tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24241587323809873662024-02-19T16:47:12.107-08:00The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated ShortsA companion to the website at
http://www.disneyshorts.orgPatrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.comBlogger22125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-51756589507849517762009-07-10T07:52:00.000-07:002009-07-10T08:02:08.033-07:00"Elmer Elephant"http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1936/elmerelephant.htmlElmer Elephant is a very effective but simple story. When the story begins, we see Elmer skipping along on his way to Tillie Tiger's birthday party. His timing is a bit off; he arrives just at the moment that Tillie has asked Joey Hippo to blow out the candles on her cake for her, and with his tremendous blow sends the entire frosting of Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-15357517465075806682009-06-26T03:49:00.001-07:002009-06-26T03:59:34.142-07:00Rage Against the MachineWell, I'm not sure who to be ticked off at ... the Rhode Island legislature or Amazon.The RI Legislature currently has a bill pending that would require any internet sales made in Rhode Island to be subject to Rhode Island state tax. This at a time when the legislature is just about to adjourn for the summer and bills tend to gets passed in a flurry of votes often without being read. Thus is the Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-55066084270390434162009-05-21T04:29:00.000-07:002009-05-21T05:19:24.817-07:00MarriageI will be taking a short three week break from working on the site. To the chagrin of the female population out there (or maybe the relief!) I have found the love of my life and will be getting married next Saturday and then off for a two week honeymoon.By all accounts Walt Disney himself had a happy marriage. But in another of those Disney ironies, he rarely allowed his characters to have one. Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-46980712019391608422009-05-08T04:27:00.000-07:002009-05-08T04:57:23.152-07:00"The Golden Touch"There is a fairly bizarre backstory to the 1935 short "The Golden Touch."Walt Disney thought his animators had lost it. They didn't know how to tell a coherent story and they didn't know how to bring his ideas to the screen. Disney hadn't personally directed a short since 1929 but he decided to take his two best animators, Fred Moore and Norm Ferguson and, by George, he was going to show him how Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-1911797487639038632009-04-26T08:41:00.000-07:002009-04-26T08:49:10.399-07:00"Out of Scale"It's been reported at times that Walt Disney had a lifelong fascination with railroading. This is probably not true; even though Disney used the rails as his usual method of continental transporaton in the early years, it was most likely because trains were the only realistic means of coast-to-coast transportation rather than Disney's passion or preference. Railroading doesn't even show up as a Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-41878768590191123212009-03-30T04:19:00.000-07:002009-03-30T05:03:40.094-07:00She Blinded Me ... WITH SCIENCE!First of all, I should apologize for not having updated in quite a while. School work and the redesign of the site as part of my classwork has kept me pretty busy lately. Everytime I think I've got the site nailed down with a new interface and look, I find something else that I want to do with it. But I think I've got the new deisgn pretty well finished and hopefully I can soon start the Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-50543029472650698192009-02-20T06:23:00.000-08:002009-02-20T07:42:01.614-08:00"Symphony Hour" (1942)www.disneyshorts.org/years/1942/symphonyhour.htmlI keep meaning to post about "Symphony Hour" but for some reason never got around to it. I should have, because it's probably the second best short that Disney ever did. (Did I give it #2 in my 10 best list? I can't recall.) It returns to a familiar theme that Disney seemed to mirror in his own life; the dichotomy between the sacred and the profanePatrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-72137612415102810132009-02-12T04:40:00.000-08:002009-02-12T05:05:58.715-08:00MusingsIn my last post I mentioned that I'm busy redoing the site for a Web Developement class I'm currently taking. I've pretty much finished the basic templates of the way I want the site to look and uploaded them. You can see what I'm up to by checking out the 1922, 1923 and 1924 series of pages. Honestly, you're probably not going to see too much difference. I've pretty much left the general style Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-45410643030042551222009-01-25T08:39:00.000-08:002009-01-25T08:48:35.307-08:00Note on UpdatesFriends ...Unemployment brings some benefits, not the least of which is the ability to work on the website a bit more than I usually do. But it also gives me the ability to go ack to school. I'm a flexo printer by trade, but since printing jobs have pretty well dried up here in Rhode Island I'm taking the time to head back to college and get my ceritficate in Information Technology.As part of my Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-73990268763792352772009-01-16T08:01:00.000-08:002009-01-16T08:41:07.578-08:00"Mickey's Polo Team"http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1936/mickeyspoloteam.htmlFirst of all, I'd like to introduce you to a newer blog on the blogosphere. The Disney Films Project is the log of Ryan Kilpatrick's attempt to view every Disney short and feature film in chronological order and give us his thoughts and impressions on them. It's a very interesting project and it will be fun to follow him and see what he Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-80899063931903858142009-01-09T12:38:00.000-08:002009-01-09T12:44:42.096-08:00LibraryJust a small heads-up. One of the new things I'm starting to do on the site is to start transcribing a small library of Disney documents; initially that refer to the shorts directly but also some of the more general animation classes and bulletins that were passed around for the animator's continuing education. Many have been posted on Hans Perk's blog but I found a few more here and there and Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-51222979578798577322009-01-09T11:38:00.001-08:002009-01-09T12:13:23.310-08:00"The Nifty Nineties"http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1941/niftynineties.htmlI'm reading Neal Gabler's biography of Disney right now (since my copy of Barrier's "The Animated Man" hasn't come in yet ... sorry, Mike ... it's next up!) One of the salient points that Gabler makes is how Disney's view of "Main Street USA" was an idealized version of his youth in Marceline, Missouri. And as much as all of Disney's shortsPatrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-4758129111233773702008-11-28T08:18:00.000-08:002008-11-28T08:47:07.162-08:00Disney's Christmas Part 2 : Mickey's Orphanshttp://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1931/mickeysorphans.htmlIf "Mickey's Good Deed" represents the good side of Christmas, with Mickey's benevolence being rewarded in the end, "Mickey's Orphan's" shows the opposite of the spectrum.It might be an interesting theme for another post, but the lack of parental responsibility seems to be an ongoing motif throughout the shorts. The kittens that Mickey Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-30991593647470998512008-11-15T12:20:00.000-08:002008-11-15T12:51:23.050-08:00Disney's Christmas Part 1 : "Mickey's Good Deed"http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1932/mickeysgooddeed.htmlI know it's a bit early for Christmas; we haven't even gotten to Thanksgiving yet. But I thought we'd get an early start and examine some of the Christmas themed shorts that Disney produced through the years. And since time seems to be against me (especially this time of year) we'd better get an early start."Mickey's Good Deed" was one ofPatrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-62616076364859103682008-11-02T06:38:00.000-08:002008-11-02T07:06:18.167-08:00Identity DevelopmentOne theme that runs through a few of the Disney shorts (especially the later Silly Symphonies) is the idea of identity development. That is, that the lead character has to discover who he is and his place in the world. The paradigm for this idea is "The Ugly Duckling" made in 1931 and remade in 1939. The earlier version doesn't play much with the idea. It is simply the story of an outcast Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-64108353484392663462008-10-19T07:01:00.000-07:002008-10-19T07:13:10.882-07:00... and the worst.http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1953/simplethings.html"The Simple Things" (1953)I'm trying to keep this blog as positive as possible and highlight the good things that came out of the Disney studios. But since last time it was all about the best, I thought I might as well get this out of my system and showcase what was probably one of the worst.And it makes it doubly tragic that this was Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-68945141488586325792008-10-03T05:42:00.000-07:002008-10-03T06:39:00.527-07:00In lieu of a specific short of the week this time around, I decided to give a list of what I consider the ten best Disney shorts. They may not be the most popular, or the most historically significant, but just the ones that I enjoy the most, are the most entertaining, or for whatever reason.Note : this list is subect to change at any time due to the whims of the author. These are only the top Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-31106633038341537642008-09-19T05:23:00.000-07:002008-09-19T06:08:05.107-07:00"The China Shop" (1934)http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1934/chinashop.htmlI had told myself that I wasn't going to feature another Silly Symphony quite so soon. And yes, I am updating early since the fiance and I will be heading to NYC for the weekend to catch "The Lion King"on Broadway. But while reformatting the site I rediscovered the 1934 short "The China Shop" and was struck by how the Disney artists made Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-33605730429947584452008-09-11T11:48:00.001-07:002008-09-14T03:43:36.113-07:00"Clock Cleaners"http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1937/clockcleaners.html When I started this blog I thought that I would mostly feature shorts that were hisorically important or showed some insight into Disney's creative process. But every now and then it's good to feature one that's just fun."Clock Cleaners" is one of those. I've said pretty much all I wanted to say in it's entry on the website. But the Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-45963323166696124002008-09-07T09:34:00.000-07:002008-09-07T09:50:28.897-07:00"In the Bag" (1956)http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1956/inthebag.htmlHerewith, your constant correspondent changes his mind. I mean, I'm going to be 53 in a few weeks, I think I've earned the right. And you kids stay off my lawn as well!But ... Humphrey the Bear ... hmmm. I've written before that I thought Humphrey could have been one of the more major Disney characters had not the company closed down the shorts Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-76773898007643884522008-08-28T05:27:00.000-07:002008-09-07T09:51:40.167-07:00"The Barnyard Battle"http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1929/barnyardbattle.htmlOne of the things that made Disney cartoons different from, say, Warner Brothers Cartoons was in the use of what I call magical realism. In the Warners cartoons, if Bugs wanted to bonk Elmer Fudd over the head with a mallet, all he had to do was reach behind his back and produce one. There didn't need to be any rhyme or reason why it Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2424158732380987366.post-56682956177726252012008-08-22T10:04:00.001-07:002008-08-22T10:14:49.915-07:00Featured Short of the Week : August 24, 2008"The Old Mill" (1937)Since Hans Perk has been posting recently about the history of Disney's multiplane camera, it seemed right to begin this blog with the 1937 short "The Old Mill." This was the first short to use this new technology, but it was a departure for Disney in a few other ways as well. The Silly Symphony series had been a boon to Disney animators looking to experiment with depths of Patrick Malonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14781179028678966600noreply@blogger.com3