Studio: Walt Disney Studio (Silly Symphonies)
Distributor: Celebrity Productions
Produced by: Walt Disney
Short Synopsis
The animals of the wood lay in stores for winter. Squirrels gather nuts and corn; one struggles to knock a nut down from a tree, and when he finally cracks it open a caterpillar struts out. The squirrels hide their corn in a hollow tree, and two crows steal it as fast as they fetch it, carrying it to their own flock's store inside a scarecrow. A skunk tries to fit a pumpkin into his hole and smashes it in frustration. A porcupine gathers apples on his quills and stores them in a log. Beavers build their dam and chop trees in rhythm; ducks feed, and one gets a boot on its head. Then the wind rises and everyone takes shelter: the ducks fly south, a straggler is thrown out of the beavers' dam, the skunk is spiked by the porcupine and bolts into the squirrels' tree, scattering them, and the crows pile into their scarecrow, snatching the last small crow inside as the film ends.
Why It Matters
- Autumn is the best of the four seasons, with a thread of comic story running through its catalogue of creatures, the crows' theft of the squirrels' corn and the skunk's search for a home, and the stampede for shelter when the wind comes is a well-built climax; the animal drawing is more individual than in Springtime or Summer.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States as a 1930 publication, in the public domain since 1 January 2026. It was released the month Ub Iwerks left Disney, and is among the last films to carry his influence directly.
Notes and Trivia
- The scarecrow full of crows is a gag Disney reused in later barnyard cartoons.
- The porcupine with apples on its quills is a piece of folk natural history, not zoology.
- See also: Summer (1930), Winter (1930), Springtime (1929).