Tom's 'Toon of the Month March 08

Disney Silly Symphony - Flowers And Trees

My apologies to those who loyally read TTOTM for my complete no-show last month! I hope you enjoy this month’s toon twice as much.


Flowers and Trees was the first Technicolor cartoon ever produced. Color films had been created before, and even a few using the patented Technicolor process, but this was the first cartoon. Flowers and Trees started life as another in the long series of Walt Disney Studios Cartoons under the banner of Silly Symphonies. It wasn’t until very late in production that Walt decided to make Flowers and Trees a Technicolor picture. The ink and paint girls had to clean the black and white paint from the back of the cells and completely repaint them.


Few films had been produced using the new Technicolor process because it was so expensive. Much to the chagrin of his brother, and business partner Roy, Walt signed a long-term contract with Technicolor to have shorts filmed using this new, expensive process years and years into the future. The studio, though nationally known and successful at this time, was always strapped for cash. Throughout both of their careers in show business, Walt seemed to come up with new ways to spend money in the name of quality pictures as easily as Roy found ways to cut costs in the name of keeping the studio financially solvent. To put it another way, it was often said that Walt dreamed things up, and Roy dreamed up ways to pay for them. It wasn’t just the filming and developing process that was expensive. The studio had to completely re-tool, replacing their black, white, and gray paints with a whole spectrum of colors. In spite of all this, Walt believed in the future of color in movies generally, and was convinced that the Technicolor process resulted in the best colors. Walt aspired to be the King of Animation, and believed his pictures deserved nothing but the best.


This short is the forerunner of the celebrated Disney features in several ways. This early experiment in Technicolor was an essential achievement to the production of a first-class color feature, Snow White. The Disney animators also learned lessons in combining artistic excellence with crowd-pleasing gags; a cocktail that remains the signature of Disney features. In the case of Flowers and Trees, the whole tone of the film is akin to an ancient myth or fable. It feels like it could be based on the work of Virgil, Aesop, or Homer. Yet, the gags are frankly expressed and elegantly executed. My personal favorite is the flower dragging himself up to perch on the chest of the defeated villain-tree. The emotion is unmistakable. Every plant or animal in this short is alive somehow. Nothing is used merely as a moving prop. The details pass quickly, but the care, devotion, and attention are on every frame, right down to the leafy “hair styles” of the tree protagonists.


Walt was right about the future of color in motion pictures. His perfectionism also paid off. Flowers and Trees won the Oscar for Best Animated Short that year. In fact, Flowers and Trees invented the category.

--Tom