August 22, 1929 –
Walt Disney released the animated short film The Skeleton Dance (The first of Disney’s Silly Symphony series,) animated by Ub Iwerks, on this date.
Worried that he would be too dependent on Mickey, Walt Disney wanted to diversify. Carl W. Stalling came up with the idea of producing “musical novelties” (which would later become Silly Symphonies). He even came up with the idea of the dancing skeletons for the first of the series (as a child he had seen an ad in The American Boy magazine for a dancing skeleton and the image stuck with him).
The Haus of Dcaligari 