Studio: Walt Disney Productions (Silly Symphonies)
Distributor: Celebrity Productions
Produced by: Walt Disney
Short Synopsis
On a tropical island a tribe of cannibals, drawn in the thick-lipped, bone-through-the-nose caricature of the period, gathers for a dance around a cooking pot. They dance in rows and circles to the drums, the pot bubbles, and the gags run on their bodies and bones: a dancer's head is used as a drum, legs stretch and snap back, the pot's contents join in. The dance is interrupted by a lion, who scatters the tribe and singles out one cannibal to chase round the island. The chase reverses, the cannibal turns on the lion, and the film ends with the whole tribe surrounding the hysterical animal, their next meal secured.
Why It Matters
- It is the first Silly Symphony directed by Burt Gillett, who took over the series after Iwerks left and would direct its first colour film and its first Oscar winner, and it shows the series' musical-dance formula applied to a new set of bodies; Billboard praised the "numerous byplays sparkling with originality" and the lion fight as the film's best sequence.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States as a 1930 publication, among the Disney cartoons that entered the public domain in January 2026. Its racial caricature is total, and the film has rarely been shown by Disney since the 1930s; it survives in public-domain prints and as a document of what a major studio put on screen without a second thought in 1930.
Notes and Trivia
- Bert Lewis's score is one of his first for the studio after Carl Stalling's departure.
- Disney's cannibal-island gags were recycled in the 1933 Mickey cartoon Trader Mickey.
- See also: Autumn (1930), Frolicking Fish (1930), Jungle Rhythm (1929).