In 1932 the Silly Symphonies made the move to color with “Flowers and Trees” after signing an exclusive two-year contract with Technicolor to be the sole owners of the three-strip color process. This was the first animated short to receive an Academy Award. In this animation, the flora of the woods are anthropomorphized into singing and frolicking beings. The limbs are leaves and roots function as feet, allowing the plants to walk and interact on a very abstract level.
In 1937 the Disney studios set another milestone with “The Old Mill” by inventing the multiplane camera, creating the illusion of depth by literally filming through layers of cellular animation. The flora in this animation is naturalistic. The behavior of the flowers and reeds set a mood for the animated short by whistling in the wind--creating tension through movement that builds throughout the piece until the storm has passed and the dawn arrives.
The Tchaikovsky Nutcracker Suite segment of “Fantasia” also contains an excellent example of the more naturalistic representation of flowers. Flowers are represented as they can be seen in nature, with drops of dew, floating on the water and opening to the morning sun (a phenomenon that can be observed in passion flowers as well as morning glories). Another innovation in “Fantasia” was Fantasound, a stereo system that was so expensive to implement in 1941 that “Fantasia” was originally released in only 14 theaters.
The flowers in Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” (released in July, 1951) are stationary, but anthropomorphized directly into disapproving adults, complete with glasses and puffed up pomp and circumstance. There is no question that these flowers, made up of roses, tiger lilies, impatiens and irises create their own trouble for poor Alice as she tries to get back home. They are each examples of using specific flower species to communicate a character unique to the actual form of the flower itself.
A truly silly representation of the flower in animation can be found in the animated series “The Tick” (adapted directly from a comic of the same name). El Seed is an evil flower man determined to get his revenge on the fauna of the earth for their abuse of plants. He is literally a man with a sunflower head, complete with a mane of yellow petals. Oddly enough, he has a Spanish accent. With his Bee Twin henchmen and plant army (animated by a serum he created), he fights to liberate plants in The City. This is obviously an absurd comment on the supervillain, and takes the concept of anthropomorphic plants to a new level.