Starting with snow white

particular historical moment, 
Coal Black 
serves to represent both of these 
in addition to 
gesturing toward the prolongation of a tradition and transformation of racial 

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disparagement in the United States effected through animation and its precursory 
entertainments.
Significantly, nowhere in these critical perspectives was it even remotely 
significant that the 
Snow White 
tale should have been selected for further adaptation.
Where the 
tale’s
prominence led earlier American artists to seek ownership and control 
over its usage, Clampett, knowing that he could not own the tale, simply used it as a 
device to further his own animation and interests. Walt Disney’s 
Snow White and the 
Seven Dwarfs 
was not 
a 
foundational model, but 
the 
foundation for an American 
animator to showcase his talents and views, per the Warner Bros. style. 
 
Conclusion 
It cannot be denied that both Gág’s and Clampett’s versions proved critical 
developments in the American 
Snow White 
tradition, the first pulling the tale back into 
the literary sphere and the second reactively breaking the American conventions and 
sentimental fantasy of Disney’s version. Wanda Gág translated and illustrated what is 
understood as the first American literary or book-based version of 
Snow White and the 
Seven Dwarfs
, reflecting the Grimms’ tradition, but also her own surrounding culture.
Bob Clampett’s parody, 
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs
, tossed the tradition of the tale 
aside, but produced an animated short which represented WWII era American culture, 
values, and ideologies, as well as his own. Although censored,
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it continues to be 
64
Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs 
became part of the “Censored Eleven” in the 1960s, “an unofficial 
blacklist of offensive cartoons that broadcasters wouldn’t show on TV” (Weinman 57). Jaime Weinman 
further notes that unlike other Warner Brother cartoons released via VHS or DVD, 
Coal Black 
never 
appeared in either of these forms. 

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examined, analyzed, and further critiqued for these attributes. These two sides of the 
Snow White 
story, produced very shortly after the Disney version, display the push-pull 
effect between multiple media that Disney’s landmark film produced. Could the 
publishing industry return the tale to its more traditional literary and folkloric past?
Could animation and/or other media move the tale forward still further in its particularly 
American representation? And how could or would representations of 
Snow White 
generated through multiple forms of media continue to correspond with one another, 
extending the American fairy tale conversation still further? These works represent the 
very beginnings of critical responses to Disney that would continue to emerge and gain 
prominence in the postmodern era.
Markedly, both adaptations were successful in some measure; however, the 
Disney film in its profound influence and reminiscences rekindled through artwork, 
language, scenes, and even music, was at least partially responsible for the successes of 
each. Where the earlier American 
Snow White
tradition (pre-Disney) was marked by 
ownership, Walt Disney’s 
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 
produced a fundamental 
shift in revisions or adaptations of successors. Despite self- or industry-/corporate- 
interests attempting to reclaim, retaliate against, or manipulate this foundational 
American