King Neptune splashed onto movies screens a couple years before Pinocchio took to the sea in search of Geppetto, decades before Angela Lansbury and David Tomlinson were bobbing along, singing a song on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and long before Sebastian led a hot crustacean band under the sea in The Little Mermaid. On this day in 1932, the 30th Silly Symphony submerged audiences into the story of King Neptune. When some rowdy pirates weigh anchor, it falls right on the head of King Neptune, tangling him in the chains. Then, when the band of pirates captures a mermaid, the animal inhabitants of the sea must pull together to rescue the mermaid until the king is able to free himself from the chains and come to her aid. The character of King Neptune is derived from Roman mythology, where Neptune is the god of water and the sea and whose brother is Pluto, not the dog pal of Mickey Mouse, but the ruler of the underworld.
