To Spring is a 1936 Happy Harmonies cartoon directed by William Hanna in his directorial debut.
When the leader of a tribe of underground dwarves awakens to learn Winter is over, he quickly rouses the rest of his fellows from the slumber while singing 'Time for Spring! Time for Spring!'. The dwarves quickly go to work mining underground colorful rock deposits and distilling them into the substance to give the plants above ground their Springtime life and color. Unfortunately, they soon find their work encountering an obstruction when the stubborn Old Man Winter is determined to keep Winter going, leading to a clash between the elements to see which season will win out.
Tropes appearing in this cartoon:
- Big Bad: Old Man Winter, who wants to keep winter going even though it's supposed to be spring, and the dwarves have to overcome him to bring spring and color back into the world.
- Big Word Shout: When Old Man Winter causes the dwarves' color factory to experience back up, resulting in colorful fluid exploding everywhere, the head dwarf gives out a loud "STOP!".
- Coloring in the World: An underground gnome awakens to a clock chiming in the vernal equinox. This fellow rouses his comrades, whereupon they mine lodes of color from the earth, boil it in cauldrons, then pump the colorful fluid through tubing into the surface world, which is still in the grip of a monochrome winter. Thus begins a push-o'-war contest between the gnomes that want springtime color in the world, and fierce winter that aims to keep the world gaunt and drab.
- Endless Winter: Old Man Winter wants to invoke this trope, attempting to deny the oncoming of spring to let winter continue for longer than it should.
- Running Gag: Throughout the cartoon, one dwarf struggles to get his pants on, only to keep falling on his keister. Eventually, he decides the heck with it and races to help the head dwarf.
- We Will Meet Again: When the dwarves' determination to bring forth Spring wins out against him, Old Man Winter takes it in stride and vanishes, but declares that he'll be back one day.
