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Trivia / Silly Symphonies

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  • Actor Allusion: Pinto Colvig, then voice of Goofy, would sing the tune "The World Owes Me a Living" as Goofy, which was the song from ''The Grasshopper and the Ants", where Pinto voiced the eponymous grasshopper.
  • Approval of God: Jenny Wren from "Who Killed Cock Robin?" is a caricature of Mae West, and was so well done that her performance was praised by West herself.
  • Creator Cameo: Walt Disney himself supplies the voice of the little elf Santa gives the Christmas list to in "Santa's Workshop".
  • Crossdressing Voices: All child characters are voiced by women in the shorts.
  • Follow the Leader: This is hands down one of the most influential series of cartoons in the History of Animation... and also one of the most ripped-off as a result. Almost every studio in The '30s, sans Terrytoons, was trying to rip off of these cartoons — none of them were successful, however. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, with a certain Expy of Max Hare, might be considered an exception.
  • Schedule Slip: The production of several 1930 shorts were delayed due to the sudden departures of Ub Iwerks and Carl Stalling, resulting in them being delivered late to distributor Columbia Pictures.
  • What Could Have Been: Don Donald, Ferdinand the Bull, and Cinderella were initially planned as Silly Symphonies. The poster for Donald's Golf Game also mentions it as being a Silly Symphony as well, though this is most likely a mistake as Donald solo shorts had been well-established by then.
    • Walt actually planned to release three Harman-Ising Silly Symphonies, but in the end only Merbabies was released as a Silly Symphony with the other two, The Little Bantamweight & Pipe Dreams being released as Happy Harmonies instead. There are also many other Silly Symphonies that were less lucky and ended up being scrapped outright, such as The Emperor’s New Clothes (which would later be retooled into a Mickey Mouse cartoon before being scrapped outright), Struwwelpeter (which would have combined multiple stories from the book), sequels to The Water Babies and ‘’Elmer Elephant'', and remakes for several older shorts in the series.

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