1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. MUSIC
5. PRODUCTION
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) proved to the world that good stories could be told in the form of animation. Pinocchio (1940) is remembered for its impressive visual effects and detailed artwork. Fantasia (1940) pushed boundaries by perfectly synchronising classical music with differing animated sequences. Bambi (1942) painstakingly recreated natural landscapes and realistically animated animals.

Dumbo, on the other hand, released a year prior to Bambi, is not known for its artistic merits, not as much as the other four movies in Disney’s “Golden Age”. Instead, it is seen as one of the most emotional and heartfelt movies to have ever come out of the Disney Studios.

It is also known for being the film that managed to lift the Disney Studios out of financial difficulty, and for recapturing audience attentions again. Pinocchio and Fantasia had not been successful at the box-office. This was due, in part, to World War II disrupting their movie distribution. Fantasia had also not interested the general public, and even managed to anger some music critics for its rearrangements of classical music pieces.

The Disney Studios needed a guaranteed hit, and one that wouldn’t cost nearly as much as their previous movie releases. They needed to find a story with a simple plot, something that would be easy to adapt, and they couldn’t have as much focus on the artistry of animation; that would cost too much.

Luckily, a short story about a small elephant with big ears overcoming self-doubt would prove itself to be a great movie for Disney Animation’s next movie. With its heart-breaking moments and relatable troubles, it touched viewers who even today continue to name Dumbo as one of Disney’s best ever movies.

Dumbo has never been one of my favourite Disney movies though. I think Dumbo is a very cute character, but it’s not nice to see something so little and cute being bullied because of its appearance. The story has some surprisingly dark and sad moments, so it’s not exactly light-hearted entertainment by today’s standards, when Disney’s most treasured animated movies these days tend to be those musicals of the 1990s, or even more recent ones of the 2010s and 2020s.

Still, Dumbo was a milestone moment for Disney Animation, and its success helped the Disney Studios to stay afloat during a particularly difficult decade for the whole world.

PLOT

The story of Dumbo begins with baby animals being delivered by stork to animals in a travelling circus in Florida during wintertime, through storms and blustery weather. Sadly, one of these animals, Mrs. Jumbo the elephant does not receive her baby at this time.

The next spring, after the animals have been herded onto the circus train for their next set of engagements, one of the storks arrives late to deliver Mrs. Jumbo’s baby. After signing for her “package”, the customary “Happy Birthday” song is sung by the stork. Mrs. Jumbo opens up the bundle and sees her baby, which she has named Jumbo Jr.  The other female elephants are eager to see, and at first, find it to be a cute little thing. But when little Jumbo sneezes, he reveals his huge ears. At this point, the female elephants all start to make fun of Jumbo, giving him the cruel nickname of “Dumbo”. Mrs. Jumbo doesn’t care what they think though, and vows to protect her baby no matter what.

Once the circus arrives at its next stop, it soon becomes clear that Dumbo’s large ears cause him to be quite clumsy, as he constantly trips over them. A group of teenage boys come to the circus and mock Dumbo, and despite Mrs. Jumbo’s attempts to shield him from view, one of the boys continues to torment Dumbo, to the point where Mrs. Jumbo picks up the boy and spanks him in front of all of his friends. Good for her, you might think, but the Ringmaster doesn’t see it that way, and begins to whip her in an attempt to stop this. Instead, Mrs. Jumbo throws the Ringmaster into a bucket of cold water, and is then locked up in a tiny cage and labelled a “mad elephant”.

This leaves Dumbo alone with the horrible female elephants who ignore him. But not for long, as a little mouse, Timothy Q. Mouse, arrives to stop these elephants from being cruel to Dumbo, telling them not to pick on little guys. Timothy scares the elephants away, as only a mouse can do, and tells Dumbo he’ll look after him, and that he could be a great circus star. That night, Timothy whispers into the Ringmaster’s ear whilst he’s sleeping, telling him to make a finale act of a pyramid of elephants where Dumbo will stand on top.

The next day, this pyramid of elephants is shown to a paying audience. After some difficulty, the pyramid, albeit a less than steady one, is complete and Dumbo, with his ears tied up, goes out to do his act, however, he gets stage-fright and tries to walk away. Timothy forces him to go out there, but as he runs towards the springboard that will catapult him to the top of the pyramid, his ears become untied and he trips, bouncing into the bottom of the pyramid, causing all the elephants to fall. The audience runs away in fear and the circus act is ruined. Because of Dumbo’s clumsiness, he is then demoted to being a clown instead.

As a clown, Dumbo is made a laughing stock, forced to ascend a high platform and then jump down into a bucket of pie filling. Dumbo is a hit as a clown, but he hates his new job. Timothy tries to convince him that this success is a good thing, but it doesn’t work; nothing will cheer Dumbo up. So, Timothy takes him over to Mrs. Jumbo’s cage so he can see his mother for a little while, except the cage is so tall that Dumbo can only interact with his mother’s trunk, in one of Disney’s most heart-breaking movie moments.

We then hear that the clowns want to raise the height of the platform to crazy levels so that their act can be even better, and they deduce that Dumbo won’t care because “elephants don’t have feelings”, since they are made of rubber… The clowns then proceed to accidentally poison Dumbo by carelessly allowing a bottle of champagne to fall into his water. After Dumbo gets hiccups from crying, Timothy leads Dumbo over to his tainted water supply, and the two become drunk, hallucinating about weird pink elephants.

The next day, the two find themselves waking up in a tree next to a gang of crows. That must have been some wild night! Timothy deduces that Dumbo must have flown them up to that tree, but the crows laugh at this theory, finding it absurd. After hearing that Dumbo was torn away from his mother, that everyone has isolated him because of his big ears, and that the circus has made him into a clown, the crows feel bad about what they have said and decide to help. They give Timothy a “magic feather” to give Dumbo the confidence to fly. Sure enough, it works – Dumbo can fly! Timothy plans for Dumbo to surprise everyone at the circus that night with his new talent.

As Dumbo is placed on the high platform as part of the clown act, due to jump down to the bucket below, Dumbo is ready to show he can fly – but he drops his feather midway down and loses all of his confidence. Timothy quickly tells him the feather wasn’t actually magic and that he can fly without it. At the last moment, Dumbo has faith and opens his ears, and flies all across the circus tent, terrorising the clowns below and blasting peanuts into the faces of the elephants that tormented him. Serves them right.

The movie ends by saying that Dumbo has become a major celebrity, with his ears even being insured for $1 million. Timothy becomes Dumbo’s manager and gets him a Hollywood contract. We then see the circus train going to its next stop. Dumbo flies behind it with the crows, before reuniting with his mother in their own private coach on the train.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Dumbo is a cute little elephant with big ears who becomes a huge star. Dumbo is an incredibly sweet character, and I think his hiccups are adorable. However, nobody else seems to see it that way because he’s “different”. I can definitely relate to Dumbo as a character, as I’m sure many people can. It’s not easy growing up when there’s something about you that makes you different from everyone else. I was the short kid with big ears and funny teeth at school. And kids can be cruel – but in this case, it’s not just the kids; the adults do it too. Although all the other female elephants initially think he’s the sweetest little baby they’ve ever seen, the minute his ears are revealed, they bully and tease him. It’s awful to see this, and then it gets worse, when the teenage circus-goers begin to torment him, which leads to Mrs. Jumbo attacking the kids. Who can blame her really? No-one dies, it’s not a big deal. Yet the Ringmaster locks up Mrs. Jumbo, separating Dumbo from his mother. If it weren’t for Timothy Q. Mouse, I don’t know how Dumbo would have survived all that. But luckily, that’s not the case and Timothy gives him the confidence to believe in himself that he can fly, which certainly shuts everyone up in the end. The movie has a nice message about accepting yourself as you are and showing that everyone has a talent.

The character of Dumbo was designed by animator Bill Tytla, who was best known for animating Stromboli in Pinocchio (1940) and Chernabog in Fantasia (1940). Since Dumbo does not speak at all in the movie, it was incredibly important that his thoughts and feelings were able to be read purely through his facial expressions. Tytla used his two-year-old son Peter as inspiration for this aspect of the character, giving Dumbo that innocent quality to him. In the 29^th December 1941 edition of Time magazine, there was an interview with Tytla about the fact he used his son as inspiration for the design of Dumbo, however, people seemed to take this fact literally, which led to Tytla’s wife, Adrienne, writing a letter to Time, which was published in their 2^nd February 1942 edition of the magazine. She said that she did not enjoy the jokes about how her son must resemble an elephant to have been the design inspiration for Dumbo, and included a picture of her son to prove he did not. After this, Peter received many fan letters, but it also got the attention of Walt Disney, who visited Adrienne to not-so-subtly, but kindly, inform her that she should ask permission the next time she wishes to discuss Disney matters with the press[1].

Dumbo has remained a popular character with Disney fans for decades now, but there is something a bit problematic about this. Although the main character is referred to as Dumbo for most of the movie, it’s his name on the title of the movie after all, and it’s the name we all know the character as, in actual fact his name is Jumbo Jr. If you think about it, aren’t we continuing the elephants bullying by calling him this? It’s been over eighty years now, so I guess that ship has sailed.

