Abstract
Dancing skeletons figure prominently in a number of animated films produced by Disney, starting with The Skeleton Dance (1929). As integral characters in animated film, dancing skeletons are like actors yet are also both playing musicians and playable toys. Due to their acoustic and visual qualities, they are particularly well suited to highlighting cinematic innovations as well as the advantages, potentials and possibilities of film. By animating the dead, skeleton films demonstrate the wonders of animation. Early Disney films show skeletons in undifferentiated groups. They make use of the sound of bones and stress their overall importance for the making of music, highlighting several (pop)musical practices. Later films such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Coco (2017) individualise the skeletons and make meta-cinematic comments on previous films. Skeleton films can thus be read as filmic palimpsests and as animated films about animation, but they also show the integration of different folkloristic backgrounds and festivities as well as subcultural elements into pop culture.
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Notes
- 1.
There are several other animated but non-dancing skeletons in Disney films (e.g. the Army of the Dead in The Black Cauldron, 1985). Disney’s competitor Max Fleischer also made skeleton dances. In the Betty Boop film Minnie the Moocher (1932), for which Cab Calloway provided the music, skeletons appear as background dancers and singers. They can also be found in Betty Boop’s Museum (1932). Hermann-Ising’s Hittin’ the Trail for Hallelujah Land (Warner Bros., 1931) includes a scene heavily influenced by The Skeleton Dance (cf. Merritt/Kaufman 2016, 56).
- 2.
In Fantasia, skeletons can be seen in the episode Night on Bald Mountain. They appear to be a spirit army that is commanded by the giant demon or God Chernabog to Bald Mountain, where a Walpurgis Night or Saint John’s Night scene takes place. (The character Chernabog is based on an evil Polabian Slavic God that is called Tschernebog, Chernobog, Czarnobóg or Czernebog, Czorneboh, cf. Vollmer 1859, 403–404). The sequence shares some characteristic elements with the previous films, but the skeletons do not form the core of the episode. Moreover, they are almost transparent and have silent bodies, as their dances do not produce diegetic sounds. The episode Night on Bald Mountain is therefore less a skeleton dance than a dance of the witches or a Witches’ Sabbath. However, even though the skeletons in Fantasia do not actively participate in the making of music, they function—as their counterparts in the earlier films do—as visualisers of the music. These skeletons are almost immaterial, which corresponds with the airiness and lightness of the strings of Modest Petrowitsch Mussorgski’s Night on Bald Mountain and contrasts with the fire. In this way, the skeletons also contribute to the innovation of ‘Fantasound’ which is often called a milestone in the history of sound film (cf. Telotte 2008; Kerins 2011, esp. Chapter 6; Moen 2019, 180–186; Hanson 2019, 36–40).
- 3.
All of these categories or markers of difference should be regarded as a spectrum.
- 4.
New in film.
- 5.
The last film, Fantasia, is not part of this analysis. See footnote 2.
- 6.
The films also borrows from earlier Disney productions (cf. Merritt/Kaufman 2016, 7).
- 7.
This encounter is echoed in several animated shorts released shortly after: In Betty Boop’s Museum (1932) a large skeleton commands Betty to sing for a group of skeletons. The number also involves a skeletal line dance formation and a piano player. In Ub Iwerks’s Flip the Frog in Spooks (1932), Flip meets a skeleton in a haunted house and addresses the figure—like Mickey—with “Yes, ma’am.” The skeleton has, again, a very deep voice and wears a top hat.
- 8.
E.g. Funnybones (1992), Masters of the Universe (1987)/ H-Man and Masters of the Universe (1983–1985), Angela Sommer-Bodenburg’s The Little Vampire (book series (1979–2015) and several TV shows and films), Skeleton Warriors (1994–1995), Round the Twist (1989–2001).
- 9.
Tim Burton and Mike Johnson’s Corpse Bride (2005) is also noteworthy. In this stop-motion animated film roughly based on a Russian folktale, a number of skeletons sing and dance to the song Remains of the Day. The scene picks up on a number of dance and music-playing motifs.
- 10.
Bones are sometimes used in keyboards and bone glue is used for double basses.
- 11.
There are, however, two types of skeletons: the skeletons in Halloweentown and the skeletons in the Bogeyman’s cave.
- 12.
In 1937 The Skeleton Dance was also made into a more halloweenesque colour variant called Skeleton Frolic (Columbia) that features a large pumpkin. It also includes non-bone instruments such as a contrabass.
- 13.
Bridges are often made of bones.
- 14.
The importance of the guitar is further stressed by de la Cruz’s pool, which is shaped like the instrument.
- 15.
In terms of space, a marigold bridge connects these lands.
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Benner, J. (2022). Music in Their Bones. In: Dettmar, U., Tomkowiak, I. (eds) On Disney. Studien zu Kinder- und Jugendliteratur und -medien, vol 9. J.B. Metzler, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-64625-0_10
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