December 21

Walt Disney’s movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs[i] premiered on the 21st in 1937, at a theater in Los Angeles, California. It went into general release on February 4, 1938. As you must know, the movie was remarkably successful. The Motion Picture Academy would give Walt Disney an honorary Academy Award for the movie and Disney was presented with a full-size Oscar trophy and seven miniature ones by Shirley Temple. Snow White has the distinction of being the second oldest animated movie[ii] whose running time made it eligible for an Academy Award.
[i] Before deciding that the seven dwarfs would be named Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy Disney gave serious consideration to naming them Blabby, Jumpy, Shifty, and Snoopy, Scrappy, Cranky, Dirty, Awful, Silly, Daffy, Flabby, Jaunty, Biggo Ego, Chesty, Bald, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Burpy, Lazy, Puffy, Dizzy, Stuffy and Tubby.
[ii] The oldest surviving animated movie is The New Gulliver, produced in the Soviet Union and released in 1935. The New Gulliver tells the riveting story of young boy who dreams of himself as a version of Gulliver who lands in Lilliput and suffers under capitalist inequality and exploitation. I don’t know about you but the plot line alone makes me want to immediately run out and look for a copy of that one. There is something about cartoons detailing the workers’ struggle to break free of the iron fist of the brutal ruling class that just sets my heart aflutter and I find myself having to fight the temptation to have a clenched fist tattooed on my forehead.