Similarly to Jiminy Cricket’s role in Pinocchio (1940), Timothy Q. Mouse is the confidante of Dumbo, and, since Dumbo does not talk, Timothy becomes his voice, standing up for him against the bullies. He takes Dumbo under his wing and plans to make him a big star, so that no-one will ever laugh at him again. Timothy Q. Mouse is the eternal optimist, determined to make the world a better and more understanding place. What a dream that would be… Disney’s Dumbo is based on an original story written by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl. The biggest difference between the two stories is that there is no mouse named Timothy. Instead, Dumbo is helped to stardom by a little robin named Red[2]. Animator Fred Moore did much of the animation work on Timothy, managing to mix the comic and the more sympathetic scenes well. Moore had animated most of the character of Lampwick in Pinocchio (1940) before this.

Edward Brophy voiced the character of Timothy. Brophy worked with Buster Keaton on a few of his movies, like The Cameraman (1928), Doughboys (1930) and The Champ (1931). later appeared as the sidekick, Goldie Locke, in a couple of movies within The Falcon film series, which starred Tom Conway.

Although not hugely present in the movie, Mrs. Jumbo is a major supporting character for Dumbo. She is protective of him right from the outset, shielding him from the comments of the other elephants, and then beats up the horrible kids that start to make fun of Dumbo, which unfortunately means that she is taken away from her son and locked up…It’s a difficult series of events to watch, and you can feel how depressed both Mrs. Jumbo and Dumbo are at being separated from each other. It’s just good that they are reunited at the end of the movie.

Verna Felton voiced the characters of both Mrs. Jumbo, who only has the one line in the movie, when she names her son, and Elephant Matriarch, the leader of the other elephants who makes many of the nasty jokes and comments about Dumbo and his ears. Felton went on to voice characters for other Disney animated movies: wholesome, helpful ones, like The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (1950) and Flora, one of the Good Fairies, in Sleeping Beauty (1959), as well as cruel, villainous ones, including the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp (1955).

Another voice actor who first appeared in Dumbo and later voiced other beloved Disney characters is Sterling Holloway, who voiced Mr. Stork. Holloway went on to voice the characters of Adult Flower in Bambi (1942), the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Kaa in The Jungle Book (1967), and Roquefort in The Aristocats (1970). He was also the original voice of the lovable Winnie the Pooh.

Now for the last set of characters to mention. Let’s talk about the crows. The crows have come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years, due to some seeing the characters as perpetuating stereotypes of Black people. According to Disney, the crows were meant to accurately portray the “backchat” and “back and forth” between band leaders and their performers, which is frequently heard on band recordings of this era, including those of Louis Armstrong. It was never intended to be seen as stereotyping, with the only intention being to faithfully recreate the spirit of that type of music, as the crows’ main role in Dumbo is to perform the song “When I See An Elephant Fly”. They are also quite a sympathetic group of characters, who come to identify with Dumbo and help him to succeed.

Mainly because of the crows’ sequence, Dumbo on Disney+ begins with a warning message, highlighting the potential negative stereotypes within the movie. As time goes on, there will always be parts of “older” movies that do not age well. Providing we know the context of the time, I do not personally take issue with it, but I can see why others would. The only issue I have with this scene is that Cliff Edwards, a white performer and original voice of Jiminy Cricket, provided one of the crows’ voices, which doesn’t sit well in today’s world. The other crows were performed by Hall Johnson, who was a highly regarded African-American choral director, and members of his Hall Johnson Choir. Johnson didn’t seem to find anything racist in the work they were doing for Dumbo and was happy to continue his involvement in the movie[3]. Others, including Disney animator Floyd Norman and Whoopi Goldberg, have previously come out in defence of the crow characters.

The animation of the crows was completed by animator Ward Kimball, who had previously animated the character of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio (1940). To help with capturing realistic movements, live-action recordings were taken of the Jackson Brothers, a vaudeville act, dancing and these were used as inspiration for some of the sequence[4].   

MUSIC

The score for Dumbo was written by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. Churchill had worked on the soundtrack for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and had also contributed to the music on many other Disney projects from the time he joined the Studios in 1930, such as the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” for the Silly Symphony short Three Little Pigs (1933). After his work on Dumbo, Churchill composed music for Bambi (1942) and the song “Never Smile at a Crocodile”, which is a deleted song from Peter Pan (1953) and was co-written with Jack Lawrence. Churchill sadly passed away from suicide in May 1942, just three months before the release of Bambi.

Wallace joined the Disney Studios in the 1930s, composing the film scores for many of the Disney animated films, and some live-action ones, until his death in 1963. These included Cinderella (1950), Peter Pan (1953) and Lady and the Tramp (1955), as well as Dumbo. Churchill and Wallace won the Academy Award in 1942 for Best Original Score for their work on Dumbo. Some standout pieces from the score in my opinion are the “Main Titles”, which sounds just like the music you’d hear at a circus, and “The Dumbo’s Triumph”, which plays as Dumbo finally shows everyone just what he can do and gives those that bullied him their “just desserts”; it really is a triumphant ending to the movie.

Then there are the seven songs that make up the rest of the music on Dumbo. These were written by Churchill and Wallace, with lyrics from Ned Washington. Washington contributed the lyrics to songs in Pinocchio (1940), winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song along with Leigh Harline, and after Dumbo, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song again for “High Noon” from the 1952 film High Noon.

The first song is a bouncy little tune called “Look Out for Mr. Stork”, as all the circus animals, except Mrs. Jumbo, receive their babies from the storks. It’s not a big moment in the movie, so it’s not overly memorable but it’s not a bad song. Another similar song is “Casey Junior”, which plays as the circus train heads to its next stop, going through rain, storms, and hilly terrain to get there. These two songs were performed by The Sportsmen, who also performed one more song in Dumbo: “Pink Elephants on Parade”.

There are two remaining “small” songs in Dumbo to mention. The first is “Song of the Roustabouts”, which is another quite troublesome song, as it seems to feature Black railroad workers putting up the circus tent in an awful storm, with a couple of the lyrics seeming to reference that this is in fact slave labour… It is not clear what ethnicity the workers are, as the scene takes place in darkness and shadow, but it’s not a nice scene to watch anyway, as the animals are also being forced to put up this tent in the pelting rain and slippery rain. The song was performed by The King’s Men singing group. Finally, we have “The Clown Song”, which is just a few lines about how the clowns want a raise from their boss.

“Pink Elephants on Parade” is one of the bigger songs in Dumbo, and one of the most memorable, not even for its music, but for its abstract, bizarre animation. Within this scene, a drunk Dumbo hallucinates about all these strange elephants. They change shape and colour quickly and without warning. It’s quite disturbing, but this style of animation was ahead of its time in terms of colour, form, and surreal imagery, with surrealism being popular in the USA around the 1930s, when Dumbo was being made[5]. This is probably the stand-out part of Dumbo in terms of its artistic style, with the rest of the movie seeming less sharp and detailed in places, and backgrounds being simple watercolours. I don’t know how Dumbo wasn’t completely traumatised by having these images in his mind; I would’ve been!

“Baby Mine” is the most memorable song within Dumbo without a doubt. It’s the emotional tear-jerker moment of the movie, as we see Dumbo trying to spend some time with his mother after being separated from her. Since the cage Mrs. Jumbo is locked in is so high up, Dumbo can only interact with her trunk, and the moment when she rocks him is the sweetest part. It is incredibly sad to see Dumbo this upset and confused about why he can’t be with his mother. You wouldn’t believe it but actually in this scene Timothy Q. Mouse says “I hope she’s in” when they go to visit Mrs. Jumbo. He has no tact. Hello, she’s locked in a cage; of course she’s in! “Baby Mine” was sung by Betty Noyes, who ironically dubbed two of Debbie Reynolds’ numbers in Singin’ in the Rain (1952). “Baby Mine” went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 14^th Academy Awards in 1942. It has been covered by artists such as Michael Crawford, Bette Midler, for the movie soundtrack of Beaches (1988), and Sharon Rooney and Arcade Fire for the End Credits of the live-action Dumbo (2019).

The other most popular song in Dumbo is “When I See An Elephant Fly”, which is sung by the crows as they laugh about how an elephant couldn’t possibly fly. It has some very nice harmonies, and it is incredibly catchy, although the controversy surrounding the characters of the crows has somewhat tainted this song. It was performed by Cliff Edwards and The Hall Johnson Choir. A reprise of the song also comes at the end of the movie.

PRODUCTION

The original story of Dumbo was first written by Helen Aberson with illustrations by Harold Pearl in 1938. It was intended to be used for a novelty toy called a “Roll-A-Book”. These Roll-A-Books featured a few illustrations which appeared on a short scroll inside a box. By twisting a wheel on the box, it would reveal the next drawing, however, there are no known copies of this Dumbo Roll-A-Book, presumably because only a prototype was made before the rights were purchased by Walt Disney in 1939, having been brought to his attention by Kay Kamen in Disney merchandising who had seen the prototype. It was not unusual for Disney to purchase the rights to an unpublished story. The story was then passed over to Disney story men Joe Grant and Dick Huemer to adapt it for the screen. At some point around 1939, a 36-page book of the Dumbo story was published, with only a mention of Disney on the copyright page. It only sold just over 1,000 copies.

