There’s only one problem. This Ub Iwerks cartoon is called Summertime. But it’s about spring time. Evidently the writers at the Iwerks’ studio were taking longer liquid lunches when they came up with this one. Or they remembered as they made this faux Silly Symphony there was a real Silly Symphony named Springtime released in 1929 (when Iwerks was still Disney’s head artist). And this cartoon is about as Disney as you can get. Cute animals. Satyrs. A boyish Pan-like character. Classical music. Walt did it better.
The maniacal cold-blue Winter won’t let go of the season and he tries to scare the little groundhog by pretending to be its shadow and then forms a shadowy figure of himself.
The short was pushed back from a May 29, 1935 release date to June 15th for reasons unknown.
There are no credits for anyone other than Iwerks and musical director Carl Stalling. As you can tell, these frames are from an unrestored, public domain version of the short and the colours are off.
The design of the ground hog here does bear a resemblance to the burrowing gopher in "Get Rich Quick Porky" which could be due to the mingling of Iwerks' crew with the nascent Bob Clampett unit, which had been farmed out by Leon Schlesinger to work under Iwerks a short time earlier.
ReplyDeleteThe movement of the shadow is great, imaginative and creepy.
ReplyDeleteA PD cartoon with a groundhog in it? I would have picked Pantry Panic myself.
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