Fantasia - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Fantasia or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Fantasia

[norma]

First Disney film dubbed in Spain with Castilian in Spanish in 1977.

[toni]

The surrealist painter Salvador Dalí made some illustrations for the movie, but his ideas were later discarded.

[lynn]

The Night On Bald Mountain sequence was cut from the film when originally released on video. When the sequence was shown in 1940 the studio was overrun with calls and letters from parents who complained that the sequence scared their children. It has since been restored to its original place in the film on subsequent home video releases.

[amber]

Disney's third animated feature.

[gerald]

Segments were colour-keyed scene by scene so the colours in a single shot would harmonize between proceeding and following ones. Before a segment's narrative pattern was complete, an overall colour scheme was designed to the general mood of the music, and patterned to correspond with the development of the subject matter. The studio's character model department would also sculpt three-dimensional clay models so the animators could view their subject from all angles.

[kim]

According to R. D. Feild's The Art of Walt Disney, in order to draw Hyacinth, the hippo prima ballerina, a woman weighing over 200 pounds (91 kg) was brought onto the live-action stage and her movements were recorded by cameramen, recording the "least quiver of her flesh, noticing those parts of her anatomy that were subjected to the greatest stress and strain".

[jamie]

The Disney company owns a character called "Fantasia". She is a Marvel comic book character introduced in 1989 and has also appeared under the name "Phantasma". She is a sorceress and her name might have been chosen in reference to the "Sorcerer's Apprentice". Like most Marvel characters, Fantasia is currently owned by Disney.

[steve]

When Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971, the only featured composer still living in 1940) was contacted about the rights to use "The Rite of Spring," he offered to compose a completely new piece for Walt Disney. This was not taken, and Stravinsky hated Leopold Stokowski's re-orchestration and re-organization of the piece, the original order of the sections was jumbled, and two of them were completely left out.

[camila]

James Wong Howe served as cinematographer for the live-action segments uncredited.

[kristen]

Since the "Pastoral Symphony" segment depicts a celebration in honor of Dionysus/Bacchus, some sources suggest that it was Disney's own depiction of the Bacchanalia. The Bacchanalia was the Roman festival to the god, and by reputation used to involve sexual rituals. The term survives in the modern world, its current meaning being uninhibited or drunken revelry.

[harry]

On the 1982 digital re-recording of the soundtrack, Irwin Kostal decided to use Modest Mussorgsky's original orchestration (which was previously unpublished until 1968) of "Night on Bald Mountain," which is said to be much fiercer than the version orchestrated by Leopold Stokowski that was used on the original.

[addison]

In 1998 the American Film Institute released a list called the "AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies", choosing the 100 best American feature films. "Fantasia" made the list and was ranked 58th. The AFI's criteria for inclusion and ranking were that a film had to have a feature length and a narrative format, to be an American production or co-production, to have received critical recognition, to have won major awards, to have gained popularity and commercial success over the years, to have gained historical significance through innovations, and to have had a cultural impact on American society.

[francisco]

For inspiration on the routines in Dance of the Hours, animators studied real life ballet performers including Marge Champion and Irina Baronova.

[lynn]

The sorcerer Yen Sid is a silent character in this film. Several of his subsequent roles were also silent or with little dialogue. He never received a regular voice actor until the release of the video game Kingdom Hearts II (2005), where he was voiced by Corey Burton. Burton has since voiced all major appearances of Yen Sid.

[kristina]

Composer Gunther Schuller (1925-2015) was first introduced to "The Rite of Spring" (1913) by viewing this film. He cited it as a key moment in his life and an influence on his musical career. He believed that the same was likely true for other musical professionals. In his words, "I hope [Igor Stravinsky] appreciated that hundreds--perhaps thousands--of musicians were turned on to 'The Rite of Spring' . . . through 'Fantasia', musicians who might otherwise never have heard the work".

[carl]

RKO was originally supposed to release the film but balked at the idea of 2 hour plus classical music feature. Disney released the film themselves through a select number of roadshow theaters. RKO would later take on the film for its re-releasing but usually with mono sound, forming part of a double feature with the Western Valley of the Sun (1942).

[wesley]

Walt Disney Animation Studios' first film to release in November, later since 2002 this would become the standard month, in which each Walt Disney Animation Studios film in the future would release, with the exceptions of Home on the Range (2004), The Wild (2006), Meet the Robinsons (2007), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Winnie the Pooh (2011), and Zootopia (2016).

[camila]

One of at least three films to feature J. S. Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor, the others being 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and Rollerball (1975).

[norma]

This is Steven Spielberg and David O. Selznick's favorite animated motion picture of all time.