At the time of Disney’s development on Dumbo, Aberson and Pearl were a married couple, however, they later had a troublesome divorce, which led to Pearl attempting to claim that he was the sole creator of the Dumbo story years later. In actual fact, it is unclear exactly what Pearl contributed to Dumbo as it soon became clear that artist Helen Durney completed the original illustrations, not Pearl. It is possible Pearl had made rough sketches that had been enhanced by Durney. Pearl never wrote another children’s book, instead choosing to go into journalism; he died in 1975. Helen Aberson died in 1999 and did write more children’s books during her lifetime, though seemingly none of them were published. Aberson felt that proper credit for her contributions on Dumbo were not given by Disney[6].

With the rights to Dumbo in the hands of the Disney Studios, Joe Grant, one of Walt Disney’s most trusted story men, and Dick Huemer set to work on adapting the story for their next animated movie in early 1940. Grant had been brought to the Disney Studios in 1933 to work on the short Mickey’s Gala Premier (1933) and later worked on Fantasia (1940) along with Dick Huemer, who had worked on the Silly Symphonies prior to that. They made some early changes to the original short story, such as deciding to make Dumbo’s sidekick a mouse instead of a robin since elephants are meant to be scared of mice. Supposedly, the two wrote their story treatment and gave Walt just one chapter of the story at a time to keep him interested and wanting more.

Also around this time, the Disney Studios’ operations were moving into their newly built studios in Burbank, which had been built using the extraordinary profits from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). This makes Dumbo the first Disney animated feature film to have been solely produced at the Burbank Studios.

After a month of development, Walt looked at progress on the story and knew it would work. It was a simple story, and one that could be developed easily and for less money. With World War II raging on in Europe, cutting off around three-quarters of Disney’s overseas income, Walt Disney knew they needed a lower budget movie to hopefully bring them financial success after the box-office disappointments of Pinocchio (1940) and Fantasia (1940). By Autumn 1940, the movie had begun animation, and it was fully completed by the time of the infamous Animators’ Strike in May 1941, whereby the Studios lost many major animating staff including Bill Tytla and Art Babbitt. The strike was later settled in September 1941, but the controversy surrounding it had damaged Walt Disney’s reputation somewhat.

Luckily, Dumbo was not an expensive movie to make. It benefitted from having simple backgrounds, bright colours, a short, easy-to-adapt story, and less detailed animation. Disney’s next animated release, Bambi (1942), would be the complete opposite of Dumbo, with the animators focused on realistically recreating nature in the artwork. Many of the animators who had worked on the original Silly Symphony series of shorts, those who were more “cartoony”, therefore ended up on Dumbo. This turned out to be most of the “Old Guard”, like Art Babbitt and Bill Tytla, with many of those who would become known as the “Nine Old Men” working on Bambi, except for Ward Kimball, whose artistic style was better suited to Dumbo[7]. The animators spent time studying real elephants though, to understand how the animals move. There was also some research on circus attractions of the time, with traditional graphic posters being seen frequently within the movie, as well as during its opening titles. Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo’s mother’s name, although originally Ella in Aberson’s story, is a reference to the famous Barnum and Bailey African elephant who was the largest elephant in captivity and became an international star. Disney were also inspired by the Ringling Bros. circus attractions, with John Ringling’s Greatest Show on Earth being based in Sarasota, Florida in the winter, as Dumbo’s circus also is[8].

In terms of the story, unlike many other Disney animated films that have numerous deleted sequences, Dumbo had very few story changes during its eighteen-month production. However, one of these was later discovered in Disney’s Animation Research Library. It was a small sequence where Timothy explains to Dumbo why elephants are scared of mice: because back in prehistoric times, mice were huge and used to torment the elephants constantly. Despite elephants now being bigger than mice, their trauma has stayed with them since an elephant never forgets[9].

RECEPTION

With Dumbo’s final budget being less than $1 million, Dumbo stood to make big financial gains at the box-office, although it took some convincing for Disney’s Dumbo to be released just as it was. RKO, the distributor of Disney’s movies at the time, complained about the length of the movie, since Dumbo was only just over 60 minutes long. Walt refused to lengthen the story to satisfy their demands, not wanting to pad out the story with unnecessary plot points, so RKO had to distribute the movie as it was[10].

Luckily, the audience didn’t seem to mind that, and Dumbo did in fact do well at the box-office when it was released on 31^st October 1941. Considering much of the world was in the midst of war, it seemed to be the perfect way to escape from the horrors of realities for a while. Dumbo made around half a million dollars in profit, which helped to ease some of the Disney Studios’ financial difficulties.

The story of Dumbo was praised for its moral message, about not judging by appearances and not letting your circumstances determine your life choices. It was also found to be endearing and compassionate, with bright colours, humour, good music, and memorable characters. This type of movie was more what the people had come to expect and love from Disney, unlike Fantasia (1940).

Sadly, the celebrations didn’t last long. After the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7^th December 1941, the US were compelled to join World War II. The US Army moved into the Disney Studios lot, and asked Disney to contribute to the war effort by making propaganda films. Some of the staff obviously enlisted in the army as well.

Time magazine had planned on putting Dumbo on the cover of one of their December 1941 editions, after the successful theatrical release of the film in October. A black-and-white portrait of Dumbo had been drawn, ready for Dumbo to be the first non-human cover model for the magazine, which would have proclaimed him “Mammal of the Year”. This magazine was scheduled for 29^th December 1941. However, after joining the war, it was seen that having Dumbo on the cover of Time would not be fitting for the new world that the US had just found themselves in. Instead, on 29^th December 1941, a portrait of General Douglas MacArthur appeared on the cover, although a story was still printed in the magazine about the development of Dumbo[11].

LEGACY

Dumbo was later re-released into theatres in 1949, 1959, and again in the 1970s. In 1955, Dumbo was also aired as part of the Disneyland television series, albeit in an edited form. It has been shown on television in full as well.

A television series that used the movie Dumbo as a basis was the Disney Channel series Dumbo’s Circus. It was not an animated series, but used human-sized puppet suits of Dumbo and other circus animals, including a lion, a koala, and a dog. Dumbo could now speak and had started his own circus with these other talented animals. The show aired from 1985 to 1986. Dumbo as a character has also made cameo appearances in the movies The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

Because the animated version of Dumbo will remain a beloved addition to the Disney animated classics for many more decades to come, as well as being remembered as the most financially successful Disney animated movie of the 1940s and potentially the most emotionally touching movie to come out of the Disney Studios, that made Dumbo the perfect candidate to get the live-action remake treatment.

Tim Burton directed the 2019 live-action remake of Dumbo, starring a CG elephant as the title character of Dumbo, who appeared alongside human actors such as Michael Keaton and Colin Farrell in new roles, and Danny DeVito as the Ringmaster. There are no talking animals here whatsoever, and the plot features a strong message around the poor treatment of animals in the circus. It also involves more historical context to the location and setting of the movie, unlike the animated Dumbo. New music was written for the movie, although “Baby Mine” did still feature in the 2019 remake. Dumbo (2019) was not a successful movie, critically or financially.

Outside of this, there was going to be a Dumbo II, which probably would have been a direct-to-video sequel. A sneak peek of this movie featured on the 2001 DVD release of Dumbo; however, the movie was ultimately cancelled in 2006. After Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, John Lasseter became the Chief Creative Officer of both Pixar and Disney Animation, and at this point he cancelled many sequels to Disney animated movies. The direct-to-video sequels have never had a good reputation, for story or animation quality.  But this bonus feature on the 2001 DVD clearly shows that Dumbo II was in development, with animators informing the viewer that the sequel was to be set soon after the original movie, with the plot following the circus animal children, including Dumbo, becoming separated from their circus home and ending up lost in New York City. Timothy Q. Mouse was set to return, along with a number of new animal characters.

At the Disney Parks, Dumbo the Flying Elephant is a very famous and beloved Disney attraction, with a version still operating at all six of the Disney Resorts. It features elephants attached to mechanical arms that spin around a hub section, whilst guests control the height of their vehicle. The original version obviously appeared at Disneyland. It was supposed to be an opening day attraction, however, the ride had many mechanical issues meaning that it could not open on 17^th July 1955. It opened almost a month later on 16^th August 1955. The original ride featured ten elephants, all with hinged ears that were supposed to move but they never worked properly. In 1983, the attraction was moved from its initial location to become part of New Fantasyland. Unfortunately, two mechanical issues with the ride caused two separate guest injury incidents in 1989 and 1990 which led to Disney wanting a new updated version of the ride. Luckily, one had already been built for Euro Disneyland, but since the opening of that park was still two years away, this ride was instead taken to Disneyland and installed there. This update increased capacity by adding six more elephants. Fun fact: President Harry S. Truman reportedly refused to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant in 1957 due to the elephant being a symbol of the Republican Party[12].

Apparently, the original concept for Dumbo the Flying Elephant was for the ten flying elephants to be ten pink elephants, as per the movie, however, it was decided that perhaps using Dumbo’s drunken hallucination as the basis for a children’s ride wasn’t the best idea! The ride later opened at Walt Disney World Resort for its opening day on 1^st October 1971, though the elephants had no hats, and Timothy Q. Mouse standing on his disco ball was not there either; these features were added two years later. In 1993, Walt Disney World’s Dumbo the Flying Elephant increased capacity from ten to sixteen vehicles. It was then moved in 2012 to the new area called Storybook Circus, as part of the New Fantasyland expansion, taking the over the area once known as Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Timothy now sits above the entrance to the ride[13]. Storybook Circus is meant to resemble a travelling circus, with the pavement complete with animal footprints and even some faux peanut shells stamped into it to really give that circus feel. As well as the Dumbo attraction, where a second identical attraction was added, along with an indoor play area in the queue, this area has the Casey Jr. Splash ‘N’ Soak Station; a new interactive experience called Smellephants on Parade, which consists of a short trail of elephant statues with different scents on them; the Barnstormer coaster; and Pete’s Silly Sideshow character meet-and-greet location.

