This page is meant to cover Disney short subjects that were not or are not part of any ongoing series. Many of these cartoons are Wartime Cartoon shorts, educational shorts, or just oneshot cartoons, much like the Silly Symphonies series.
Note that these shorts do not include shorts in the 40's Disney package films, or the Winnie the Pooh anthology films.
Misc. Disney Shorts Filmography
1938
- Ferdinand the Bull: Adaptation of the 1936 children's book The Story of Ferdinand.
1941
- Thrifty Pig: Borrows footage from The Three Little Pigs, but with World War II context applied to it.
- Seven Wise Dwarfs: A War Bond mini-short produced by the National Film Board of Canada. Recycles much of its footage from Snow White.
1942
- Food Will Win the War
- Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Firing Line
- All Together
- The New Spirit
1943
- The Winged Scourge (1943)
- Defense Against Invasion (1943)
- The Grain That Built A Hemisphere (1943)
- Water, Friend or Enemy (1943)
- Education for Death (1943): One of the most infamous of the Disney wartime shorts, notably an adaptation of the book "Education For Death: The Making of a Nazi".
- Reason and Emotion (1943): Two versions exist—the original version is a blatant wartime film, but later versions splice in new footage to a more contemporary context.
- Chicken Little (1943)
- Four Methods of Flush Riveting (date unknown): Training film.
- Stop That Tank: Training film made for Canada.
1944
- The Pelican and the Snipe (1944): Originally planned as part of The Three Caballeros, but was released as a standalone short instead.
- Few Quick Facts: Soldiers Voting Overseas (1944)
- Few Quick Facts: Venereal Disease (1944)
1945
- The Right Spark Plug in the Right Place
- Prevention and Control of Distortion in Arc Welding
- The Dawn of Better Living
- Something You Didn't Eat
- Hookworm
- Insects as Carriers of Disease
- Cleanliness Brings Health
- Infant Care and Feeding
- Hold Your Horsepower
- The Human Body
- What Is Disease? (a.k.a. The Unseen Enemy)
- Tuberculosis
- How Disease Travels
- Light Is What You Make It
1946
- A Feather in His Collar (1946)
- The ABC Of Hand Tools (1946)
- The Building of a Tire (1946)
- Bathing Time For Baby (1946)
- Planning For Good Eating (1946)
- Environmental Sanitation (1946)
- Treasure From The Seas (1946)
- The Story of Menstruation (1946) — a public health short meant to be shown to girls in schools
1950
- The Brave Engineer (1950)
- Morris the Midget Moose (1950)
1952
- Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1952)
- Susie the Little Blue Coupe (1952)
- The Little House (1952)
1953
- Adventures in Music: Melody (1953)
- Football Now and Then (1953)
- Toot Whistle Plunk and Boom (1953)
- Ben and Me (1953)
1954
- Casey Bats Again (1954): Sequel to Casey at the Bat, which was part of the Disney feature Make Mine Music.
- Pigs Is Pigs (1954): A stylized, UPA-esque short, based on a short story by Ellis Parker Butler. Not to be confused with the mid-1930's Looney Tunes short of the same name.
- Social Lion (1954)
1956
- Jack and Old Mac (1956)
- A Cowboy Needs A Horse (1956)
1957
- The Story Of Anyburg USA (1957)
- The Truth About Mother Goose (1957)
1958
- Paul Bunyan (1958)
1959
- Noah's Ark (1959)
1960
- Goliath II (1960)
1961
- The Saga of Windwagon Smith (1961)
1962
- A Symposium on Popular Songs (1962): Last film made before the closure of the animated short film department - all future short work is done through Feature Animation.
1965
- Steel and America
1967
- Family Planning
1968
- Steps Towards Maturity and Health
- Understanding Stresses and Strains
- The Social Side of Health
1969
- Physical Fitness and Good Health (1969)
- The Fight (1969)
- The Game (1969)
- It's Tough to Be a Bird (1969)
1970
- The New Girl (1970)
- The Lunch Money (1970)
- The Project (1970)
1971
- The Great Search-Man's Need for Power and Energy (1971)
1972
- Get the Message (1972)
1973
- VD Attack Plan (1973)
1978
- The Small One (1978)
1979
- Understanding Alcohol Use and Abuse (1979)
1980
- Foods and Fun: A Nutrition Adventure (1980)
1982
- Fun With Mr. Future (1982): A tongue in cheek look at the future, hosted by Mr. Future, an animatronic head.
