The Big Bad Wolf

A Walt Disney SILLY SYMPHONY Cartoon Short.

THE BIG BAD WOLF has returned, and this time he's after Little Red Riding Hood. Only the Practical Pig can save her and old Granny now.

With the huge commercial success of THREE LITTLE PIGS (1933), it was inevitable that Disney would produce a follow-up. This film is a good, well-plotted sequel, with the diminutive porcine heroes interpolated into the story of Red Riding Hood quite nicely. The wolf gets to use more of his thespian disguises, this time appearing as both a fairy queen & Granny. Viewers will notice that Practical Pig's hard at work building an addition to his brick house, doubtless due to the fact that his two silly brothers now reside with him.

The story of the never-ending struggle between the Pigs & their hairy nemesis continues in THREE LITTLE WOLVES (1936).

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.