The concept for Storybook Circus was originally proposed as part of an expansion to Disneyland’s Fantasyland in 1976. The proposal involved show buildings decorated with striped circus tent awnings, and bunting and posters everywhere. There would have been a clown-themed restaurant, a small merry-go-round called Circus Parade, using circus animals instead of the classic horses, as well as Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Casey Jr. Circus Train being relocated there. Other attractions such as Mickey’s Mad House, a Wild Mouse coaster, and an Audio-Animatronics show on a moving track called Circus Disney, did not appear. Finances for the land had been diverted to other Disney Park locations, such as Epcot and Tokyo Disneyland, which both opened in the early 1980s[14].

 At Disneyland Paris, they have also had Dumbo the Flying Elephant since their park opening on 12^th April 1992, which had sixteen elephant Dumbos from the start. There is a Casey Jr. Circus Train here, based on the one in Dumbo, called Casey Jr. – le Petit Train du Cirque, giving guests a view of what can be seen on Le Pays des Contes de Fées, their version of the Storybook Land Canal Boats. Disneyland also has the Casey Jr. Circus Train, which takes guests on a tour of the fairy-tale sights that feature on their Storybook Land Canal Boats. You can also find Dumbo the Flying Elephant at Shanghai Disneyland, again with sixteen elephants and as an opening day attraction, although this is the only version of the attraction not to be found in Fantasyland; it is actually situated at Gardens of Imagination. There is also the circus-themed snack bar Timothy’s Treats here.

At Hong Kong Disneyland, another sixteen-vehicle Dumbo the Flying Elephant has been found here since opening day on 12^th September 2005. Tokyo Disneyland has also had Dumbo the Flying Elephant since its opening day on 15^th April 1983, but this version is different to all the rest – and that is because it is the version of Dumbo that existed in 1983. It only has ten Dumbos and still features Timothy Q. Mouse spinning on his disco ball.

In terms of meet-and-greets, Dumbo has surprisingly been seen in recent years, though only at Disneyland as part of their Disneyland After Dark: Throwback Nite in April 2023. Dumbo had been a meet-and-greet character many years before, but is now an incredibly rare character to see. Dumbo is still a frequent character used within Disney merchandise lines, and songs or characters from the movie can be seen in some parades and nighttime shows such as the Festival of Fantasy Parade at Walt Disney World

Dumbo also made appearances in experiences that now no longer exist. During Magical: Disney’s New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations which ran at Disneyland from 2009 to 2014, Dumbo could even be seen flying over Sleeping Beauty Castle as the song “Baby Mine” played. There was also a series of floats in the Main Street Electrical Parade for Dumbo, with Dumbo even riding on one, and Dumbo began the Flights of Fantasy Parade at Hong Kong Disneyland. Dumbo and Timothy Q. Mouse were also seen playing the tuba as part of the Disney character orchestra during the Mickey Mouse Revue, which ran at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom from 1971 to 1980, before moving to Tokyo Disneyland, where the show ran from 1983 to 2009.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Dumbo’s constant presence in the Disney Parks in the form of Dumbo the Flying Elephant in particular has given countless children and adults memorable experiences of what it feels like to actually fly, remaining a very popular attraction all over the world.

Thanks to a touching message about accepting others for how they are and believing in the “underdog”, Dumbo has remained popular ever since its release dates, despite Dumbo being quite a sad film. It highlights the importance of family, and most importantly that unbreakable bond between parent and child.

Dumbo has become a quintessentially Disney story, one that helped families at a time of great distress and uncertainty in the 1940s, as well as continuing to be watched by families over the decades simply for its comforting nature.

---

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 10: Final Edition (2021), ‘Dumbo’s Mothers’, pp. 234-241.

[2] Credit: Wade Sampson, ‘The Original Story of Dumbo’, JimHillMedia.com, 27^th December 2004.

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Debunking Meryl Streep, Part Two’, MousePlanet.com, 26^th February 2014.

[4] Credit: Disney, Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo (2010).

[5] Credit: Jim Fanning, The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney (2016), ‘Little Elephant, Big Heart’, pp. 48-49.

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 10: Final Edition (2021), ‘Dumbo’s Mothers’, pp. 234-241.

[7] Credit: Disney, Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo (2010).

[8] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Dumbo (1941), pp. 10-12.

[9] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Dumbo (1941) 70^th Anniversary DVD (2011).

[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 10: Final Edition (2021), ‘Dumbo’s Mothers’, pp. 234-241.

[11] Credit: Andrew R. Chow, ‘How Dumbo Almost Ended Up on the Cover of TIME’, TIME (online), 29^th March 2019.

[12] Credit: Werner Weiss, ‘The Original Dumbo Flying Elephants’, Yesterland.com, 17^th December 2021.

[13] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Dumbo at the Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

[14] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Dumbo’s Circusland at Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

1. BACKGROUND
2. STORY #1: TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR: BACH
3. STORY #2: THE NUTCRACKER SUITE: TCHAIKOVSKY
4. STORY #3: THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE: DUKAS
5. STORY #4: THE RITE OF SPRING: STRAVINSKY
6. STORY #5: INTERMISSION / MEET THE SOUNDTRACK
7. STORY #6: THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY: BEETHOVEN
8. STORY #7: DANCE OF THE HOURS: PONCHIELLI
9. STORY #8: NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN / AVE MARIA: MUSSORGSKY / SCHUBERT
10. PRODUCTION
11. RECEPTION
12. LEGACY
13. FINAL THOUGHTS
14. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

Walt Disney was an appreciator of both art and music. Despite not being a musician himself, Walt understood the importance of music and song in his film-making.

Within the Silly Symphony series of cartoons, the Disney Studios began to use music to enhance their story-telling, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) went one step further by having the songs move the narrative forward, at a time when musicals revues, shows that consisted of numerous singing and dancing numbers that did not come together to form an overall plot, were all the rage.

After the success of Snow White, Walt wanted to go further with both music and animation, deciding to set classical music to animated sequences in an experience like no other. Something that was more of a concert than a feature film.

With the help of a famed conductor, the Disney Studios released Fantasia, hoping for very positive reviews. Sadly, it didn’t work out that way for Walt’s project, with many audiences and even some critics confused by this strange movie.

I’m not ashamed to say that I am one of those people. I have never liked Fantasia.

It’s not that I don’t like classical music, though I cannot say I am anything close to a connoisseur, and it’s not that I don’t like the animation, although some of the pieces are quite abstract and bizarre. The main problem I have is that Fantasia is just so long.

With a runtime of a little over two hours, Fantasia is the longest of all the Disney animated classics. That’s not to say that I have a short attention span because I don’t think I do; if I’m fully focused and interested in the subject, then I can easily watch a movie of two hours, sometimes more. But I started to lose interest about halfway into Fantasia, around the time of the Intermission, because of the lack of an overall story, and by the end of the movie, I just felt relieved it was over.

Fantasia is split into eight individual, standalone animated sections with a corresponding piece of music being played by an orchestra in the background. These segments have no relation to each other, and are of varying length.

These eight sections are:

1. “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”: Bach
2. “The Nutcracker Suite“: Tchaikovsky
3. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice“: Dukas
4. “The Rite of Spring“: Stravinsky
5. “Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack“
6. “The Pastoral Symphony“: Beethoven
7. “Dance of the Hours“: Ponchielli
8. “Night on Bald Mountain/Ave Maria“: Mussorgsky/Schubert

Fantasia does not follow any traditional story-telling format. Instead, the film showcases how animation and music can work in harmony with each other. It does succeed in that mission, but I don’t know if anyone can honestly say that every single section of Fantasia interests them, or that they enjoy every piece of music.

STORY #1: TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR: BACH

The introduction to Fantasia sees the viewer watching as the live orchestra prepares for their “concert”, getting to their seats and tuning up their instruments. Deems Taylor, the Master of Ceremonies for Fantasia who introduces each section of the film, then welcomes the audience, explaining what they are about to see in this feature film. Taylor explains that there are three types of music within Fantasia: music that tells a definite story; music that paints a picture; and music that exists for its own sake. He then introduces conductor Leopold Stokowski, who takes his place on stage.

The first sequence, Toccata and Fugue, is the third type of music. It has no story and is instead purely artistic, showing a series of abstract designs that are suggested by the classical piece itself. It begins with silhouettes of the orchestra, highlighted in different colours, before moving on to show lines and shapes mimicking the orchestra’s movements. These shapes combine to create forms and landscapes. It ends by returning to Stokowski and his orchestra on the stage.

Walt Disney wanted to have an animated abstract piece here that had no story, something that was experimental in nature. The work of German artist Oskar Fischinger was used as inspiration for this sequence. Fischinger was known for using lots of geometric patterns in his work and because of his experience, he was asked to help the artists with this sequence at the Disney Studios, however, he left the Studios because he did not like the fact that his designs were being altered by the Disney artists to fit their overall vision; Fischinger was used to working as an individual, not being within a collaborative work environment.

