-reel short subject produced by Walt Disney Productions and released theatrically on November 10, 1953. It was adapted from the book of the same name written by author/illustrator Robert Lawson and first published in 1939. Though both book and film deal with the relationship between a mouse and American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin, the book, with illustrations by Lawson, focused more heavily on actual historical events and personages, and included incidents from Franklin's French career at Versailles.
A Symposium on Popular Songs is a special cartoon featurette made by Walt Disney Productions in 1962. It features songs that were written by the Sherman Brothers, with music arrangements by Tutti Camarata. The Shermans also co-wrote the screenplay but are not credited for this. Host Ludwig Von Drake invites his audience into his mansion where he tells all about popular music through the years, introducing several songs illustrated with stop-motion photography. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
Chicken Little is a 1943 short film created by Walt Disney during World War II and directed by Clyde Geronimi. The short was based on the European folk tale "Henny Penny", known in the United States as "Chicken Little". It is an anti-Nazi film showing the evils of mass hysteria.
Alice's Wonderland is a 1923 Walt Disney short silent film, produced in Kansas City, Missouri by Laugh-O-Gram Studio. The black-and-white short was the first in a series of Walt Disney's famous Alice Comedies and had a working title of Alice in Slumberland. The film was never shown theatrically, but was instead shown to prospective film distributors.
Lambert the Sheepish Lion is a Disney animated short film that was released in 1952. It was directed by Jack Hannah.
Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom is an American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Ward Kimball and Charles A. Nichols. A sequel to the first Adventures in Music cartoon, the 3-D short Melody, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom is a stylized presentation of the evolution of the four orchestra sections over the ages with: the brass ("toot"), the woodwind ("whistle"), the strings ("plunk"), and the percussion ("boom").
In the Bag is a 1956 American animated short comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions, directed by Jack Hannah, and featuring park ranger J. Audubon Woodlore and his comedic foil Humphrey the Bear.
The Brave Engineer is a 1950 Walt Disney-produced animated short film, based on the exploits of legendary railroad engineer John Luther "Casey" Jones. It is narrated by comic Jerry Colonna and is a comedically madcap fanciful re-telling of the story related in the Wallace Saunders ballad, later made famous by Eddie Newton and T. Lawrence Seibert. It was also released fifty years after Jones was killed.
Goliath II is a 1960 American animated comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Productions. Directed by Wolfgang Reitherman and written by Bill Peet, it is narrated by Sterling Holloway and stars the voices of Kevin Corcoran, Barbara Jo Allen and Paul Frees. It was released theatrically in the United States on January 21, 1960, alongside the live-action film Toby Tyler.
Pigs Is Pigs is a 1954 animated film by Walt Disney Studios. Based on the story "Pigs Is Pigs" by Ellis Parker Butler, it relates the tale of a railway agent and his problems with a shipment of two guinea pigs that proceed to breed rapidly. The cartoon was animated in the flat, colorful UPA style. The melody of the traditional Irish jig "The Irish Washerwoman" is repeated throughout the short.
Mother Goose Goes Hollywood is a 1938 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and distributed by RKO Radio Pictures. The short was released on December 23, 1938. The film parodies several Mother Goose nursery rhymes using caricatures of popular Hollywood film stars of the 1930s. The film was directed by Wilfred Jackson and was the third-to-last Silly Symphony produced.
Morris the Midget Moose is a Walt Disney animated short, based on a 1945 picture book published by G.P. Putnam's sons, written and illustrated by Frank Owen, originally released to theaters on November 24, 1950, from Walt Disney Productions, originally released by RKO Radio Pictures and then, Buena Vista Distribution for its re-release.
Melody is an American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and directed by Ward Kimball and Charles A. Nichols. Originally released on May 28, 1953, this film was the first in a proposed series of animated cartoon shorts teaching the principles of music, called Adventures in Music. Only one other entry in the series was produced, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom, which was released later that same year, winning an Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons) the following year.
Old King Cole is a Disney cartoon in the Silly Symphonies series, based on several nursery rhymes and fairy tales, including "Old King Cole". It was directed by David Hand and released on July 29, 1933.
Ferdinand the Bull is a 1938 American stand-alone animated short produced by Walt Disney Productions and released on November 25, 1938, by RKO Radio Pictures. It was directed by Dick Rickard and based on the 1936 book The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. The music was by Albert Hay Malotte, most known for his setting of The Lord's Prayer, commonly sung at weddings.
Mother Goose Melodies is a 1931 Silly Symphonies animated film, directed by Burt Gillett. Two years later it was semi remade in Technicolor as Old King Cole.
Paul Bunyan is a 1958 American animated musical short film produced by Walt Disney Productions. The short was based on the North American folk hero and lumberjack Paul Bunyan and was inspired after meeting with Les Kangas of Paul Bunyan Productions, who gave Disney the idea for the film. The film was directed by Les Clark, a member of Disney's Nine Old Men of core animators. Thurl Ravenscroft starred as the voice of Paul Bunyan. Supporting animators on the project included Lee Hartman.
Social Lion is a Walt Disney-produced animated short film directed by Jack Kinney, released by Buena Vista on October 15, 1954. The film was written by Milt Schaffer and Dick Kinney and animated entirely by Disney veteran Norm Ferguson.