The Soundtrack Laughs But We Don't

UPA’s The Emperor’s New Clothes (1953) is smothered in overly busy settings, repetitious dialogue, at times non-existent animation and a non-melodic score that’s in some non-major key (before it lapses into a march cadence heard over and over).

Not only are there times when mouths don’t move during dialogue, but after the climax when the monotone whiny boy reveals the emperor has no clothes, there’s laughter, but the camera cuts to static drawings. There’s even a part where windows go from open to closed with no in-betweens, but the sound of them shutting and the laughter stopping is about a second late on the soundtrack. Here are the drawings.



There may be laughter on the screen but I doubt there was any in the theatre audience.

Paul Julian designed this cartoon, with music by Benjamin Lees. Hans Conried gets a voice credit; the women don’t. This was the first theatrical directed by Ted Parmelee.