Trick or Treat, the Donald Duck cartoon at the bottom of this post, is one of my all time favorite Disney shorts for a number of reasons...• It's directed by legendary Disney Animator Jack Hannah (not to be confused with the animal guy that you always see on talk shows).
• It features a song throughout the film sung by Elvis back-up singers "The Mellomen," who you'll recognize from their many contributions to Disneyland/Disneyworld attraction songs (including the Haunted Mansion), not to mention the popular "Ballad of Davey Crockett." Download the song here.
• Witch Hazel, the strangely hillbilly witch charcter, is voiced by June Foray (who provided the voice of Natasha Fatale and Rocket J. Squirrel on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. The character of Witch Hazel would pop up in Warner Bros. cartoons also voiced by Foray - no relation.
• The background art on this short is really simple, but SO surreal. Kind of like the "Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" backgrounds. I think my childhood memories of Halloween were pretty much shaped by the tone of this short. And here's another great fact for you. Those backgrounds were created by Yale Gracey, a master artist at the Disney studios who worked on Fantasia and Pinocchio, and later went on to Disney Imagineering where he created The Haunted Mansion ghosts! Master Gracey (the "ghost host" of the attraction) was named after him.
