There's classic animation and then there's Classic animation. Watching these Disney shorts, mostly from the '30s, clearly shows why Walt and The Mouse are the huge players they are today. Hugely entertaining for both adults and kids, these were typically shown before films in the theaters, since this was all before television. These shorts have, for the most part, held up better than movies from the same period, owing to the timelessness of fantasy. Or, is it just that we're accustomed to drinking Uncle Walt's Kool-Aid?

There are some precursors here for characters Disney and others would use later. In the title short, "The Tortoise and the Hare," we see a zany rabbit playing tricks and generally being an annoyance... a familiar Warner Bros. character would emerge bearing similar characteristics within a decade. Bit players like a bumbling pig in the same short seem reminiscent of another Warner character, Porky Pig. The '30s were in many ways a Golden Age for animation, but there was also a frontier quality, in that competition was fierce and Disney did not have the dominant position it would enjoy later. Disney scored hits with the Silly Symphonies series, prompting a push by Warner with Merrie Melodies and MGM with Happy Harmonies that crowded the market. The majority of the shorts here appeared first during the Silly Symphonies run, with the exception of "The Saga of Windwagon Smith" and "Paul Bunyan" that appeared years later, a reprisal of the short-form animation style that spawned "The Tortoise and the Hare."

Packaged with the DVD is a litho print that makes a nice framed piece. The only disappointment here is the lack of special features about how these great shorts came to be. Kids will recognize "The Tortoise and the Hare" as a story that is still being retold in various forms. Another classic story, "Hansel and Gretel," is reworked here as "Babes in the Woods," and there is a sequel to "The Tortoise and the Hare" called "Toby Tortoise Returns." The most beautiful but far-out short packaged here is "The Goddess of Spring," which depicts the capture of spring's young queen by the slick king of Hades. All the shorts have great musical numbers, filled with musical theater, tin pan alley, and jazz stylings, all delivered using the kind of studio orchestra that Carl Stalling went on to make famous.

Any reasonably serious Disney fan will want this collection, which spans across several DVDs. The less rabid Disneyite that is nonetheless interested in animation will get as much or more out of this, a serious waypoint in the development of an art form that is yet again seeing a renaissance.