The lessons learned in Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, the idea of “slow and steady wins the race,” have remained applicable as our world seems to get faster and faster.
This ancient fable of The Tortoise and the Hare was adapted popularly ninety years ago by Walt Disney and his artists in their 1935 Silly Symphony.
Directed by Wilfred Jackson, the short opens with animals gathering in the woods for a “Big Race: Tortoise vs. Hare,” a banner exclaims, and the two competitors are announced. One is Max Hare, who emerges from his training quarters wearing a robe with “The Blue Streak” emblazoned on the back. The other is Toby Tortoise, who has “Slow But Sure” emblazoned on his robe.
Max is cocky and confident; Toby is slow and innocent. Max takes off when the gun is fired for the race, while Toby retreats into his shell and requires a few bullets from the starter gun to get him going.
Max is so sure he will win that he even pretends to nap for a few moments under a tree. Not long after this, Max meets up with a quartet of female bunnies at a girl’s school and takes time to show off for them (including, at one point, racing an arrow to a bull’s eye and even taking the time to place an apple on his head).
However, taking the time to do this, Max hears the crowd cheering as Toby nears the finish line. Max races toward them, but just as he is going to cross, Toby sticks his neck out over the line and is the winner.
Director Jackson, a Disney Legend, was instrumental in developing the method for timing sound and animation for Steamboat Willie (1928) and would go on to direct some of the studio’s most potent moments, such as the “Night on Bald Mountain” in Fantasia (1940). He brought a different type of power, in terms of humor and creative staging to The Tortoise and the Hare.
This can especially be seen in the kinetic, concluding moments of the race, as Max Hare, his legs a whirling blur, to the sound of a siren on the soundtrack, eventually comes to a screeching halt, flopping head over heels, as Toby lumbers over the finish line.
Additionally, along with his team of animators, including several of the Nine Old Men, Les Clark, Ward Kimball, and Eric Larson, Jackson also crafts memorable personalities of the two characters during The Tortoise and the Hare’s brief running time.
This is especially true of Max Hare, who, with his arrogance and annoying laugh, emerges distinct from his first minutes on screen.
Another Disney Legend, writer Larry Clemmons, who would later work on such Disney features as The Jungle Book and even worked for a number of years as a writer for Bing Crosby’s radio show, helped craft a story that made The Tortoise and the Hare so memorable. One example of the rhyming dialogue in the short is when one of the bunnies says to Max, “Don’t you think you’d better go? The Tortoise has the lead!” Max replies, “I’ve got lots of time to play. My middle name is speed.”
The Tortoise and the Hare was a hit for Disney and would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Cartoon. The short was so popular with audiences that the characters of Max and Toby were featured in merchandise at the time, such as story books from the Whitman Publishing Co. The two characters were also included alongside Mickey and the other Disney characters in comics and the Studio’s promotional images.
A sequel, Toby Tortoise Returns, was released by Disney in 1936, and it revolved around a boxing match between Max and Toby.
Ninety years later, The Tortoise and the Hare is a nice snapshot in time at the Disney Studio when Silly Symphony short subjects and those starring Mickey and the gang were the focus of Walt’s world. Please check out Devon Baxter’s breakdown of the animators for this film – posted here. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was still two years away, and things would change with full-length features, but as this Aesop’s fable taught us: “slow and steady wins the race.”
