The Golden Touch is a Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 Silly Symphony cartoon made in 1935. The story is based on the Greek mythology of King Midas, albeit with a medieval setting rather than Greek.

Story

King Midas never gets enough of gold and wishes that everything he touched would turn to gold. One day an elf named Goldie appears in front of him and offers him the Golden Touch, and demonstrates its magical power by turning his cat to gold, then claps his hands and it changes back, but warns him that it's a curse. Midas however derides this, exclaiming "Fiddlesticks! Give me gold, not advice!", and Goldie gives him the golden touch ("I gave thee advice, now I give thee gold."). At first Midas is happy about that (He turns many things in his garden to gold, then talks to himself in his mirror about turning the Earth and then the Universe to gold), but then he finds out he can't eat and can't drink anymore ("Is the richest king in all the world to starve to death?"). Deprived of his favourite meal and fear of starvation (he hallucinates himself in a golden skeleton form in his mirror; then as he runs away from this horrifying image, sees his shadow on the wall morph into a golden Grim Reaper, after which a terrified Midas flees back to his counting room), he summons the elf who agrees to take back the Golden Touch in exchange for everything Midas owns. In exchange, Midas is given a hamburger ("With onions!").

History

The Golden Touch was an attempt by Walt Disney to direct a cartoon, which he hadn't done for five years. Disney had been criticizing his cartoon directors, and decided to direct the cartoon himself. He was dissatisfied with the result and forbade his workers to talk about it. Despite being an infamous disappointment, the film was included in the first Silly Symphonies

Silly Symphonies

Silly Symphonies is a series of animated short subjects, 75 in total, produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939, while the studio was still located at Hyperion Avenue in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles...

DVD collection.

Sources

• http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026423/plotsummary
• http://www.disneyshorts.org/years/1935/goldentouch.html