This is the original Three Little Pigs Silly Symphony; its duration is 8:23. It features the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, as well as the famous song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" According to a few sources, the heavily Jewish image and accent of the Wolf knocking on the brick house's door was removed for the DVD release, but it seems that this revised voice was applied to the YouTube video, even though the visual was not adjusted.

Having easy, unlimited access to the film which is the subject of my research is essential, not only for being able to form a thesis but for being able to interpret and synthesize the various resources I'll find on the subject. I can draw direct evidence as to the narrative structure, characterization, and use of color, music, and sound, and hear the song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" whenever I please.

This book is an enormous print compilation of Disney sketches and animated stills accompanied by text discussing early animation, its principles and appeal, the procedure of putting animation on the screen, character development, animating expressions and dialogue, acting, and other aspects of the technical and nitty-gritty details of how animation works. On page 292, in the Music and Sound section, it devotes an entire page to an example of how composed music and sound effects were synched with the animation. The example is from Three Little Pigs, and includes a sketch of the pig who built with straw running towards his home to take refuge from the wolf.

Beside the sketch are two strips, or "exposure sheets," which show how the pig's movements and actions change with time using little thumbnail sketches along paper with divisions representing time on screen. The main accents of the scene, such as going through the door, slamming the door, opening the door, pulling in the Welcome mat, and closing the door once more are shown along the strips, placed according to which frame contains the action. Where each measure of music falls is notated along the strips as well, and the swelling or dropping off of the line of action through the frames must resonate with the music synched with the film. This is a perfect example of the meticulous detail and effort put in by Disney animators that imparted quality to the resulting films and gave the studio a competitive edge.

The document is a primary source, and a perfect example of the care and extra work put in by Disney employees that is discussed in other sources. It gets into the detail of exactly how the amazing feats Disney studios was able to achieve were performed, and Three Little Pigs is a great example of the effective use of synchronized sound. This illustration, and the accompanying discussion, helps me prove that sound effects and music were part of what made Three Little Pigs so astounding. In addition, this book is almost a bible, filled with details of the animating process which would help me gather background information to discuss other aspects of my argument such as illustration and other animation methods which helped in characterization, as well as color and photography methods.

This journal article deals mainly with the series of films entitled Shakespeare: The Animated Tales, and aims to address the cliche that when portions of the plays are removed in order to make the films, the works are simplified or "dumbed down" to the point where the quality is almost completely sacrificed. It suggests that a better way to analyze the films is to examine them as films, and not as literature, and therefore acknowledge the omissions but still treat the work as a whole. In addition, this reading sees these cuts as necessary to enhance the cinematographic needs of the medium, and the choice of animation brings these valuable and culturally significant stories to a new generation.

The article goes on to cite Walter Benjamin and Sergei Eisenstein's early writings that see animation as significant and important, and claim that it serves as the experimentation necessary for the progress of cinema as a whole. A primary example of Disney's experimentation with anti-realism, according to the article, is the "Silly Symphonies" series of short animated films. The author sees experimentation in various aspects of the film, including "self-reflexivity, technical innovativeness, violation of natural spatial-temporal rules, and violence," and cites other writings which claim that part of the influence of the films lay in their ambiguous target audiences. The films were "not just children's stuff, and certainly not sugar-sweet. Whether they were for adults or children was indeterminate." It was the animated feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that ended this era of experimentation for Disney, and proved that cartoons could be respectable, even "antiseptic." While Warner Brothers continued to be edgy, Disney was now mainstream and accepted by the Production Code.

This article helps me prove the foundation of my thesis, that the Silly Symphonies began as experimental works that allowed Disney and its animators to try new technologies and new forms. It also helps me show that this experimentation led directly to the development of elements, like narrative, character differentiation, and others, whose perfection made the production of an animated feature-length film possible.

The animated short Three Little Pigs is the focus of this paper; the author claims that this short was significant first for epitomizing the quality of Disney films in the 1930s, whose popularity can't be conceived of today. In addition, the author sees the film as crucial in character animation, paving the way for the enduring characters of the next decade. The narrative, indirectly, and the commercial success, more directly, enabled Disney's first feature-length animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The article also discusses the technical achievements of the film, such as the difficulty in animating such similar characters and the effective use of color. The latter innovation, color, was used most effectively by including subtle tone changes with purpose, such as to reinforce the exhaustion of the wolf after trying to blow down the brick house by changing the colors of his face. Finally, sound was key to the film's success and influence. Written to illustrate a song that became a hit, "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", the music helps differentiate characters. The character development was further aided by focusing on four characters, instead of the huge undifferentiated masses often featured in earlier Silly Symphonies.

Finally, the article addresses the metaphor of the story as two-pronged. The popularity of the film suggests the dormant, hopeful message that hard work alone will allow men to prevail even in times of doubt; this was an appealing message in the Depression. Second, audiences saw Walt Disney as a role model. It's possible that simple plots, like that of this short, helped Disney films maintain popularity over competing Warner Brothers series which today seem more appealing.

This article is key to my argument; it helps provide evidence that Three Little Pigs paved the way for Snow White and the future Disney style of creating feature-length films with the same character development, simple plots and positive, moral underlying messages that appealed to audiences.

