Susie the Little Blue Coupe
- June 6, 1952 (1952-06-06)
Susie the Little Blue Coupe is an animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and originally released by RKO Radio Pictures on June 6, 1952.[2][3] The eight-minute film was directed by Clyde Geronimi and based on an original short-story by Bill Peet. The story was adapted for the screen by Peet and Don DaGradi.
Plot
Susie is a small blue coupe on display in a dealer showroom. She eventually is bought by a well-to-do man who is instantly smitten with her. Thrust into high society, she finds herself surrounded by much larger, faster and more luxurious cars, but eventually makes do. Her owner treats the car well but neglects to maintain her, and after years of wear and tear, the car stops running properly; the man, informed by his mechanic that Susie will need a massive overhaul, abandons her for a new vehicle. At a used car lot, Susie is purchased again, but the new owner, a cigar-smoking drunk who lives in a seedier part of town, does not treat the car with the same fondness as the first owner and leaves her on the curbside at night.
One night, the coupe is stolen, chased by the police and crashed; presumed "dead", she is sent to a junkyard. Susie is sad and broken down, but she shows stirrings of life, even in her wrecked state. A young man notices and buys her at a bargain price. With the help of his friends, the young man completely restores and revives Susie as a brand new hot rod. An overjoyed and like-new Susie rides off.[4]
Home media
The DVD release of The Love Bug featured this short as a special feature.[5] The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad DVD also features the short as a bonus episode on the DVD's trivia section.[6]
It also appeared on the It's A Small World of Fun Vol. 2 DVD.[7]
Legacy
Susie makes a cameo appearance in the House of Mouse episode, "Max's New Car", and in the 2023 animated short film Once Upon a Studio.[8]
The film's method of anthropomorphizing the cars, using the windshield for the eyes and eyelids, served as a stylistic inspiration for the 2006 Disney-Pixar animated feature, Cars and its sequels and spin-offs.[9]
Copyright status
While the animated film's copyright was not renewed, the music within it was.[10] Effectively, this means that the film's images are public domain, but the short in full won't enter the public domain until 2048 under current United States copyright law.
See also
- One Cab's Family - a 1952 Metro Goldwyn Mayer cartoon short similar in content
References
- ^ Scott, Keith (3 October 2022). Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2. BearManor Media.
- ^ Susie the Little Blue Coupe is Released - D23
- ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. p. 153. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7.
- ^ Internet Archive
- ^ The Love Bug: Special Edition on DVDizzy
- ^ The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad on DVDizzy
- ^ Walt Disney's It's a Small World of Fun! Volume 2 on DVDizzy
- ^ The making of the emotional 'Once Upon a Studio' Disney short - Attractions Magazine
- ^ Wallis, Michael (2015). The Art of Cars. Suzanne Fitzgerald. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4521-4722-2. OCLC 927106064.
- ^ "U.S. Copyright Public Records System". publicrecords.copyright.gov. Retrieved 2023-02-11.
External links
- Susie the Little Blue Coupe at IMDb
- Bill Peet, Jr.'s page about the film
- Pixar's blog referencing the influence on Cars
- Susie the Little Blue Coupe on Internet Archive
- v
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Short series |
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Stand-alone shorts |
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short series
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short films
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- Education for Death (1943)
- Reason and Emotion (1943)
- The Pelican and the Snipe (1944)
- The Brave Engineer (1950)
- Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1952)
- Susie the Little Blue Coupe (1952)
- The Little House (1952)
- Ben and Me (1953)
- Melody (1953)
- Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953)
- Football Now and Then (1953)
- Social Lion (1954)
- Pigs Is Pigs (1954)
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feature films
- 7 Wise Dwarfs (1941)
- Casey Bats Again (1954)
- A Dairy Tale (2004, direct-to-video)
- Super Rhino (2009, direct-to-video)
- Tangled Ever After (2012)
- Frozen Fever (2015)
- Olaf's Frozen Adventure (2017)
- Once Upon a Snowman (2020)