The Grasshopper and the Ants (film)

The Grasshopper and the Ants is a 1934 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by United Artists.

Part of the Silly Symphonies series, the film is an adaptation of The Ant and the Grasshopper, one of Aesop's Fables.

According to Leonard Maltin on the Walt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies DVD, this was an early example of the idea of having a character turn blue with cold, when full-spectrum Technicolor was still new at the time.

The cartoon is believed to be a commentary on the Great Depression and the New Deal, which at that time had just been introduced by the Roosevelt administration.

Thinking that he is being dismissed, the grasshopper starts to leave, but when the queen tells him to play the fiddle, he happily does and sings that I owe the world a living!, having acknowledged the ants were right.