Disney+ Deep Cut: Remembering The Huge Early Hit That Had Nothing To Do With Mickey Mouse

Disney+ Deep Cut is a recurring feature looking at some of the more obscure or interesting items in the Disney+ library.

Walt Disney always said that “it was all started by a mouse,” but there’s an argument to be made that the characters that truly launched Walt Disney Studios into superstardom were pigs. While Mickey Mouse has always been popular, the truth is he’s always been more successful as a doll than as a cartoon character. Disney’s animated short The Three Little Pigs, released 90 years ago, on May 25, 1933, is widely considered the most successful animated short film ever made.

If you have a Disney+ subscription, then you’ve likely seen all things Marvel and Star Wars, but if you haven’t sat down to watch any of the various animated shorts on the service, then you’re missing a huge part of what made Disney the company that it is today. And if you’ve never seen The Three Little Pigs, then there’s a huge piece of Disney history that you’re missing.

The Three Little Pigs Was A Massive Financial Success

The Three Little Pigs was the 36th of the Silly Symphony cartoons from Walt Disney's studio, but it was a revolution when it came to animation and characterization. The three pigs are three distinct characters, not just in the way they look or sound, but in the way they move and act. That may seem like nothing now, but it was truly a revolutionary thing in 1933. Seeing that level of characterization through simple movement was a step forward in animation.

Today, when we see animated shorts in front of a movie, the short and the feature are linked together, as with all of Pixar's theatrically released shorts. In the 1930s, the two were purchased by theaters separately, which meant that theaters could run shorts for about as long as they wanted, and with the Three Little Pigs, that’s exactly what happened. The short lasted for months in theaters and brought in an excess of $250,000 ($6 million in 2023 dollars) to Disney on a budget of about one-tenth that amount, making it a massive financial success. This money would go to good use since it was around this time that Walt Disney began work on his first animated feature film, Snow White and the Sevens Dwarfs.

It Was Disney’s Big Crossover Hit

The Three Little Pigs' cultural impact didn’t stop with theaters, of course, because even if you’ve never actually seen the animated short film, you know the song. “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” became a hit song in its own right, getting significant airplay on the radio, and today it's one of the best-known Disney songs ever written.

It’s hard to say if the song helped the short become a success or the other way around, but  its release at the outset of the Great Depression became serendipitous timing. The song became something of an anthem for the time with listeners viewing the Depression itself as the “Big Bad Wolf” and using the song to find a way to laugh at their potentially difficult circumstances.

The Three Little Pigs Was An Early Example Of Disney Editing Its Own Content

The Walt Disney Company turns 100 years old in 2023, and over the decades, we have seen multiple examples of content being changed after the fact when what was originally created is seen in a new light. Disney’s Fantasia saw a racially insensitive character removed from it, and even now, song lyrics in the live-action version of The Little Mermaid have been changed from the original version in order to better match modern sensibilities.

The original version of The Three Little Pigs included a scene where the wolf, in an attempt to get the pigs to let him in, comes to the door in disguise as a caricature of a Jewish peddler, complete with a Yiddish accent. Following the events of World War II, the scene became controversial, and when the film was reissued in 1948, the scene was changed. The Wolf would instead impersonate a Fuller Brush Man who is working his way through college. This is the version of the film you’ll see if you watch it on Disney+ now.

The Three Little Pigs isn’t a forgotten film by any means; if nothing else the enduring popularity of the song means the associated animated short will always be remembered. But if you haven’t actually watched The Three Little Pigs in a long time, or ever, do yourself a favor and fire up Disney+ and check it out. While you're at it, give our last Disney+ Deep Cut, The Happiest Millionaire, a try as well.