''The Grasshopper and the Ants'' is a 1934 American animated
short film
A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...
produced by
Walt Disney Productions
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
and released by
United Artists
United Artists Corporation (UA), currently doing business as United Artists Digital Studios, is an American digital production company. Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studi ...
. Part of the ''
Silly Symphonies
''Silly Symphony'' is an American animation, animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the ''Silly Symphonies'' were originally inte ...
'' series, the film is an adaptation of ''
The Ant and the Grasshopper
The Ant and the Grasshopper, alternatively titled The Grasshopper and the Ant (or Ants), is one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 373 in the Perry Index. The fable describes how a hungry grasshopper begs for food from an ant when winter comes and is ...
'', one of
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended to ...
. It was directed by
Wilfred Jackson
Wilfred Jackson (January 24, 1906 – August 7, 1988) was an American animator, arranger, composer and director best known for his work on the ''Mickey Mouse'' and ''Silly Symphonies'' series of cartoons and the ''Night on Bald Mountain''/''Ave M ...
and stars
Pinto Colvig
Vance DeBar Colvig Sr. (September 11, 1892 – October 3, 1967), professionally Pinto Colvig, was an American voice actor, newspaper cartoonist, and circus and vaudeville performer whose schtick was playing the clarinet off-key while mugging. Co ...
as the voice of the grasshopper "Hop."
The film introduced the song "The World Owes Me a Living" (later "I Owe the World a Living") by
Leigh Harline
Leigh Adrian Harline (March 26, 1907 – December 10, 1969) was an American film composer and songwriter. He was known for his "musical sophistication that was uniquely 'Harline-esque' by weaving rich tapestries of mood-setting underscores and ...
and
Larry Morey
Lawrence L. Morey (March 26, 1905 – May 8, 1971) was an American lyricist and screenwriter. He co-wrote some of the most successful songs in Disney films of the 1930s and 1940s, including "Heigh-Ho", "Some Day My Prince Will Come", and "Whis ...
, which later became associated with the character
Goofy
Goofy is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. He is a tall, Anthropomorphism, anthropomorphic dog who typically wears a turtle neck and vest, with pants, shoes, white gloves, and a tall hat originally designed as a rumpled f ...
who was also voiced by Colvig. According to
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fil ...
on the Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies DVD, this was an early example of the idea of having a character turn blue with cold, when full-spectrum Technicolor was still new at the time.
Plot
The grasshopper is playing his
fiddle
A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...
, dancing and eating leaves. He notices some ants working hard collecting food. He laughs and calls an ant to him. He tells the ant that there is food on every tree and he sees no reason to work. He dances and sings that ''The world owes us a living''. The ant begins to dance too. The queen ant arrives, carried in a
sedan chair
The litter is a class of wheelless vehicles, a type of human-powered transport, for the transport of people. Smaller litters may take the form of open chairs or beds carried by two or more carriers, some being enclosed for protection from the e ...
, and sees the ant playing instead of working. The ant notices the queen and immediately goes back to work. The angry queen warns the grasshopper that he will change his tune when winter comes. The grasshopper blithely dismisses the queen's warning, saying that winter is a long way off.
Autumn passes and winter arrives. The grasshopper trudges through the snow, cold and hungry. He finds one withered leaf, but it blows away before he can eat it. Meanwhile, the ants are feasting on their stored food. The grasshopper knocks on their door and collapses. The ants carry him inside and warm and feed him. The queen ant approaches him, and the grasshopper begs to be allowed to stay. She tells him that only those who work may stay, and tells him to take his fiddle. Thinking that he is being dismissed, the grasshopper starts to leave, but when the queen tells him to play the fiddle, he happily does and sings ''I owe the world a living!''
Home media
The short was released on December 4, 2001 on ''
Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies - The Historic Musical Animated Classics''.,
[ in 2005 on '' Walt Disney's Timeless Tales Volume 1'' and again on ''Walt Disney Animation Collection: Classic Short Films Volume 5: Wind in the Willows'' in 2009.
It was released on Blu-Ray in 2009 as a bonus feature on '']A Bug's Life
''A Bug's Life'' is a 1998 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It was the second feature-length film produced by Pixar. Directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Andrew Stant ...
''.
Voices
* Pinto Colvig
Vance DeBar Colvig Sr. (September 11, 1892 – October 3, 1967), professionally Pinto Colvig, was an American voice actor, newspaper cartoonist, and circus and vaudeville performer whose schtick was playing the clarinet off-key while mugging. Co ...
- Hop the Grasshopper[
* Dorothy Compton - Ant Queen
]
References
External links
*
*
''The Grasshopper and the Ants''
at The Internet Animation Database
{{DEFAULTSORT:Grasshopper And The Ants
1934 short films
1930s Disney animated short films
Silly Symphonies
Films about criticism and refusal of work
Films based on short fiction
Animated films about insects
Films directed by Wilfred Jackson
Films produced by Walt Disney
1934 animated films
1934 films
1930s color films
Films based on Aesop's Fables
Fictional ants
Fictional grasshoppers
Films scored by Leigh Harline
American black-and-white films
Films about ants
1930s American films