Toccata and Fugue is certainly abstract, and not exactly the best way of enticing an uncertain audience into enjoying Fantasia, if you ask me. I don’t enjoy the animation and I struggle to pay attention throughout this sequence. It is at least matched with a fairly well-known piece of music though.

STORY #2: THE NUTCRACKER SUITE: TCHAIKOVSKY

Pretty much everyone is familiar with “The Nutcracker Suite” music, or at least parts of it. However, instead of this sequence following the popular story of The Nutcracker ballet, something that has become a staple part of Christmas entertainment in many countries, Disney decided to move away from this and have their version tell a story of the changing seasons, featuring fairies, leaves, flowers, and mushrooms.

The Paint department experimented with new techniques for this piece, such as dry brushing, as they wanted it to be a spectacular piece of artwork and something that provoked an emotional reaction, so it took longer than normal to complete.

I really like the music of “The Nutcracker Suite” and I try to watch a version of the ballet on television every Christmas if it is airing. My favourite parts of Disney’s The Nutcracker Suite are the dancing mushrooms, with the little one that gets frustrated by being out of step with the others being the best part of it – apparently, his name is Hop Low[1] – and the dance with the thistles. Art Babbitt, the animator who designed the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and Geppetto in Pinocchio (1940) animated the dancing mushrooms, and despite that “dance” only be a couple of minutes long, it is perhaps the most memorable in The Nutcracker Suite.

The colour, changing scenery, and familiarity of the music of this sequence help to keep the viewer interested here.

STORY #3: THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE: DUKAS

Of all of the Fantasia sections, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is easily the most well-known to the general public, probably because it stars Mickey Mouse as the apprentice. It also popularised Dukas’ music. It helps that The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is one of the more interesting segments, actually telling a complete story. It is definitely my favourite section.

It shows Mickey using a magical hat to bring a broom to life so that it will fetch water for Mickey who is so tired of doing his chores for the sorcerer. Eventually, things get out of hand though, as Mickey falls asleep and dreams that he is controlling the whole universe and all the oceans, clearly enjoying his power. When Mickey awakens, he finds that the room is flooded with water, and that he cannot stop the broom from collecting water. Mickey decides the best way to deal with the situation is to hack the unruly broom to pieces but that doesn’t work, and the wood shards come back to life, making more brooms than ever. They go back to collecting water and almost drown Mickey in the room. Finally, the sorcerer returns and is able to magic away all that water, though he is most annoyed at his apprentice. It’s a good thing this happened to a sorcerer who could magic all the water away; imagine the insurance documents we’d have to fill in if our basements flooded. I doubt many companies insure against enchanted brooms… On returning to the orchestra stage, we then see Mickey shake hands with conductor Leopold Stokowski.

This story is the one that began the whole production of Fantasia, as Walt Disney wanted to make a new short cartoon that highlighted Mickey Mouse as the star attraction he is, and to give him an opportunity to act more expressively than he had done in his short humorous cartoons.

Mickey is obviously “the apprentice” here, with the Sorcerer being given the named Yen Sid, which is “Disney” spelt backwards. He is a strict man and one that is easily irritated. The disapproving look that he gives Mickey at the end of the story, with that raised eyebrow, was supposedly meant to be an imitation of the same disapproving look Walt Disney had[2]!

Sorcerer Yen Sid first spoke in a 1971 episode of The Wonderful World of Disney, as Fantasia contains no dialogue within the animation. The episode was called “Disney on Parade” and the character was voiced by Michael Rye[3]. Yen Sid also appeared in other Disney projects, such as House of Mouse (2001-03), the video game franchises Kingdom Hearts and Epic Mickey, as well as in the interactive game Fantasia: Music Evolved.

STORY #4: THE RITE OF SPRING: STRAVINSKY

The Rite of Spring takes us through the origin of life on Earth, including the lifespan of dinosaurs. It begins by taking us through space, through the galaxy, before descending on Earth where volcanoes bubble, lava flows, and oceans cascade over the ground. Then, we see the dinosaurs, and how they live in this environment alongside each other. Obviously, things don’t remain harmonious when a Tyrannosaurus Rex comes in to terrorise all the other dinosaurs, and a battle ensues between it and a Stegosaurus, with the Stegosaurus ultimately losing… The whole ground dries up, leaving no food or water for the dinosaurs. Eventually, they all die. But there’s no meteor shower here to finish them off; they just collapse and become extinct.

Apparently, The Rite of Spring as a single short film was used as an educational film for school science classes in the 1950s and 1960s, which makes sense, as it is kind of informative. I, sadly, find the length of the short, at just over 20 minutes, to be too long, and as I’m not overly interested in dinosaurs, I don’t particularly like it, but many do find this section of Fantasia to be one of the best ones.

Without computer animation, the Disney artists and effects team had to work out how to show the earliest times on Earth in an effective way. For example, the smoke clouds were created by setting oily rags on fire, and putting paint pots upside down in water created some of the smoke patterns. This adds drama to the piece, and these effects do make the sequence look impressive. Disney also wanted to make the dinosaurs as realistic as possible, studying dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History for hours to get the visuals right. Some of the science is not quite accurate, with some of the dinosaur species not co-existing together in real-life as they do on screen, but that’s getting a bit picky[4]. 

As well as the subject matter of evolution being quite daring, the choice of music was too. Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” was first performed in 1913, making it one of the “newer” pieces of classical music within Fantasia, but there was also a riot at the premiere of Stravinsky’s music, this being one of the most famous scandals in the art world. Some of the audience did not like the piece, or the primitive dance numbers that were choreographed to go alongside it. It was a shock to see, but there were also political tensions around the time that no doubt inflamed the people’s actions[5].

STORY #5: INTERMISSION / MEET THE SOUNDTRACK

Following on from that, we get to the Intermission, or Meet the Soundtrack as this section is also known. It is by far the most random part of Fantasia, even more abstract than Toccata and Fugue, feeling completely unnecessary to the overall feature.

It involves a short “jam session” with some of the musicians before moving us on to meet ‘Soundtrack’, a vertical white line, who moves to mimic the different instruments being played. I suppose Disney wanted to show how they can give an inanimate object a personality, and to give more of an insight into the musicians and performers. Luckily, it’s not much to sit through, but I feel like just showing the movie’s title card and playing a piece of calming music would’ve been more fitting for an Intermission.  

STORY #6: THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY: BEETHOVEN

The Pastoral Symphony depicts creatures from Greek mythology, such as centaurs and “centaurettes”, the female version of centaurs, where Disney artists had to make a decision over how much of their uncovered “top halves” should be exposed, according to Ward Kimball, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, as well as cherubs and Pegasus horses, just going about their day, relaxing, flirting, falling in love. Bacchus, the God of Wine, then shows up, seemingly drunk, and they all have a party. That is, until a dark cloud comes over, bringing a storm to the area. It turns out that it is Zeus, wanting to ruin the party, seemingly for no reason, other than I guess he was bored or was in a mood because he wasn’t invited, so he begins to throw lightning bolts at everyone below him, causing them to flee in terror. A bolt hits a huge barrel of wine and it floods the place. Zeus has had enough of causing problems for the day, and goes back to his business. The next day, the sun is out and everyone gets back to enjoying themselves once more.

The Pastoral Symphony is the most colourful of the Fantasia pieces, with the artists being told to be as free and creative with colour as they could be. According to Disney legend, background painter Ray Huffine was annoyed one day at not being able to find the perfect colour for some aspects of the scenery in The Pastoral Symphony. As he pondered what to do, he opened up his lunch and found that his wife had packed him a jar of boysenberry jam. It gave him an idea – by putting a light wash of jam on the cel, he had found the perfect colour[6]! Originally, Pierné’s music “Cydalise” was going to be used to accompany this section, however, it was decided that they needed something bigger and more dramatic for the sequence, so went with Beethoven.

The Pastoral Symphony happens to be the most controversial sequence within Fantasia. That is because it clearly introduced two stereotypical and caricatured African-American centaurettes, who are maids to the white centaurettes. The first of these is called Sunflower, who could be seen shining the white centaurettes hooves, and braiding flowers into their hair. Later on, another Black centaurette named Atika, who looks almost identical to Sunflower other than the fact she was given a slightly different hairstyle, could be seen holding a garland of one of the centaurettes and following behind her, as though Atika was picking up the train of a wedding dress. Sunflower also appeared later, unrolling the red carpet for the god Bacchus and attempting to help him into his seat. By the 1960s, these characters had been edited out of the film in the rise of the Civil Rights movement[7].

STORY #7: DANCE OF THE HOURS: PONCHIELLI

Dance of the Hours is perhaps the most fun section of Fantasia, and it is also relatively short so that’s helpful if your attention begins to wane at this point, like mine does. It starts with ostriches dancing to signal the start of the day. By the afternoon, we then see hippos dancing in the late day sun. In the evening, elephants can be seen dancing in the sunset; and then, the alligators appear in the dark of night, seemingly looking like they are up to no good, but one alligator dances with a huge hippo that he loves dearly. The piece ends with a big group number with all of the animals appearing.

Dance of the Hours was meant to be a parody of the highbrow dance numbers that had begun to become an essential part of motion pictures at the time. Although I do not know what films had been used as inspiration for this parody, I am well aware that many movie musicals of the 1960s have moments like this, where there is an overly long, largely unnecessary dance number that appears towards the end of the film, breaking up the main storyline, so I think I can understand this parody! Ponchielli’s music, the Act 3 finale of the opera La Gioconda, is also a familiar piece of music, so that contributed to the joke.

