A Dark and Stormy Night, 1929

Lightning crashes and the wind howls as a lone owl gives a plaintive hoot against the backdrop of a full moon.  A clock in a church belfry strikes midnight and a colony of bats fly into the night.  Nearby, a dog howls while two black cats hiss at each other atop two gravestones.  Suddenly, a bony apparition rises from the ground and leaps toward the audience.

It's time for the skeletons to come out and play.  Let's dance.

Eighty-one years ago today, Walt Disney premiered The Skeleton Dance, his first Silly Symphony cartoon.  Ripe off of the immense success of Mickey Mouse (Steamboat Willie debuted the previous November), Walt was already looking to explore new avenues in animation.  His musical director, Carl Stalling, was the first to propose the idea of a series of cartoons built on a foundation of music that starred non-recurring characters.  The first cartoon would be based on the musical piece "March of the Dwarfs" by Edvard Grieg.

It was a tough sell.  Mickey Mouse's popularity was skyrocketing and Walt's distributor, Pat Powers, was only interested in seeing "more mice."  Plus, Powers thought the subject matter was just too gruesome--the public wouldn't like it.  But, Walt persisted and eventually convinced the manager of the Carthay Circle Theater in Los Angeles to give The Skeleton Dance a shot.  The response was enthusiastic by both audiences and critics.  Soon, The Skeleton Dance was booked into New York's Roxy Theater and became a bona fide hit.

Ub Iwerks, Disney's most talented and prolific animator at the time, drew virtually all of The Skeleton Dance and his artistry still delights to this day.  In the sequence where the the skeleton leaps toward the audience, we literally pass through him lengthwise, into his mouth, down his spine and through his ribcage.  There was no such thing as CGI trickery back then. This was all hand-drawn frame by frame--and it's significantly more difficult to animate a character coming right at you than it is to draw it moving side to side.  Iwerks was a master at it.

The dance itself is chock-full of clever bits as the skeletons move across the screen in unison and then in a ghoulish "Ring Around the Rosie."  They alternately squat and stretch and even disassemble and reassemble themselves, all in time to Stallings' catchy score.  As dawn approaches, our ghastly friends hurry back to their crypt, but we suspect they'll return again when next the clock tolls midnight.

The Skeleton Dance's impact on animation cannot be underestimated.  It set the creative tone for the more than 70 Silly Symphonies that followed, among them such classics as Flowers and Trees and The Three Little Pigs.  Its influence can be seen in other famous Disney scenes like "Night on Bald Mountain" from Fantasia and "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo.  Even Tim Burton, whose credits include The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride can give a tip of the skull to The Skeleton Dance for showing how the macabre can be fun and even whimsical.  

The Skeleton Dance stands the test of time and ranks among Disney's best short cartoons.

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Saving the Birthplace of Animation: Kansas City Says 'Thank You Walt Disney'

For the past 12 years, the old two-story wood and brick office building on Forest Avenue and 31st Street in Kansas City, Missouri has quietly been coming back to life. Saved from the wrecking ball after years of neglect, its crumbling walls have been shored up with steel framing and its collapsed roof repaired and replaced. For the first time in years, the building is safe from the elements. And this is just the beginning.

One day, the fully-restored structure will house a museum and theater honoring a young entrepreneur who once ran a struggling animation studio inside its walls. This businessman would eventually declare bankruptcy, close up shop and head west to California, seeking his fortune in motion pictures.

The Kansas City studio was called Laugh-O-gram Films. The young entrepreneur, Walt Disney.


Walt and his young but eager staff occupied the old McConahy Building for just over a year, from the spring of 1922 until the summer of 1923. It was here Walt produced a handful of silent short cartoons with titles like "Puss 'n Boots" and "Little Red Riding Hood." It was also at Laugh-O-gram where Walt kept a small mouse in his desk drawer as a pet. He named the mouse Mortimer and, as legend has it (Walt himself would perpetuate the story), the furry creature would later be an inspiration for none other than Mickey Mouse. It's this tale that gives Thank You Walt Disney, the non-profit organization behind the McConahy Building restoration, its motto: "Save the house where the mouse was born."

Whether you buy the story or not, there's no denying that Kansas City in general, and the Laugh-O-gram Studio in particular, were the birthplaces not only of Walt Disney's entertainment empire, but, arguably, the entire 20th century animation industry.

