Old King Cole | |
---|---|
Directed by | David Hand |
Produced by | Walt Disney |
Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 7:15 |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Old King Cole is a Disney cartoon in the Silly Symphonies series, based on several nursery rhymes and fairy tales, including "Old King Cole". It was directed by David Hand and released on July 29, 1933.[1]
It's a semi-remake of the 1931 Silly Symphony short Mother Goose Melodies, but in color, with more details and technically advanced animation.
One evening in Storyland, the story book "Old King Cole" opens itself, and the king's castle folds open. Other nursery rhyme books do the same thing, and several famous characters leave their homes and go to Old King Cole's party. There, all the characters have a small sing-and-dance act. When the Ten Little Indians get on stage, their dance is so catchy that Old King Cole and all the other characters join in as well. After Old Mother Hubbard accidentally pushes Old King Cole into a fountain, the mice from "Hickory Dickory Dock" tell everybody that it is midnight and that everybody should go home. All the characters return to their books, and Old King Cole sings a farewell song to everybody. Then he puts out a bottle of milk for the milkman before he runs back inside, and the cartoon ends.
The cartoon featured popular Nursery Rhyme and Fairy Tale characters. Depicted in the cartoon in chronological order are:
Old King Cole is similar in plot and style to the black and white Silly Symphony Mother Goose Melodies. Various cartoons have made use of a storyline in which story books come to life and the protagonists of the stories interact with each other, including Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938) and The Truth About Mother Goose (1957) by Disney Studios themselves, the Betty Boop cartoon Mother Goose Land (1933) by Fleischer Studios, and the Looney Tunes shorts Have You Got Any Castles? (1938), A Gander at Mother Goose (1940), A Coy Decoy (1941) and Book Revue (1946).
The short was released on December 19, 2006, on Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies, Volume Two.[1]