Since this is predominately a sequence of ballet dancing, animators studied real ballet dancers to get a sense of what accurate ballet dance steps would look like. They then used those movements to animate these animals as ballet dancers, to make a realistic, but comic, ballet. It is funny to see some of the least graceful creatures in the animal kingdom doing one of the most elegant dance styles in the world[8].

STORY #8: NIGHT ON BALD MOUNTAIN / AVE MARIA: MUSSORGSKY / SCHUBERT

Night on Bald Mountain / Ave Maria, the final sequence of Fantasia, was envisioned as a classic take on the battle between good versus evil, and light versus dark.

It begins with the bat-like demon Chernabog summoning witches and evil spirits on Halloween night as he sits atop his mountain, overlooking a village. He begins to sacrifice some of these evil beings into the fiery pit of the mountain. Chernabog is them defeated by the next morning’s sunrise, cowering away from the light, and concealing himself into the face of the mountain again. Church bells ring as a procession of figures walk to see the sunrise in a perfect contrast to the horror just witnessed.

Animator Bill Tytla was the leading figure on this sequence for Fantasia, animating Chernabog, who was based on the God of the Night from Slavic mythology. Because of Chernabog’s status as one of Disney’s most powerful and terrifying villains, Night on Bald Mountain is regularly referenced by Disney on Halloween, making this another popular segment of Fantasia. Chernabog is also part of the Disney Villains franchise, appearing occasionally for Halloween events, as well as in the nighttime show Fantasmic! Chernabog is also a key villain in the Disney fiction series Kingdom Keepers. Although I find Chernabog and this whole story to be quite frightening and disturbing, I do like the music here.

For the Ave Maria section, they had planned to use the horizontal multiplane camera to shoot the procession as one continuous shot, even though it took days to do this. On their first attempt, they discovered that one camera lens was wrong, so they had to start again. Their second attempt was then interrupted by an earthquake. It was third time lucky though, as the third attempt successfully completed the shot[9].

PRODUCTION

Fantasia was a passion project for Walt Disney. Walt wanted to show that music and animation could complement each other, and that the two forms of art worked well together.

Previously, music in animated short cartoons had only been used to accompany the story or to highlight certain actions. This all changed with the Silly Symphonies, the short cartoons that the Disney Studios developed throughout the 1930s. One song in particular became very popular after the release of a short cartoon, and that was “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” from Three Little Pigs (1933), which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1934.

From this, the Disney Studios used music and songs to drive the narrative forward for their first full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). This soundtrack also became very popular with the public. But this time, Walt knew they could do something different – pair classical music with animated stories.

Fantasia began its life as just one short film. Mickey Mouse had been Disney’s star character, however, with the introduction of the easily-irritated, funny Donald Duck, Mickey’s star power was starting to decline, and it was becoming a struggle to find stories for Mickey to be a part of. Walt didn’t want his main creation to be sidelined, and he happened to come across the story of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

This story started out as a poem by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe, which was written in 1797, telling the tale of a sorcerer who leaves his apprentice with chores to do, however, the apprentice, fed up with having to do everything by hand, enchants a broom to do his work for him, but since the apprentice is not full trained in magic, when things get out of hand, he is powerless to stop it. Eventually, the sorcerer returns and breaks the spell. French composer Paul Dukas used this poem as the basis for his classical piece “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, which was first performed in Paris in 1897.

Walt felt that this story was perfect for Mickey and the animators set about animating the sequence. The animators began by updating Mickey’s look for this as he needed to be more expressive in the face and eyes since there would be no dialogue. The biggest change was in Mickey’s eyes. Previously, Mickey had only black oval shapes for eyes, but the animators decided to put pupils into those shapes, giving him eyes truer to real-life. The redesign of Mickey was led by animator Fred Moore, who had supervised animation on the dwarfs in Snow White (1937), and went on to animate Timothy Q. Mouse for Dumbo (1941).

As development on this piece was ongoing, Walt Disney happened to meet Leopold Stokowski for dinner. Stokowski was one of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20^th century and was a big celebrity, even outside of the classical music world. He became the director and conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912, and was famed for his recordings and radio appearances from the 1910s. He appeared in two films in 1937, The Big Broadcast of 1937 and One Hundred Men and a Girl, and even appeared on the cover of Time for the 28^th April 1930 issue, and again on the 18^th November 1940 issue to promote Fantasia[10]. Stokowski was very interested in Walt’s idea of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice short cartoon and offered to conduct the music for it[11].

Stokowski and Walt assembled a 100-piece orchestra to record The Sorcerer’s Apprentice score, and the recording took place in January 1938 at the Pathé Studios in Culver City, allegedly between midnight and 3am, with excessive coffee drinking keeping everyone awake and alert. Roy O. Disney, Walt’s brother, was very concerned about how much time, effort, and money was being spent on this one short film. He knew that they’d never make their money back on this film, so Walt then decided that they’d put lots of similar short cartoons together to make a feature film, a concert of classical music with animated sequences. This project was then referred to as The Concert Feature for a while.

Deems Taylor, another famous celebrity of the music world at the time, having been a composer, radio commentator and music critic, was brought in to help Walt and Stokowski decide on the musical selections for The Concert Feature, alongside Disney story writers Joe Grant and Dick Huemer who went on to co-write Dumbo (1941). Taylor also appeared as the Master of Ceremonies in the final film. Many selections were considered and then discarded for various reasons, such as “Swan of Tuonela” by Sibelius and “Ride of the Valkyries by Wagner”, but eight pieces of music were eventually chosen for the film, and were recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra with Stokowski as conductor.

It was later deemed that The Concert Feature was quite a mundane title for what would surely become a masterpiece. The name Fantasia was chosen for the film, as the word means a free-form piece of music, matching the imaginative nature of the movie.

Since Fantasia was always meant to be like a concert, Walt Disney wanted a roadshow attraction where audiences would have to buy a ticket to have a reserved seat like it was an actual concert or play. Two shows of Fantasia would run per day. As RKO, Disney’s movie distributor at the time, didn’t like the expense of this plan and didn’t believe it would work, Disney had to do it themselves.

They designed beautiful programmes and even wanted to change the typical sound system to suit their movie. Walt and Stokowski said the sound system had to be better than anything that existed at the time. They wanted the music to surround the audience and so Fantasound was created to enhance the movie, basically an early version of surround sound[12]. Walt didn’t want to just stop their either; he wanted his film to be in 3D and even had the idea of trying to get perfume scents to waft into the theatres at certain points during The Nutcracker Suite. Stokowski thought gunpowder would be a good smell for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Neither of these actually happened, however, we now know that 3D media is now quite commonplace and Smell-O-Vision continues to be developed.

RECEPTION

Fantasia first opened on 13^th November 1940 at the Broadway Theatre in New York City, which happened to be the same theatre where the short cartoon Steamboat Willie (1928) debuted. The Fantasia roadshow later moved on to other areas, including San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, and the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, where Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ premiere had been held in December 1937.

Fantasia only managed to reach a select number of people as only 12 venues were fitted with the Fantasound system. This inconsistent release of the show hurt Fantasia’s reach, and with World War II in Europe, the movie was not going to be able to reach the overseas market. Not only that but many weren’t even interested in watching the film, since it was not an animated fairy tale, like Snow White or Pinocchio (1940), which audiences had come to know, like, and expect from the Disney Studios. Music critics didn’t like Fantasia at all, feeling that the movie ruined the classical pieces with its rearrangements, but film critics seemed to like the idea of the movie, although some of the animated sequences were not as appealing as others. Others said it was pretentious.

From April 1941, RKO took over the distribution of the film, cutting the movie down from its two-hour runtime to 80 minutes, editing out some of the more abstract, less appealing segments such as Toccata and Fugue, but it still failed to take off[13].

The reaction to Fantasia was definitely a disappointment to Walt, as he had put a lot of energy into his project. It was clearly an experiment from the Disney Studios, but Walt had hoped for more of a positive reaction anyway. Despite the lack of commercial and financial success, Fantasia did receive two honorary Academy Awards at the 1942 ceremony: one to Walt, William E. Garity and RCA for the development of Fantasound, and the second to Stokowski and his orchestra for the creation of a new form of visualised music. Segments from Fantasia were then later used in some of Walt’s television series in the 1950s, and the movie finally turned a profit in the 1960s thanks to some clever ‘psychedelic’ advertising, fitting of the time period, after being reissued theatrically every few years[14].

Fantasia slowly but surely gained popularity over the decades and more contemporary reviews of Fantasia are generally in agreement that this film is iconic and a real Disney classic, recognising the ambitiousness of the project.

LEGACY

It was hoped that Fantasia could constantly be added to, with new sections replacing older sections, giving movie-goers a new experience each time the film was re-released.

Because of the disappointing reaction to Fantasia, that didn’t happen, despite the fact some segments were already being worked on. These included a segment using Debussy’s “Clair de Lune”, another set to Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf”, and one using Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Flight of the Bumblebee”. Luckily, during the late 1940s, a similar format of film to Fantasia was being created at the Disney Studios, now known as the “package features”. These featured animated short cartoons set to music that were packaged together to make a feature film, despite none of them being at all related to each other. “Peter and the Wolf” ended up in Make Mine Music (1946), with a swing version of “Flight of the Bumblebee” becoming Bumble Boogie in Melody Time (1948). “Clair de Lune” was meant to be used for the Blue Bayou segment of Make Mine Music, but a new song replaced it in the final film.

