The History of Animation 15 - Walt Disney: Laugh-o-gram, Little Red Riding Hood (1922)

Little Red Riding Hood

"A Laugh-o-Gram Short"

Release Date July 29, 1922

Running Time 6:12

There are no Internet videos of this one. =^(

The traditional story of the little girl bringing treats to her grandma (in this case donuts with shotgun-created holes) with the "wolf" as a dapper gentleman in a flivver and her rescuer a passing aviator.





Director : Walt Disney
Animation : Rudolph Ising

The original Little Red Riding Hood story:
http://www.disneyshorts.org/sources/littleredridinghood.html

They showed this short to conventionears at The Official Disneyana Convention. It was very funny and well animated for a 21 year old in 1922.

This was Disney's first Laugh-o-Gram fairy tale and reportedly Walt Disney animated this cartoon single-handedly (I'm maybe 70% on this one).

The opening is quite stupid, as it is the same thing over and over, a woman shooting doughnuts to make holes. Then a cat eats the doughnut and dies (HA HA!)

This is Walt Disney's first example of brutality to animals in a cartoon. This was normal during the day, as Felix committed suicide at the end of his first animation.




The animation is crude and repetitive , but the gag with the cat dropping dead and his 9 lives exiting from him is really funny.




The wolf in turn, attacks Red Riding Hood instead of trying to eat her. Then some dude comes with a plane, hooks the wolfs car to a hook, and dunks him in the river (this was done in the 007 film "You Only Live Twice," which was after 1922.) =^)

It also includes a scene of Little Red Riding Hood's car being pushed by her dog with some sausages on a stick to inspire him.





Another scene is of Little Red Riding Hood blowing up one of the doughnuts to replace a flat tire. The "wolf" in this cartoon is a human - not a real wolf. Another scene is of the man reducing the car to pocket size and putting it in his pocket. When the wolf attacks it just shows the house with "help, help" - which I imagined to just be the "wolf" chasing her.



Another scene is of the dog racing off to find help and joining the pilot who returns to rescue her. The last scene is of the dog hiding his eyes as Little Red Riding Hood and her rescuer kissed at the end.





From:
http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1922/littleredridinghood.html



Interestingly, Walt only went back to Little Red Riding Hood one time, even though it was his very first story. He did it here, in a sequel to the successful Three Little Pigs...


The Big Bad Wolf (1934)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH43DopBa_k


The Three Little Pigs in 1933 (with its hit song) was so successful that Disney produced three sequels. This was the first:

- The Three Little Pigs (1933)

- The Big Bad Wolf (1934)

- Three Little Wolves (1936)

- The Practical Pig (1939)



Enjoy!

- TAE