Snowtime

A professorial owl teaches his students where snow comes from. It is a pretty far fetched tale, but then he is instructing pigs, roosters, parrots and other assorted animals. The explanation is colorful and fun, with all this taking place in the boreal pole with the misuse of machinery and haphazard characters.

After he lost his contract to produce cartoons for MGM, Ub Iwerks kept his cartoon studio going for a few more years with short-term contracts for other distributors. He did a couple of cartoons for Schlesinger, and then settled into a relationship with Charles Mintz to distribute through Columbia. This is one of the cartoons he produced for Columbia.

A school-teaching owl is asked by his classroom of young animals where the snow comes from. He replies with a long story about the Kingdom of Northern Lights. The audience sees his staff of gnomes and penguins go about their job of producing thunder, and keeping the four winds under control. It's all meant to show off the Technicolor brightness of hues available. Unfortunately, it's all very sweet and annoying for anyone who grew up with the sharp slapstick and language of Pre-Code Fleischers and Warner Brothers cartoons.