In the late 1970s, the idea of making a new Fantasia was revived by veteran Disney animators Mel Shaw and Woolie Reitherman. This new Fantasia was to be called Musicana and would have featured music and stories from other countries. Mel Shaw had been recruited by Walt Disney to do development work on Bambi (1942), and left the Studios shortly after to enlist in the army. He returned to the Disney Studios in 1975, where he did a lot of development work for movies at that time, including The Rescuers (1977).

Pieces of music were chosen, and stories were created for them. Some of these included a sequence of frogs playing jazz music in the Southern US, using a song by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong; a story based on Aztec and Incan folklore set to a song by Peruvian soprano singer Yma Sumac; a Mickey Mouse short retelling the Hans Christian Andersen tale The Emperor’s Nightingale, though it is unclear what music was planned to go alongside it; another using Sibelius’ “Finlandia” about an Ice god and a Sun god battling; and one more on the Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves tale, using the piece “Scheherazade” by Rimsky-Korsakov. Despite all this development work, the Studios passed on the project[15].

On screen, Disney Animation later did finally do a follow-up film to Fantasia, called Fantasia 2000 (1999), which I feel is more interesting and accessible to modern audiences; I also appreciate its shorter runtime of around 75 minutes.

In recent years, Disney have gone back to their idea of making Fantasia into a concert experience. This is the touring concert Disney Fantasia: Live in Concert, where a live orchestra plays the classical pieces of music, whilst a screen shows the animated segments. The programme contains a mixture of sequences from both Fantasia and Fantasia 2000, although the programme seems to change. It is unclear to me when Disney Fantasia: Live in Concert first began, with the earliest date I can find going back to 2012. It is currently still touring in 2024.

Another film released by Disney which is vaguely related to Fantasia is the live-action film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010), starring Jay Baruchel as “the apprentice”, Dave, and Nicholas Cage as “the sorcerer”, Balthazar. Although it takes its name from the Mickey Mouse short within Fantasia, and features a brief scene parodying the famous cartoon, except this time with the added danger of mixing electricity and buckets of water, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is based more on the legend of the magician Merlin, and has nothing to do with Yensid or Mickey Mouse. It’s a good film though.

At the Disney Parks, I was surprised to find that Fantasia is actually represented in all of the international Disney resorts, albeit some in quite small ways. For example, at Disneyland Paris, you can find two miniature scenes recreated from the film during Le Pays des Contes de Fées, the Paris version of Disneyland’s Storybook Land Canal Boats: one of these is Mount Olympus from The Pastoral Symphony, and the other is from Night on Bald Mountain, with Chernabog sitting atop his castle, overlooking the village below. These scenes do not feature in Disneyland’s version of the ride. Outside of the entrance to Disneyland Paris, as well as the Disneyland Paris Hotel, there is also a small landscaped area titled Fantasia Gardens, featuring topiaries of some of the characters from the film. There used to be the Café Fantasia inside the hotel, a bar area with subtle references to the movie, however, that has been rethemed.

At Hong Kong Disneyland, there is another landscaped area called Fantasy Gardens, which, like Paris, is subtly themed to Fantasia, with topiaries of some of the film’s most well-known characters. Fantasy Gardens can be found in Fantasyland, and is also a character meet-and-greet location. At Tokyo Disneyland, at the Disney Ambassador Hotel, guests can stay in the Fantasia Suite, which is, again, subtly themed to the film.

The Shanghai Disneyland Hotel also has some Fantasia-themed areas, such as the quick-service food location Ballet Café, inspired by the Dance of the Hours sequence, and the bar and lounge area Bacchus Lounge, appropriately named after the God of Wine who appears in The Pastoral Symphony. Inside Shanghai Disneyland, you can also find the Fantasia Carousel, which is a typical carousel that features the Pegasus horses from The Pastoral Symphony instead of normal horses. During their boat ride attraction Voyage to the Crystal Grotto, guests pass by a scene of Sorcerer Mickey attempting to control all those brooms with their buckets of water.

At Disneyland, there are a few references to Fantasia. One of these is the Primeval World section of the Disneyland Railroad. Although not specifically themed to The Rite of Spring sequence in Fantasia, it is believed that the Primeval World scene, originally created for the Magic Skyway attraction at the 1964-65 New York World’s fair, was inspired by the battle between the T-Rex and Stegosaurus in Fantasia, a scene animated by Woolie Reitherman, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men[16].The Christmas version of the World of Color nighttime show, World of Color – Season of Light, features a Fantasia section, utilising “The Nutcracker Suite” music, as well as projecting scenes of the Dance of the Hours ballet onto the water screens, and the Wondrous Journeys fireworks feature some clips of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. At Disney California Adventure Park, you can even eat at the Carthay Circle Restaurant, a fine dining experience residing inside a reproduction of the actual Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, where Fantasia was shown. At the Disneyland Hotel, some of the new 1- and 2- Bedroom Villas have been themed to Fantasia, using artwork from the movie to decorate. The hotel also has Disney’s Fantasia Shop.

Currently at Walt Disney World Resort, the most interesting reference to Fantasia can be found at the Fantasia Gardens Mini Golf course, located behind the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resorts. The 18-hole miniature golf course is elaborately themed to the movie, with sections of the course being themed to Toccata and Fugue, The Nutcracker Suite, The Pastoral Symphony, Dance of the Hours, and finally The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Clever verses introduce each hole, and you’ll find a few surprises as you make your way through the course. I love a good mini golf course, and this is one of the best ones I’ve done. On the opposite side of Fantasia Gardens, you can find the Fantasia Fairways, which is a more difficult course and does not feature much theming, only that the hole names are named after characters or sections from the film.

Some of the Walt Disney World Resort hotels also feature theming to Fantasia. One of these is the All-Star Movies Resort, where one of the resort pools and one of their hotel buildings is themed to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. At the Riviera Resort, the children’s water play area, named S’il Vous Play, is themed to the characters from the Dance of the Hours section of Fantasia. At the Contemporary Resort, their main shop is named Fantasia Market and they also have the Fantasia Ballroom meeting space.

All the Disney Parks, except Shanghai Disneyland, have the 4D show Mickey’s PhilarMagic. This is based on the story of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, except Mickey uses the hat to conduct the orchestra. During the story of Mickey’s PhilarMagic, guests follow Donald Duck as he goes through different Disney animated films to retrieve the hat that he used without permission, finding the magic too difficult to control – much like Mickey in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence. It also features a small section of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, where the brooms splash water onto the guests.

There were plenty of other references to Fantasia that have since left the Disney Parks. One of these was a small section of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice being shown during The Great Movie Ride at Disney’s Hollywood Studios; another is the huge Sorcerer’s Hat that was placed in front of the Chinese Theater also at Disney’s Hollywood Studios for the 100 Years of Magic celebration in 2001. It became the park’s icon, until 2015 when it was removed, to the delight of some guests who felt it was a bit of an eyesore.

During the SpectroMagic parade that no-one seems to talk about for some reason, preferring to discuss the Main Street Electrical Parade that I certainly do not prefer over SpectroMagic despite some of those “SpectroMen” creeping me out, there was a Chernabog float. The creature would open and close his wings either to reveal or conceal himself in the mountain. It was a really cool float. There were also other floats featuring the dancing ostriches from Dance of the Hours and elements of The Pastoral Symphony. The SpectroMagic parade ran from 1991 to 1999, and then again from 2001 to 2010 at the Walt Disney World Resort.

There were even meant to be Fantasia attractions that sadly never came to be. One of these would have been housed within the Beastly Kingdom that never arrived at Disney’s Animal Kingdom, probably due to budgetary reasons. This land, that would have featured attractions themed to mythical and fantastical creatures, was going to have the Fantasia Gardens boat ride, a musical boat ride themed to Fantasia, passing by scenes of Mount Olympus and all the creatures from The Pastoral Symphony sequence, as well as going past a recreation of the animal ballet from Dance of the Hours[17].

At Disneyland, there were plans for a Fantasia boat ride to replace the Disneyland Fantasyland Motor Boats. It would have featured music and scenes from the films, using “water sculptures”. This concept was soon abandoned after Imagineers realised that noise from the nearby Autopia would drown out the soundtrack. This idea was then reconfigured to be a potential walkthrough attraction for Walt Disney World to replace the Swan Boats that operated in and around the Magic Kingdom hub and the Swiss Family Treehouse from 1973 to 1983. They wanted to fill this new area with topiaries of the Fantasia characters, but it was deemed too expensive and never proceeded, although Fantasia Gardens areas did come to be in some of the international parks in some form or another[18].

For character meet-and-greets, at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, you can actually meet Sorcerer Mickey, at Meet Disney Stars at Red Carpet Dreams, located just outside of the ABC Commissary quick-service location; Minnie Mouse also meets here. It is unlikely that any other Fantasia characters will be available to meet anywhere else, although Hyacinth Hippo and Madame Upanova Ostrich have been known to come out for Special Events at the Disney Parks. Sorcerer Mickey is not a usual meet-and-greet character, but the nighttime show Fantasmic! that currently operates at Disneyland and Walt Disney World does feature Sorcerer Mickey briefly for the grand finale.

