More of Art Babbitt to Michael Culhane, circa 1980, about Babbitt’s animation of the Mushroom Dance from Fantasia.  Quoted by Michael Culhane.

He told me his three stooges story, which my father told in the documentary, it comes with the deluxe video of the Fantasia film, this last year. “You may not have recognized it, Michael,” he said, “but his anticipation for his steps at the beginning of the dance is almost a direct swipe from those three zanies who keep slapping each other around. The Three Stooges always did a funny little action where the knees overlap. When he’d get angry he’d do this furious little step, with his knees crossing, one over the other. And instead of just an ordinary anticipation, I used this, because the music called for a trill. So during that trill, he did this little anticipatory act.’”