Thursday, 30 April 2015

The Disney Strike, 1925

“Alice’s Egg Plant” (1925) is interesting to watch with the hindsight of knowing the Walt Disney cartoon studio would be hit with a strike years later and Disney would blame it on Communists. That’s exactly what happens in this silent cartoon.

Here’s the dreaded Ruskie rooster planting a suitcase bomb under a railway track. I suppose that’s to set up his evilness because the cartoon never follows up on this as part of the plot. I guess the “A” that forms in his eyes stands for “Anarchist.”



Or maybe it stands for “Art Babbitt,” inciting a strike amongst the animators.



Rooster against rooster foreshadows animator against animator perhaps.



There are no animation credits on this short.
Posted by at 07:32
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2 comments:

  1. cartoonjoe30 April 2015 at 15:31

    Yowp, I'm going to presume you're being facetious here, but for those of you confused about the above images:

    1. Little Red Henski is putting his/her disguise in the bag and hiding it under the railroad tracks; there is no bomb in the bag, nor is that sort of terrorism even suggested here...

    2. The "A"s in the hens eyes are merely the bottom eyelids meeting the pupils, and

    3. The two roosters fighting is just that, nothing more.

    Some other tidbits:

    This is the only film to feature Dawn O' Day as Alice, replacing Virginia Davis, whom originated the role in Kansas City (Miss O' Day would be replaced by Margie Gay in the following film);

    I believe the animators on this particular short are Ub Iwerks, Hugh Harman, Walker Harman and (I think; I don't have the source of this info, WALT IN WONDERLAND, at my disposal) Rollin Hamilton...though I could be wrong about this.

    That's it...sorry to stomp all over your post...

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  2. scarecrow3330 April 2015 at 17:46

    Thanks for a clever post, Yowp!

    It's fascinating to see Walt's take on a labor strike nearly two decades before it would become an issue at his very own studio. I like your fanciful re-interpretation of the significance of certain scenes in the cartoon...it's witty and insightful.

    And cartoonjoe, thank you so much for your factual information. I believe I read somewhere that Dawn O'Day was the actress who later became known as Anne Shirley. Interesting that this was her one appearance in the Alice series.

    I don't think you "stomped all over his post." I think you added some helpful and useful facts that expanded upon it.

    It's great to see different viewpoints on the same piece of animation. Keeps the study lively, entertaining, and informative.

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