History WesternAnimation / SillySymphonies

* PantyShot: Several shots of Tilly Tiger's garments are displayed in "Elmer Elephant".
** The blonde moth from "The Moth and the Flame", due to the wide, curvy shape of her skirt and the length being above the knees. This allows to give views of her white (or light blue) undies, such as when she puts on a show by doing the can-can for the male flame and she also flashes by bending over, and lifting the back on her skirt.

* WesternAnimation/MotherGooseGoesHollywood: December 23, 1938, Wilfred Jackson: Like Toby Tortoise Returns, this short is another [[SomethingCompletelyDifferent oddball in the series]], parodying the fairy tale stories of the series with caricatures of many Hollywood celebrities from the time period inserted into those classic stories. Academy award nominee.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: "Toby Tortoise Returns", "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" and "Mother Pluto".

* Elmer Elephant: March 28, 1936, Wilfred Jackson

[[/index]]

* WesternAnimation/ThreeBlindMousketeers: September 26, 1936, David Hand

* Three Blind Mousketeers: September 26, 1936, David Hand

%%* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: "Monkey Melodies" and "Elmer Elephant" demonstrate this.%%How so?

** In the original story of "The Grasshopper and the Ants" the ants reminded the Grasshopper of his idle ways and left him to starve during the winter. In the Disney cartoon, though they give the same stern rebuke, the ants offer shelter so long as he has learned his lesson.

* The Wise Little Hen: June 9, 1934, Wilfred Jackson: Featuring the debut of WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck.

* WesternAnimation/TheSkeletonDance: August 22, 1929, Walt Disney: The first of the series. The bulk of the cartoon was animated by Creator/UbIwerks, with one part (with a Skeleton playing a rib-bone xylophone) animated by [[Creator/DisneysNineOldMen Les Clark]]. One of The50GreatestCartoons.

* WesternAnimation/TheThreeLittlePigs May 27, 1933, Burton Gillett: Featuring the namesake characters and the Big Bad Wolf; includes the iconic song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?", and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. One of The50GreatestCartoons.

** ''TheSpiderAndTheFly'': The title is based on John Heywood's poem "The Spider and the Fly" (1556), but the story is derived from the opening line of Mary Howitt's poem in ''Sketches of Natural History" (1834).

* CleavageWindow: In "The Moth and The Flame", the female moth's bust is revealed briefly when she pulls down her collar to take out a powder puff she had hidden in her dress.

* BeeAfraid: In the climax of "Birds in the Spring".

* BreakoutCharacter: DonaldDuck, incidental character in "The Wise Little Hen", would become one of (if not THE) most famous and beloved characters in the Disney pantheon. And according to the book "Mickey and the Gang: Classic Stories In Verse", Creator/WaltDisney even had the foresight to realize Donald could be his next big star, having press kits ready by the time "The Wise Little Hen" hit the theaters.

** ''Three Little Pigs'' is based on the fable and fairy tale ''[[Literature/ThreeLittlePigs The Three Little Pigs]]'' (more specifically, Andrew Lang's take on the story for the "Green Fairy Book" (1892). ''The Big Bad Wolf'' is both a sequel to the previous short and an adaptation of ''Literature/LittleRedRidingHood'' by Charles Perrault/Brothers Grimm. ''Three Little Wolves'' is partially inspired by Aesop's ''The Boy Who Cried Wolf''.

* Bowdlerise: Santa's workshop has two scenes removed from recent airings. The first one is the whole scene where he is testing dolls, due to featuring a black doll sayings "Mammy!", the second one is a jewish rabbi dancing in the toy parade.

* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Jenny Wren from "Who Killed Cock Robin?" is a shameless caricature of actress Mae West--but was such a successful caricature of her that Mae herself praised it! Cock Robin ''might'' be a caricature of the then-popular crooner Bing Crosby. The crow from the short is also a caricature of black actor Stepin Fetchit, and Harpo Marx of the Marx Brothers is caricatured here as a cuckoo bird.
** "Elmer Elephant" has a throwaway gag with three pelicans doing a Jimmy Durante impression.

''Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies'' were a hugely popular and influential series of [[WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts Disney short subjects]] from UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation, generally themed around music and lushly animated fairy tales. They were a very important part of Disney's history, pioneering many of their animation techniques, as well as giving animators preparation for work in the feature-length animated films that the studio would later become famous for. The series would have a massive impact on the animation industry, inspiring many imitators, some of which would later evolve into future competitors for Disney, such as the WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes and [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Merrie Melodies]] franchise. It also won seven Oscars, a record matched only by WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry.

* ParentalBonus: In the 1939 remake of "The Ugly Duckling", the ugly duckling hatches and looks very different from the mother duck's other ducklings. The father duck and mother duck immediately start arguing in quacks while pointing at him, and the father duck eventually storms off in a huff, implying that he believed the ugly duckling to be the result of the mother duck [[YourCheatingHeart cheating.]]

* YourCheatingHeart: Implied in the 1939 version of "WesternAnimation/{{The Ugly Duckling|1939}}", after the titular character hatches; the father duck looks to the normal-looking ducklings, then angrily back to the ugly one before engaging the Mother Duck in a heated argument that culminates with her slapping him and the Father Duck storming off in anger. Although the two of them are quacking rather than speaking, their gestures and tone of voice indicate that the Father Duck is claiming that the Ugly Duckling couldn't possibly be his and that the only reason the Ugly Duckling looks so different from the others was if the Mother Duck was having an extra-marital affair.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Demonstrated in "Flowers and Trees", "Toby Tortoise Returns" and "The Practical Pig".

* YourCheatingHeart: In the 1939 version of "WesternAnimation/{{The Ugly Duckling|1939}}", after the titular character hatches; the father duck looks to the normal-looking ducklings, then angrily back to the ugly one before engaging the Mother Duck in a heated argument that culminates with her slapping him and the Father Duck storming off in anger. Although the two of them are quacking rather than speaking, their gestures and tone of voice indicate that the Father Duck is claiming that the Ugly Duckling couldn't possibly be his and that the only reason the Ugly Duckling looks so different from the others was if the Mother Duck was having an extra-marital affair.

* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Demonstrated in "Elmer Elephant".

* {{Adorkable}}: Toby Tortoise in both of his appearances. Hopelessly outclassed by Max Hare and afraid of his own shadow, but he's just so darn ''sweet'' about the whole thing. His hat's penchant for flipping above his head helps.

* AllGirlsWantBadBoys:
** Averted in "The Cookie Carnival". The cookie queen picks the sweet gingerbread man over the devil food cakes.
** Averted in "Elmer Elephant." The young boys in the cartoon are jerks who make fun of the sweet-natured Elmer because of his long nose. Tillie Tiger, however, is first willing to kiss Elmer on the cheek for bringing her flowers for her birthday, and then kiss him on the lips for saving her life from a fire.

* AlcoholHic: The jolly rum cookies in "The Cookie Carnival".

->''"Actually, the Silly Symphonies were started as an experiment. We used them to test and perfect the color and animation techniques we employed later in full-length feature pictures like ''Disney/{{Cinderella}}'', ''[[Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs Snow White]]'' and ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}''."''

In some ways, ''Disney/{{Fantasia}}'' and its sequel could be seen as the successors to these cartoons.

* EverybodyHatesHades: In a feat that would be echoed [[Disney/{{Hercules}} 63 years later by Disney]], "[[HijackedByJesus The Goddess of Spring]]" [[{{Flanderization}} flanderizes]] Pluto (the Roman god of the underworld, not Mickey's dog) from a merely fearsome but noble being into an ersatz for {{Satan}}, although despite this he's still [[PetTheDog good enough]] to let her to leave for half the year when he sees how unhappy she is.