Whistle While You Work

This is an original production clean-up drawing from the Disney movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). While sweeping outside the dwarves' cottage, Snow White raises her hand for a bird (not shown) to land and listen to her song: "Whistle While You Work".

This drawing was actually traced onto the cel that was photographed to make the movie. The drawing is done with pencil. Note the red pencil highlights, in particular the circle used to form the initial shape of her head. The circular and (reinforced) rectangular holes along the bottom are for the peg-bar system on the animator's desk. This kept the drawings registered to each other and to the layout (background) drawing. It also provided registration when tracing onto the cel.

The numbers above Snow White refer to paint color numbers. The "morgue stamp" (rubber stamped numbers in the lower left) refer to the production (2001 is Snow White), sequence (3D), and scene (18). In the lower right, "30" indicates the drawing number within the scene and "PB" are the initials of the inbetweener (who made this drawing to fit between other key drawings done by the animator). "PB" is Paul Busch who was an assistant to Grim Natwick on this scene. (Most of the names of the assistants and inbetweeners on Snow White are untraceable. It's only because Paul Busch, after assisting Natwick, was allowed to help Hamilton Luske [one of the supervising animators] animate three scenes within the "Yodel Song" sequence, that his name apperas in the original script draft for Snow White. Only his last name appears there, but additional research yielded his first name.)

Drawings that carry "morgue stamps" were originally in the Disney Animation Research Library, also called "the morgue". Over the years a lot of these drawings ended up being taken home by animators. The drawings in the morgue were stamped in the mid to late sixties when the library was being reorganized. They stamped the first few features like this, then ran out of steam. That's why you see stamps on Snow White drawings, but not drawings from Cinderella. (There were a lot of animation drawings to stamp back then!)

Thanks to Steve Worth of Vintage Ink & Paint who supplied much of the above information!

Thanks to Hans Walther who tracked down who "PB" was and supplied the information related to Paul Busch!