A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.
Mouse Abner, THE COUNTRY COUSIN from Podunk, arrives in the big city to taste some of the high life enjoyed by his sophisticated cousin, Monty. Enjoying the viands of a banquet table - most especially the champagne - Abner is soon to encounter his first big city cat...
With the delightful Abner the center of attention, this fun, fast-paced cartoon spoof of Aesop's Fable easily became the 1936 Academy Award recipient.
The SILLY SYMPHONIES, which Walt Disney produced for a ten year period beginning in 1929, are among the most fascinating of all animated series. Unlike the Mickey Mouse cartoons in which action was paramount, with the Symphonies the action was made to fit the music. There was little plot in the early Symphonies, which featured lively inanimate objects and anthropomorphic plants & animals, all moving frantically to the soundtrack. Gradually, however, the Symphonies became the school where Walt's animators learned to work with color and began to experiment with plot, characterization & photographic special effects. The pages of Fable & Fairy Tale, Myth & Mother Goose were all mined to provide story lines and even Hollywood's musicals & celebrities were effectively spoofed. It was from this rich soil that Disney's feature-length animation was to spring. In 1939, with SNOW WHITE successfully behind him and PINOCCHIO & FANTASIA on the near horizon, Walt phased out the SILLY SYMPHONIES; they had run their course & served their purpose.
