| The Cookie Carnival | |
| Director: | Ben Sharpsteen |
| Producer: | Walt Disney |
| Story: | Pinto Colvig Ted Sears |
| Starring: | Pinto Colvig Shirley Reed |
| Music: | Leigh Harline |
| Animator: | Paul Allen Johnny Cannon Ugo D'Orsi Nick George Ferdinand Horvath Jack Kinney John McManus Grim Natwick Milt Schaffer Leonard Sebring Fred Spencer Edward Strickland Frank Thomas Don Towsley Bill Tytla |
| Studio: | Walt Disney Productions |
| Distributor: | United Artists |
| Color Process: | Technicolor |
| Runtime: | 8 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Cookie Carnival is an animated short produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released May 25, 1935.[1] It is a Cinderella story involving a cookie girl who wishes to be queen at the cookie carnival,[2] and a homage to the Atlantic City boardwalk parade and bathing beauty contest (what eventually became the Miss America pageant) of the 1920s and 1930s. Contrary to the claim in Film Superlist: 1894-1939, the film is not in the public domain as its copyright was renewed in 1964.[3] It will enter the public domain in 2031 in accordance with current copyright laws.
Various sweets and goodies of Cookietown are preparing to crown their new cookie queen. A parade of potential candidates passes by, all based on various cakes and sweets. Far from the parade, on what would appear to be the wrong side of the peppermint stick railroad tracks, a gingerbread man overhears a sugar cookie girl crying. Upon hearing that she can't enter the parade, because she doesn't have any clothes that are nice enough to wear for it, he hurries to remedy her situation by concocting a ballgown of cupcake wrappers, colored frosting, and candy hearts. He covers her brown hair with golden taffy ringlets and adds a large, violet bow to her dress as a finishing touch. Thus attired, she is entered as the final contestant in the parade: Ms. Bonbon.
The judges, who have thus far been disappointed in the candidates, all promptly declare Ms. Bonbon the cookie queen on sight. The gingerbread man is practically trampled in the sudden surge of the crowd as they carry Ms. Bonbon to her throne, where they place a golden crown on her head. Then she is presented with a large layer cake, which appears to be a carousel of different vaudeville acts. Every queen needs a king, so the newly crowned cookie queen has to choose a husband from those featured.
After being presented with a duet of tap-dancing candy cane kids, a pair of old-fashioned barbershop cookies, a pair of effeminate angel food cakes, two scat-singing devil food cakes, two acrobatic upside-down cakes, and three tipsy rum cookies, the queen refuses all of them with a giggle and a shake of her head. The judges, with no other suitors to present to her, offer her to marry one of them or all three of them.
At that moment, the gingerbread man, who has been attempting to gain a closer vintage point, sneaks up onto the dais. He is accosted by the guards who split his cupcake paper hat and tear off a piece of the red jelly roll carpet he was hiding under, so that he looks like he is wearing a crown and an ermine-lined cloak. The cookie queen tells the guards to stop and declares the gingerbread man as her king. He is immediately released, and the new king takes his place beside his beloved sugar cookie queen. Their closing kiss melts the lollipop intended to screen them from view.
The "Queen of the Cookie Carnival" Contestants
Candy Dates (Cookie King hopefuls)
Pinto Colvig, most known as the voice of Goofy, provides the voice of the gingerbread man. Vaudeville was dying out by the time The Cookie Carnival made its debut, but audiences would have been familiar with each of the acts represented by the different cookies.
When Miss Bonbon is being outfitted, she transitions from her cookie-like shape into a more humanoid-appearance (especially apparent between creating her dress and powdering her cheeks). This might make her another early example of visually realistic human characters in Disney shorts, and even a precursor to the Snow White look in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The Silly Symphony Sunday comic strip ran a three-month-long adaptation of The Cookie Carnival called "Cookieland" from April 28 to July 21, 1935.[4]
The short was released on December 4, 2001 on Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies - The Historic Musical Animated Classics.[5] [1] Prior to that, the featurette also appeared on the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Limited Gold Edition: Silly Symphonies VHS in the 1980s. Most recently, "The Cookie Carnival" was released as a segment in 2005's direct-to-video title Disney Princess: A Christmas of Enchantment.