I’m looking for statistics, if there are any, on adult viewing of Disney animation films during the Great Depression. Did adults usually accompany children to the cinema for such films in those days? Were these films only viewed by children? I suspect that attitudes were different in those days and that adults would have enjoyed these films too. Please let me know nof any useful links if you come across them.
I look forward to your feedback. Thanks.
davidmich
What proportion of adult audiences watched Disney animation movies during the Great Depression?
I don’t have any cites to offer, but I have some background in animation and I have the impression that all of them were viewed by adult audiences, and it wasn’t until later on that many movies of any kind were targeted toward children as the primary audience.
If you’re talking about the animated Disney shorts, they–along with the cartoons produced by the Fleischers (released through Paramount), Warner Brothers, MGM, and other animation studios–were all shown before movies and meant for a general audience that mostly included adults. In fact, many of the cartoons made before the Production Code started being fully enforced in 1934 were rather racy (especially those made by the Fleischers).
Disney’s first animated feature, 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, although considered kid-friendly, was also aimed at adults and was hugely successful in all age groups. I believe it ranked as the second highest grossing movie released during the 30s (the first being Gone With the Wind).
Again, I don’t have statistics, but one of the things that differentiated Disney was that his movies were made to be enjoyed as a family experience: adults take the kids, and everyone enjoys together. That’s why they made so much money. And back in the day before VHS and DVDs, the feature animations were re-released every seven or eight years in theatres, for a whole new crop of kids (with a whole new crop of parents.)
Most feature length films of the 30s were made for an audience of all ages. Moviegoing was a family affair and families would go out once or twice a week – and not just on weekends. In cities, there were neighborhood theaters withing walking distance of any residential area.
The only films that were specifically targeted were Saturday afternoon matinees, which were aimed at children. Those usually involved B-westerns (most westerns in the 30s were aimed for this audience; one of the effects of John Ford’s Stagecoach was to show that you could make a good dramatic western), comedy shorts, and serials. Cartoons were part of the show, but they were just as much part of the evening shows. Comedy shorts had different audiences: the Three Stooges was more for children, but Leon Errol and the Pete Smith Specialities was clearly aimed at a grown-up audience.
Disney animation efforts were considered A pictures, and were seen by the general audience, not the Saturday matinee crowd (at least, not at first – after their original run, they may have also been shown in the matinees).
I think the OP is confused about how Disney worked in the 30s. There was exactly one full-length Disney film, Snow White in 1937. Its success funded a flock of films in the 1940s, Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), and Bambi (1942), before the war hit and all the animators were shifted to war propaganda films.
Pinocchio was another big hit, and was a family film. Fantastia was an attempt to make animated films for the adult audience and flopped. Disney threw out Dumbo as a comparative quickie and it also flopped. It took Bambi to get a big box office again, but there was no way to follow it.
We totally forget today but Disney came close to collapse in the next decade. None of the animated post-war films were a big success and he started making live-action nature films just to get some cash flow. The stock price plummeted to pennies. He had to borrow against his life insurance policies to finance Disneyland, and that still wouldn’t have been enough. He was saved by ABC, then a distant third in ratings. They gave him money for the Disneyland tv show and took a one-third interest in the park. The show was a smash hit from day one, and every single week was a commercial for the park, starting a year before its opening. That’s probably the most successful set of commercials in history.
The Disney we know today, the king of the kiddie films, is almost entirely post-Disneyland, with the late 50s and early 60s being its high point in that phase. It’s only two decades but a completely different world from the 1930s and early 1940s. Adults went to Disney films because they were films, as much as any other comedy or musical films were. The differences came later.