Chicken Little

A Walt Disney Cartoon.

Wily Foxy Loxey uses psychological chicanery to confuse dimwitted CHICKEN LITTLE - Step 1 in his plot to plunder the poultry yard.

This unusual little film eschews a happy ending for a not-so-subtle warning against evil manipulators and gullible citizenry. Foxy Loxey could be the personification of either Hitler or Stalin and the quotes from his psychology book ('To influence the masses, aim first at the least intelligent,' 'If you tell a lie, don't tell a little one - tell a big one,' 'Undermine the faith of the masses in their leaders,' 'By the use of flattery, insignificant people can be made to look upon themselves as born leaders') are pure Marxism. As for Cocky Locky, Henny Penny, Goosey Poosey, Ducky Lucky & Turkey Lurkey - their human counterparts are only too easy to find everyday.

Veteran Disney voice artists Florence Gill & Clarence Nash can be heard making various hen & duck noises.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

To really understand this cartoon you will need to know who was the main masters of propaganda of communism, like Antonio Gramsci, Lenin, Marx etc. All the lines read from the RED book are instruction of how insert ideas in the minds of the society, taken from the books written by these socialists. It is a manual of a Cultural War, and the western Christian world is right now loosing this war.See this: "Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches and the media by transforming the consciousness of society."

Chicken Little (1943)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This famous tale takes a different meaning as Disney used the classic story for a WWII propaganda short. A fox plans to not catch one chicken but instead catch them all so he locates the dumbest one and tells him that the sky is falling. Soon the rest of the chickens are in a panic thinking disaster really is coming. As the war went on, the studios were becoming much darker in some of the films they released and that included Disney and their children programs. This eight minute short has the famous tale that most people are going to know but what makes this version so good is the incredibly dark and sinister ending. I'm certainly not going to spoil the ending but it packs a punch even when seen today and there's no question that the studio had a message to deliver. The fox character was extremely well-written and there's no doubt that the animation was quite good. Fans of these types of animated films will certainly enjoy it.

I remember reading the 'Chicken Little' book as a child but this cartoon turns it on its head with one eye on the time it was made, 1943, during the Second World War.

The sly and hungry Foxy Loxy reads from a text which describes how to lie and cheat your neighbours - in this case to persuade Chicken Little and others than the sky is falling, and so the world is about to end.

It showcases the power of propaganda, panic and persuasion to achieve an aim (Foxy of course wants a hearty supper of chickens and ducks). Cocky Locky is the political leader who gets depicted as a fool, while Henny Penny and her cronies spread gossip and hysteria.

A clever cartoon, perhaps too sophisticated for children, but enjoyable on some levels to a younger audience with a bit of forethought, a bit like 'Animal Farm'.

'Chicken Little' is a Disney short about the story of a chick who thinks that the sky is falling, and no one believes him. I remember watching this when I was very young -- they used to show this on the Disney channel along with their other older cartoons and cartoon shorts. (I'm not sure if they still show it or not, but Disney have seemed to have moved away from showing their older cartoons.)

Generally-speaking, this was a typical Disney animated story featuring a cute little chick and a basic storyline. As it has been years since I saw this, I don't remember too much about it other than the little chick running around saying that the sky was falling, over and over again...and no one believed him. I've since read that there were some political motives behind this cartoon, but I didn't know that when I watched it as a child.

I just recently discovered that Disney are going to be reviving / remaking Chicken Little. I hope there are no bird flu jokes.