- Vincent (1982): A Tim Burton directed Stop Motion short.
1986
- Oilspot and Lipstick (1986): CGI test.
1988-1989
- Language Arts Through Imagination: Educational video series starring Figment from Journey into Imagination.
1991
- Everything You Wanted To Know About Puberty...for Girls
- Everything You Wanted to Know About Puberty...for Boys
- Off His Rockers (CGI)
1992
- Petal to the Metal (1992) Starring Bonkers D. Bobcat.
1993
- Recycle Rex (1993)
1995
- Stand By Me (1995): Starring Timon and Pumbaa, is the first short to star feature animation characters since World War II.
1997
- Redux Riding Hood (1997)
- Three Little Pigs (1997): No relation to the 1933 short.
2000
- John Henry (2000): Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2003
- Destino (2003): A result of a decades long collaboration between Salvador Dalí and Disney. Meant to be part of Fantasia 2006, but when the film was cancelled, it instead debuted on the Special Edition Blu-Ray of Fantasia and Fantasia 2000.
2004
- Lorenzo (2004): A scrapped segment for the proposed third Fantasia film, Fantasia 2006. Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
- One by One (2004): Meant to be part of Fantasia 2006, but when the film was cancelled, it instead debuted on the Special Edition DVD of The Lion King II: Simba's Pride.
2005
- The Origin of Stitch (2005): Included on the DVD and Disney+ extras of Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, serving as a bridge between that film and Lilo & Stitch: The Series Pilot Movie Stitch! The Movie.
2006
- The Little Matchgirl (2006): Meant to be part of Fantasia 2006, but when the film was cancelled, it instead debuted on the Platinum Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid. Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2008
- Glago's Guest (2008)
2010
- Tick Tock Tale (2010). Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2011
- The Ballad of Nessie (2011): Opened Winnie the Pooh, and included on its DVD/Blu-ray/digital packages. Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2012
- Tangled Ever After (2012): Opened the 3D re-release of Beauty and the Beast.
- Paperman (2012): Opened Wreck-It Ralph, and included on its DVD/Blu-ray/digital packages. Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2013
- Get a Horse (2013): Opened Frozen (2013). Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2014
- Feast (2014): Opened Big Hero 6, and included on its DVD/Blu-ray/digital packages. Now available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2015
- Frozen Fever (2015): Opened the 2015 version of Cinderella. Also available as part of the Short Films Collection.
2016
- Inner Workings (2016): Opened Moana.
2021
- Us Again (2021): Opened theatrical showings of Raya and the Last Dragon
- Far From the Tree (2021) Opened theatrical showings of Encanto
Tropes:
- All-CGI Cartoon: Some of the later shorts.
- Animated Adaptation: Several of the shorts are based on pre-existing stories, including:
- Ferdinand the Bull is an adaptation of Munro Leaf's book The Story of Ferdinand.
- Education for Death is based on the book Education For Death: The Making of a Nazi.
- Chicken Little is a parody of the fable The Sky Is Falling.
- The Brave Engineer is based on the traditional song The Ballad of Casey Jones.
- Morris the Midget Moose is based on an obscure childrens book by Frank Owen.
- The Little House is based on the 1942 book written and illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton.
- Ben and Me is loosely based on Robert Lawson's 1939 book of the same name.
- Pigs Is Pigs is based on a short story by Ellis Parker Butler.
- The Truth About Mother Goose subverts this, as it's actually about the real life inspirations of where three of the classic Mother Goose nursery rhymes ("Little Jack Horner", "Mary Mary Quite Contrary" and "London Bridge Is Falling Down") came from.
- Paul Bunyan is based on the Tall Tale of Paul Bunyan.
- Goliath II was based on a 1959 childrens story written by Bill Peet.
- The Saga of Windwagon Smith is based on the American Tall Tale of Wingwagon Smith.
