Otto

Otto
Background information
Short films	Birds in the Spring
Character information
Likes	Singing, wandering
Dislikes	Being scolded, predators, hornets
Status	Active
Family information
Parent(s)	Unnamed mother Unnamed father
Sibling(s)	Two sisters

Otto is a main character from the 1933 Silly Symphony short Birds in the Spring. He is a small robin hatchling who was born with his two sisters during springtime.

Background

Otto is a diminutive robin hatchling whom his mother gave birth to, along with his two sisters. Compared to his two sisters, Otto has a yellow coloration located on his head between his eyes as well as being located on his neck as well as a red ruffle on his torso resembling his father's plumage. However, despite his curious personality, Otto is shown to be carefree when running away from home - unaware of the predicaments he gets into such as a rattlesnake or a hornets' nest. After he returned home, Otto's father gives his son a spanking to teach him a lesson.

Appearances

Birds in the Spring

Otto and his two sisters are seen hatching from their eggs during springtime, as their parents feel happy that their children are born. Otto's father tells the other birds (including an owl) to look at their adorable children, as they gather around to witness their birth. Sometime later, Otto and his sisters started growing plumage. As they sing together, Otto's father conducts his children while Otto's mother happily enjoys their singing. During a singing lesson, Otto sings off-key, frustrating his father who is conducting his children to sing perfectly. During a singing lesson, Otto gets distracted when he sees a bee nearby, just as he swallows it. As Otto returns to the nest where his sisters are singing, they become surprised when they heard a buzzing noise after Otto consumed the bee. Otto's father becomes furious that his son cannot chirp, because he swallowed a bee, only for Otto to spit it out, upsetting his father again.

After a singing lesson, Otto's father teaches his children how to fly like him and after a lesson, he teaches them how to fly and as they fly independently, Otto's parents are excited to see their children fly for the first time, only for them to fall. Otto's parents use a nest to protect their children from falling, except for Otto who lands on a patch of mushrooms. Worried that Otto is not home, his father comes looking for his son just as Otto continuously explores the world around him such as interacting with a dandelion and following two grasshoppers leaping in the field. Otto swallows one of the grasshoppers, but later swallows it which the grasshopper becomes furious for attempting to eat him. Otto follows a hummingbird pollinating flowers, only for another hummingbird to pull him out. He later encounters a rattlesnake that notices Otto and corners him on a branch.

Just as the snake attempts to eat him across the field, he chases the hatchling through a log, causing him to be tied up and unable to move. Otto later encounters a hornet nest where he enters it, causing a swarm of hornets to chase him across the field just as Otto's family is sad fearing that they lost him. However, Otto's parents and sisters notice him who is in danger as Otto's father comes to the rescue and saves his son from the hornets just as Otto and his family hide under their nest to avoid getting stung. After the hornets pass by, Otto's father becomes very upset with his son, spanking him, furious with him for wandering too far away from his family as well as teaching him a lesson.

Other appearances

Archived footage from Birds in the Spring was used in the song "Let's All Sing Like the Birdies Sing" in the Disney's Sing-Along Songs volume Fun with Music.

Gallery

Otto cornered by a rattlesnake

Trivia

• Otto's name was not mentioned in the short, due to the short itself lacking any dialogue. His name was revealed in the storyboard for Birds in the Spring and other production materials such as the model sheet. This name later appeared in other public material, such as the Encyclopedia of Walt Disney's Animated Characters as well as the Disney D23 entry of Birds in the Spring.