Walt Disney (1933)

Disney had realized that the success of animated films depended upon telling emotionally gripping stories; he developed an innovation called a “story department” where storyboard artists separate from the animators would focus on story development alone, which proved its worth when the Disney studio released in 1933 the first-ever animated short to feature well-developed characters, Three Little Pigs.

Three Little Pigs is an animated short film released on May 27, 1933 by United Artists, produced by Walt Disney, and directed by Burt Gillett. Based on a fable of the same name, the Silly Symphony won the 1934 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. The short cost $22,000 and grossed $250,000. In 1994, it was voted #11 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. In 2007, Three Little Pigs was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.