Thanks to a Facebook friend I was able to learn about this new animated short film from Disney Animation called Tick Tock Tale. It is one of those shorter cartoons that will play before a feature length movie – just like Pixar (also owned by Disney does). I am excited about this for a few reasons. One, I love to see pop-culture fascination with timepieces, and two, it is actually animation by Disney again! About a decade ago I heard news that Disney vowed to only do computer animation moving forward. Which in my mind basically was a deathblow for traditional animation. Animation would get simpler, cheaper, and the lush scenery and production values we know from mid 20ths century Disney stuff would die.

Disney was more or less dead for a long time in the animation department. Instead relying on Pixar to create new content, and itself only banking on existing characters. Maybe that will chance. I am happy to see that a department called “Disney Animation” even exists!

Not sure when Tick Tock Tale will show up, but I imagine within the next few months it will debut in front of a Disney movie. The story seems to involve a watch and clock store robbery and the “alive” mechanical machines in the store who rescue the stolen items. Let’s see how well the animations got the mechanical part versus quartz part in the pieces. The animation looks beautiful and I look forward to seeing the entire short film soon.