The Skeleton Dance
The Skeleton Dance, produced in 1929, was the first of Walt Disney's Silly Symphonies, a cartoon series which had no leading characters and which served as a vehicle for experimentation in the still new and developing animation medium. The cartoon was directed by Disney, with animation by Ub Iwerks and music by Carl Stalling (scoring Grieg's March of the Dwarfs). The cartoon was the result of Stalling's suggestion to Disney that music be used not just to support character action (as was done in such films as Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon with synchronized sound), but to provide the thematic foundation upon which an animated story could be crafted. In a sense, it was the first music video.
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