Among Walt's colleagues at Laugh-O-gram were Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman and Rudy Ising, each of whom would one day work for Walt's fledgling studio in California. They would be joined in Hollywood for a time by Friz Freleng, who, like Walt, also worked for a time at Kansas City Film Ad. Add to the mix Carl Stalling, the organist at the Isis Theater across the street from Laugh-O-gram and you have the core of the "Kansas City Gang" that would one day transform 20th century animation.

Freleng eventually had a 30-year career with Warner Bros. as an animator and director of over 250 cartoons starring the likes of Daffy Duck, Sylvester and Tweety, and Yosemite Sam. In the 1960s, Freleng would co-found Depatie-Freleng Enterprises, creator of the animated Pink Panther.

Stalling, likewise, would have a legendary career at Warner Bros., composing and adapting music for countless cartoons. But, it was his early days at Disney where he pioneered sound and music synchronization--he worked on many of the early Mickey Mouse shorts and helped Walt develop the "Silly Symphonies."

Harman and Ising worked on Walt's "Alice Comedies" as well as the Oswald series. They were among the animators who jumped ship from Disney following Walt's contract dispute with his Oswald distributors in 1928. Harman and Ising would go on to form their own partnership and contract with Leon Schlesinger to create "Looney Tunes" and "Merrie Melodies" cartoons at Warner Bros. Eventually, they would both land at MGM where they would train two young animators named William Hannah and Joseph Barbera, who would go on themselves to rank among the most prolific cartoon producers of the mid-to-late 20th century.

Ub Iwerks had a flair for innovation and was the most gifted animator of his time. He spent most of his career at Disney and worked extensively on the Oswald and Mickey Mouse cartoon series. His technical prowess would result in the development of the multiplane camera, the "Xerox" process for duplicating animation cels and the invention of the Circarama, or Circle Vision 360, camera.

Not bad coming from a failed little animation studio in Kansas City.

Dan Viets appreciates the importance of Laugh-O-gram. This attorney and lifelong Disney fan partnered with a group of friends to purchase the McConahy Building in 1998 and begin the long, slow process of rebuilding and restoring it. Says Viets, "I think it's fair to say that Walt really set the pattern for his whole career in the work he did there at the Laugh-O-gram building."

The organization that Viets helped form, Thank You Walt Disney, received nearly $500,000 from Walt's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, and the Walt Disney Family Foundation to help with the restoration. "We had the privilege," says Viets, "of showing Diane and (her husband) Ron Miller many of the historic sites in Kansas City, but in particular, the Laugh-O-gram building. And it resonated with her. I can recall as we drove by that building, Diane understood and appreciated how important it was in the story of her father's life."

Thank You Walt Disney has been supported by Kansas City area individuals and corporations, even local construction companies that have donated materials and services towards the restoration. It's also benefited from a series of fund-raising events, most recently a screening of the Disney documentary "Walt & El Grupo" in January at the Screenland Theatre in Kansas City.

The most memorable event by far for the organization occurred last May when Thank You Walt Disney hosted a special evening with Virginia Davis, Walt Disney's first star, who appeared in the "Alice Comedies" beginning in 1923 when she was only four. Her very first film, "Alice's Wonderland," was the only "Alice Comedy" shot at Laugh-O-gram. All her subsequent films would be shot in California, once Walt convinced her and her family to move west.


As Viets recalls, Davis was a complete delight and, in front of a packed audience, shared many stories about her early days working for Walt. "She was so much fun. I asked her, 'Didn't you do some modeling work for the Disney Studio?--I think it was "Make Mine Music" that had the jitterbug sequence in it.' She says, 'Yeah, you wanna see?' And then she stands up and starts jitterbugging!

"It was a great occasion. We were so happy we brought her out. Her daughter told us how much fun Virginia had."

This would turn out to be Davis's last public appearance. The Disney Legend passed away on August 15th at the age of 90.

This spring, Thank You Walt Disney will once again bring the magic of Disney to its supporters. On May 15th, it will present an evening with newly-inducted Disney Legend Bill Farmer, the long-time voice of Goofy. A Midwesterner himself, Farmer was born in Pratt, Kansas, less than 300 miles west of Kansas City. Proceeds from the event will go towards the ongoing preservation and redevelopment of the Laugh-O-gram building.

"What we feel like we've done," says Viets, "is completed the first phase of the project, which is to keep the walls standing, to save the building from the wrecking ball and to stabilize it. And that's where we are now. We can catch our breath--we don't live under the constant threat of losing the building. We're at the point where we need to find the funding, of course, to complete the interior. It's not as if the outside is finished, either, but at least it's stabilized."

For more information about Thank You Walt Disney, including ways you can support the restoration, visit www.thankyouwaltdisney.org.

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