Description

“WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF?”: DISNEY’S THREE LITTLE PIGS STORYBOOK, 1933, SIGNED BY DISNEY AND FOUR ANIMATORS

DISNEY STUDIOS. Three Little Pigs. New York: Blue Ribbon Books, (1933). Slim quarto, original pictorial paper boards, pictorial endpapers, original dust jacket.

First edition of this “storybook” of the Disney animated classic, with 26 full-page plates (12 in color) and numerous in-text line cuts, signed on the half title by Walt Disney and four Disney Studios animators.

“It was the Great Depression that made the Three Little Pigs a cartoon hit, at least so the story goes. Allegedly, when Disney released it as part of the Silly Symphony series in 1933, the playful frivolity of “Who’s Afraid of The Big Bad Wolf” helped people to forget the wolf at the door. Be that as it may, Three Little Pigs won an Oscar for its director, Burt Gillett—the second one ever given for animation. Its characteristic song became Disney’s first musical hit [dance orchestras the country over played it nightly]” (Roy E. Disney). “Of all the short films produced by Disney in the 1930s, Three Little Pigs has claims to being both the most significant and the most prescient. It is widely acclaimed as a breakthrough in character animation, leading the way for such indelible anthropomorphic creations as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Tom and Jerry, who dominated the various Hollywood animation studios from the late 1930s until the late 1950s” (Adrian Danks). Additionally signed by animators Frank Churchill, Burton F. Gillett, Fred Moore, and Norm Ferguson. Owner signature.

Interior fine; only very light wear to extremities of bright paper boards. Light edge-wear to faintly foxed dust jacket. A near-fine copy, scarce in such excellent condition, most rare signed.