The Story Behind The Skeleton Dance

Everyone loves the 1929 cartoon The Skeleton Dance, because few things are funnier than grinning skeletons dancing as if they were alive. We see such things every Halloween, but if you were to put yourself into 1929, the vision of skeletons dancing to music was merely an idea evoked by artworks and silent film. Composer Carl Stalling had pondered the idea of skeletons dancing in time to a soundtrack for years, and presented the idea to Walt Disney. But a cartoon with no story was something that hadn't been done before. Stalling's idea was to have the music driving the animation instead of just filling in the background. Animator Ub Iwerks threw his heart into the idea, and The Skeleton Dance became the very first in a new series called Silly Symphonies.