This is a book of color illustrations and other similar primary source illustrated documents, from final screenshots to draft sketches to storyboard excerpts.  The accompanying text provides context for each picture.  It begins with a series of essays, the second of which is entitled "Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies."  The essay discusses how the emphasis on music in earlier short films such as Steamboat Willie and The Jazz Fool led directly to the initiation of the Silly Symphonies.  Many are mentioned, such as the first, Skeleton Dance, and the first in color, Flowers and Trees.  Two drawings from Three Little Pigs are featured.  The essay discusses the evolution of Technicolor, especially from the two-color to three-color system.  It also discusses the development of the art of animation, especially as driven by the inventive animator Albert Hurter.  He designed settings and main characters, and invested significant effort in developing concepts and visuals which would trigger further development and inspiration on the part of the story writers and other animators.

The essays in this book, and especially the color illustrated accompaniment, would help me intelligently discuss the efforts made at Disney studios to embrace technology and inspire animators.  Facts and examples of the development of Technicolor technology and the changes it caused in films are provided and would help me make the point that the Silly Symphonies, the focus of the discussion, were truly a place where new technologies could be tested and Disney employees made efforts to inspire each other to do great things.

This article is a review and discussion of four newly released double-disc sets in the “Walt Disney Treasures” series.  The discs contain Silly Symphonies, and the author discusses how Disney used technology to gain a competitive edge over the Fleischers.  Disney took more care in music and sound editing and synching, using a technique which enabled animators to listen to already-recorded music and effects and animate in synch with these soundtracks, while the Fleischers’ sound seems more like improvisation.  And Disney signed an exclusive contract, giving him the only rights to use a new three-color Technicolor process that gave his films a “visual pop” unlike any others available. 

This article discusses the technical care and expertise put into Disney short films.  The article argues that the color, shading, draftsmanship, depth techniques, and expressivity of movement eventually used in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were first used in Silly Symphonies like The Goddess of Spring and Three Blind Mouseketeers.  The author also discusses the differences between Walt Disney’s television persona and behind-the scenes “persistent dissatisfaction,” claiming that whichever one considers, Disney’s efforts edged the country towards “greater technological feats.”

This article, while it does not mention Three Little Pigs explicitly, helps fill in some information about how Disney managed to employ technology to his favor, and the details of some of that technology, especially color and sound.  It also shows how the Silly Symphonies served in some cases as proving grounds for new techniques that eventually emerged in full-length animated features, and echoes an often-expressed belief in Walt Disney’s quest for perfection through bigger and better technology. 

This newspaper article commends Disney for not continuing in the direction of Steamboat Willie, but instead “fleshing out” individual characters., giving them “soul” and “color.” The author cites Three Little Pigs as a major turning point for Disney, especially in that it was the first Disney film to have a real plot. The relation of each pig to his house and its construction differentiates and enriches each character. The article includes a quote from Chuck Jones on the subject of Three Little Pigs which comments on character differentiation, saying that in the past, different characters looked different, but in this film, similar-looking characters were differentiated using elements other than visuals alone. The quote also clearly states Jones’ belief that Three Little Pigs was a turning point.

The article mentions music, color, and style as contributing to the success of the film, and states that these factors and the short’s popularity led Disney to another plane. His animated work was, as a direct result of this film, treated seriously, as art, and this can possibly be seen as the beginning of the “Disney empire.” The production of subsequent films, shorts and features, served to codify the Disney style, epitomized by the first Disney feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

This article provides a primary source: animator Chuck Jones states that Three Little Pigs was a turning point. Also helpful is the discussion of why the short was so important, with a focus on characterization and plot. An interesting view expressed here but not elsewhere is that not only did Three Little Pigs serve as an internal bridge from experimental to feature-length fairy tale, but it also launched Disney’s fame externally in the eyes of critics and film journals, and in this way contributed to Disney’s future dominance.

This website provides an index, in chronological order of release, of what looks like all of the Silly Symphonies shorts ever produced. Each entry includes the characters featured, the names of the director, producer, animator, and author, the run time of the short, the release date, and, for many, links to watch the original cartoons. Many also have summaries and information about the cartoon's production, often including original film posters and other pertinent images.

This resource would be key for watching each of the Silly Symphonies, especially Three Little Pigs but also those before and after it.  Watching the films in order also helps develop a sense of the trends in style and other aspects, such as use of color, sound, animation quality, and narrative and cahracter development.  With reference to Three Little Pigs, the site includes key information such as the fact that the film won the Academy Award for Best Short Subject in 1934, was animated by Fred Moore, Norm Ferguson, Art Babbitt, Dick Lundy, and Norman King, and was released on May 27, 1933.

This is a blog entry, but it seems to be of high enough quality for use. Its thesis is that the Republican reading of hard times in Three Little Pigs, both the Depression of the 1930s and even today's housing crisis, is "undercut by various elements of subversion." Characterization helps to differentiate between the lazy pigs and the responsible pig, and these personas are echoed not only in the pigs' actions but the objects they use to decorate their houses. But the author argues that the lazy pigs are so likeable that the message is somewhat obscured, and hypothesizes that much of the Wolf's animosity and the pigs' fear may resemble the corporate structure and relationship between Walt Disney and animators. The primitive use of color contributes to the dream-like quality of Disney, a "surreal," sometimes uncanny vibe which contrasts sharply with how Warner Brothers cartoons, especially today, appear "secular, straightforward, unpretentious, urban, and ethnic.”

This resource would be helpful for showing the effective use of characterization. Its specificity in mentioning how characters are differentiated, through their actions, attitudes, and possessions as well as through color, would be useful. A new look at the short film’s allegorical power, namely, its relevance in today's US economy, is also interesting, as is its comparison of the dreaminess of Disney as compared to the reality of Warner Brothers animated shorts.

This has a chapter on the Silly Symphonies.  I should go read it.