All of the animated sequences in Song of the South were based on stories from two books, Uncle Remus (1880) and Nights with Uncle Remus (1883) by Joel Chandler Harris.
Prior to Song of the South, Disney had already mastered the marriage of live-action film footage with animation. However, Song of the South represents the first time that Disney made a film which was primarily live-action and interspersed it with animated sequences, Conversely, one year before the release of Song of the South, Disney brought us The Three Caballeros which used animation as the primary element

and live-action as secondary. It wasn't until 1964 that live-action and animation met onscreen once more until the classic Disney film, Mary Poppins. In the film, Uncle Remus tells Johnny three fables which come to life through animation. Each one has a moral which happens to apply to a certain problem in the boy's life.