In short films such as Santa’s Workshop (1932) and Mickey’s Amateurs (1937)—and arguably later in Pinocchio—Disney sought to reconcile audiences to the technology of mass production. Sensing the blend of fascination and distrust in popular attitudes toward industrial technology, Disney endowed machines with souls. In Disney animations, “the machine becomes human,” Seldes surmised, “just when humanity is afraid mankind will be turned into a machine.”