- Noaks Ark is, obviously, an adaptation of Genesis 6:13-8:14.
- Redux Riding Hood is a parody of Little Red Riding Hood.
- Three Little Pigs (1997) is another adaptation Disney has done of the classic fairy tale, and unrelated to their famous 1933 adaptation of the same story.
- John Henry is based on the African American folklore story of John Henry.
- The Little Matchgirl is a straight adaptation of the classic Hans Christian Andersen story.
- Benevolent Boss: In John Henry, the men building the railroad are led by MacTavish, a kind Irishman who is clearly concerned for and respectful of the workers.
- Bible Times: The "Noah's Ark" short.
- Bowdlerise: "Reason and Emotion" was originally a Wartime short, but was heavily edited in a later version to be applied to a teenage context.
- Break the Haughty: Lorenzo is about a spoiled cat who is driven to madness when his tail is brought to life.
- Bittersweet Ending:
- In The Saga of Windwagon Smith, Admiral Smith and Molly Crum are united forever on the windwagon when it is carried away by the twister, thwarting her father's attempts to block their relationship. However, the townsfolk never see either them or the the windwagon they had invested in again, except maybe as visions. It is also likely that Smith and Molly died in the twister.
- Disney's adaptation of Paul Bunyan ends with Paul losing a Man Versus Machine logging contest (By one quarter inch!) and becoming obsolete in terms of the logging business, but moves to Alaska with Babe and goes on with his life have a great time with his pet ox.
- The Cameo:
- The Stork from Dumbo appears in the opening of "Lambert, The Sheepish Lion".
- Goliath II has… everybody. It's practically a crossover. There's the Crocodile from Peter Pan, the owls from Bambi, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and Sleeping Beauty, Rajah is an older version of the selfsame Tiger from the Goofy short Tiger Trouble, and the elephant pride is suspiciously similar to the then-in-development The Jungle Book (1967).
- Cats Are Mean: The title character in Lorenzo. Also the black cat who curses his tail.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The Jungle Book (1967) elephants in Goliath II.
- Explosive Breeder: The guinea pigs in Pigs is Pigs.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: Noah's Ark, which was animated via stop-motion. A large chunk of A Symposium on Popular Songs is also animated with stop motion and cut out animation.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The clock in "Tick Tock Tale" sacrifices itself to save the other clocks by getting smashed by the robber, who subsequently gets caught by a policeman. It gets better though, thanks to the clocks convincing the owner to rebuild it with a sign, "No repair is too small."
- Human Traffic Jam: In Goliath II, which was later reused in The Jungle Book (1967).
- Iron Butt Monkey: Lorenzo.
- Limited Animation: The Adventures in Music Duology, as well as "Pigs is Pigs" and "The Saga of Windwagon Smith" use very stylized animation inspired by the work of UPA.
- Lying Finger Cross: In Ben And Me, Ben Franklin does this while shaking hands with his good friend, Amos Mouse, after promising not to play another trick on him, which led to Ben's famous discovery of electricity.
- Man Versus Machine:
- Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox go up against Joe Muffaw and his steam-powered saw... and much to the surprise of all, they lose.
- John Henry. Unsurprising, since it's an adaptation of the Trope Codifier.
- Public Domain Animation: The short on Menstruation and Susie the Little Blue Coupe.
- Sapient House: The titular house from The Little House, adapted from the children's book of the same name. Like in the book, the story is told from the house's perspective. In the cartoon, the house's neighbors qualify too, although they are much less animate than her and can apparently only move their eyes.
- Sentient Vehicle: The title character and all other cars in Susie the Little Blue Coupe. Also, the cars put on trial in The Story of Anyburg, U.S.A.
- Tall Tale: The subject of several shorts; The Brave Engineer is based on the legend of Casey Jones, and Disney also did shorts about Paul Bunyan, John Henry, and Windwagon Smith
- Thrifty Scot: In Disney's adaptation of Pigs Is Pigs, the cheapskate customer Mr. Morehouse is made into a Scotsman, McMorehouse.
- Wartime Cartoon: Many of these oneshots.