Within merchandising, there are plenty of items featuring Sorcerer Mickey, such as plush toys, figurines, and pins, with the character also featured in Disney video games, such as Disney Infinity and Epic Mickey. Outside of that, any other Fantasia character merchandise will be harder to find, especially outside of a movie milestone anniversary, however, for the Disney100 Decades Collection for the 1940s, five of the Pegasus horses were released as plush toys.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Walt Disney struggled to get over the lack of financial success of Fantasia, but truly believed in the creation. The original plan had been for Fantasia to constantly have additional sections added, and others taken away, so it could be re-released year-on-year and always be a new experience. This never materialised during Walt’s lifetime. It wasn’t until the late 1990s when work on Fantasia 2000 would begin, thanks to Roy E. Disney, Walt’s nephew.

I am glad that Fantasia 2000 was released as a homage to the amount of effort and work that went into Fantasia, and to keep Walt’s dream “alive” in some way. I can see exactly what the Disney Studios wanted to achieve, and it did push creative boundaries. It also took courage to do something so “out there” and different, risking the reputation of the Studios. They survived the lukewarm reception, and difficult global events, and pressed on.

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REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Disney, Fantasia: The Making of a Masterpiece (1990).

[2] Credit: Disney, The Fantasia Legacy: The Concert Feature (2000).

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Fantasia (1940), pp. 7-9.

[4] Credit: Disney, The Fantasia Legacy: The Concert Feature (2000).

[5] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘This is what REALLY happened at The Rite of Spring riot in 1913’, ClassicFM.com, 15^th October 2018.

[6] Credit: Disney, Fantasia: The Making of a Masterpiece (1990).

[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Lost “Fantasia”: The Disappearance of Sunflower’, CartoonResearch.com, 27^th March 2020.

[8] Credit: Disney, The Fantasia Legacy: The Concert Feature (2000).

[9] Credit: Disney, Fantasia: The Making of a Masterpiece (1990).

[10] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Fifteen Fascinating Facts About Fantasia’, D23.com, date unknown.

[11] Credit: Disney, Fantasia: The Making of a Masterpiece (1990).

[12] Credit: Disney, The Fantasia Legacy: The Concert Feature (2000).

[13] Credit: Disney, Fantasia: The Making of a Masterpiece (1990).

[14] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Fifteen Fascinating Facts About Fantasia’, D23.com, date unknown.

[15] Credit: Disney, Musicana: The Fantasia Sequel That Never Was (2010).

[16] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Fifteen Fascinating Facts About Fantasia’, D23.com, date unknown.

[17] Credit: Jim Korkis, Disney Never Lands (2019), ‘Beastly Kingdom’, pp. 55-60.

[18] Credit: Michael, ‘Neverworlds – The Magic Kingdom’s Fantasia Gardens’, ProgressCityUSA.com, 19^th June 2009.

1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. MUSIC
5. PRODUCTION
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

This is the story of the one that started it all.

Although not the first-ever animated feature-length film – the oldest of these appear to have been made earlier in the 1900s, and some lost to history – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs does hold the title of being the first full-length traditionally cel animated film.

More importantly, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first feature-length animated movie to come out of the Disney Studios, starting their collection that came to be known as the Disney Animated Classics.

After years of making cartoon shorts, where the medium of animation was experimented with and humour was defined, in 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was finally released into the world, fourteen years after Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, founded their film studio.

It wasn’t an easy journey by any means. The press was brutal in their opinions of Walt’s plans, what they liked to call “Disney’s Folly”, and no-one outside of the Disney Studios thought that they could either pull it off, or that the audience would be receptive to it.

Well, the press was wrong. Very wrong, in fact. They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was a huge success. Audiences were overjoyed with the movie that they were presented, plus it was artistically amazing, something they had never seen before. A full cartoon story that had heart, humour, and drama.

It put Walt Disney in line with the major film studio owners of the time. At last, animation was finally being recognised in film as something just as good as live-action.

I do like Snow White, although I think I found it too scary to watch as a child, so it’s a movie that I definitely had to grow to like. The only problem is I grew up in the 1990s, so I was thoroughly spoilt by the musical fairy tales of the “Disney Renaissance Era”, so Snow White will never be too high on my ranking of the Disney Animated Classics.

Although Snow White was released as a “family-friendly” piece of movie entertainment, not everyone remembers it that way, since it has some very dark and frightening moments, as many of Walt Disney’s earliest movies did.

PLOT

The plot of the movie is pretty well-known, but let’s go through it anyway.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs begins with a queen asking her Magic Mirror who the “fairest one of all” is, hoping that it will be her. The Magic Mirror bluntly states that there is another who is fairer than the Queen. Though he does not state her name, merely describing the girl as having “lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow”, the Queen knows it is Snow White. Being the girl’s stepmother, with Snow having lost both of her parents in some unknown way, the Queen forces Snow to work as a maid at the castle, even though Snow White is the princess of this kingdom.

Snow tries not to let this get her down, as she knows that she can always wish for her life to get better, hoping for her true love to find her someday. A prince overhears Snow singing and decides to jump over the wall of the castle grounds to get closer to her. He surprises Snow by singing right next to her, at which point she runs inside. He proceeds to serenade her whilst she stands on a balcony, and they fall in love instantly. I mean, good for them I guess, but if any man ever acted like that today, then they’d just come across as a creepy stalker. Not the best first impression.

The Queen continues to be jealous of Snow White and asks her Huntsman to take Snow into the forest and kill her, bringing back her heart to the Queen. Whilst in the forest, unbeknownst to Snow, the Huntsman does plan to kill her, but he finds he cannot bring himself to do it. He tells Snow to run into the forest and never come back. Terrified, Snow does as she’s told, but the forest is much scarier in the dark, and she finds herself scared of the wind, the trees, and all the animals. Eventually, she comes to a clearing and faints from fear. As she begins to come round, the forest animals, who are actually really cute, little things, come over to her. Snow finds herself outside a small cottage. She goes inside.

Inside the cottage, she finds a very untidy house, with seven small chairs and seven small beds. Snow assumes that this must be the home of seven messy orphaned children, and decides to tidy up the house with some help from the animals. After all that work, Snow becomes tired and falls asleep on the beds, but not wanting to choose just one, she ends up sprawling out over multiple of them.  

The owners of the cottage, seven dwarfs who work in the nearby mine, come home to find their house clean and believe there is an intruder inside. As they go upstairs to investigate, they discover a monster in their beds! Except, it’s just Snow White. She is welcomed into their home by six of the seven dwarfs – Happy, Doc, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, and Dopey; Grumpy isn’t at all impressed by Snow White though, which makes much more sense. Welcoming the person who broke into your house like a friend wouldn’t be the normal reaction of anyone today, regardless of whether they said they’d clean and cook for you. Well, maybe university students would like that, but I wouldn’t.

During the day, Snow stays at the cottage doing housework, whilst the dwarfs are out at work, and at night, they all sing and dance together. It all seems to be going well, until the Queen discovers from her Magic Mirror that Snow White is still alive, and living in a cottage with seven dwarfs. Furious, the Queen goes to her secret basement where she keeps all of her magic and potions. She decides to feed Snow White a poisoned apple. Though it won’t kill her, just putting her into a deep sleep until woken by “love’s first kiss”, the Queen believes that it will make Snow White look so convincingly dead that she will be buried alive. To ensure Snow White takes the apple from her, the Queen turns herself into an old hag as a disguise and heads to the cottage.

Whilst Snow is cooking and the dwarfs are away, the Hag, or the Witch as she is more generally known, goes to the cottage and tells Snow that she should use some of her apples to make the dwarfs apple pies instead of the gooseberry pies Snow was already baking. Snow isn’t sure, but the Witch insists, making her way inside the cottage. The forest animals see through the disguise, and try to warn Snow, but she ignores them. The animals go to the mine and attempt to get the dwarfs home. The dwarfs don’t move, but when Sleepy mentions that the Queen may have found Snow, they rush back. Meanwhile, the Witch tells Snow that the apple she has is a wishing apple, and that if she wants to meet her true love, she should wish for it and take a bite.

The dwarfs get back to the cottage, but it is too late; Snow has already taken a bite of the apple and passed out. The dwarfs see the Witch leaving the cottage and chase her into the mountains during a thunderstorm. The Witch climbs up to the top of a cliff and she tries to move a huge boulder, to have it tumble down on the dwarfs as they make their way up to her. But a lightning strike hits the ledge she is stood on and it crumbles, taking the Witch with it, as well as that boulder which crushes her to death. The Queen is defeated.

Though the dwarfs believe Snow White to be dead, since she is so beautiful, they cannot bring themselves to bury her, but instead encase her body in a glass coffin. The next spring, the Prince, from the beginning of the film, learns about this tragic death of the girl he loved and visits her coffin. With the dwarfs still keeping watch over Snow’s body, the Prince proceeds to say goodbye to Snow White, by giving her one kiss. Suddenly, Snow White awakens; it was love’s first kiss. She is surprised to see the Prince next to her, but is overjoyed at the same time – as are the dwarfs and the forest animals. Everyone celebrates as the Prince carries Snow White to his horse, and she kisses the dwarfs goodbye as her and the Prince ride off into the sunset together, to live “happily ever after”. Aww.

Despite some intense scenes and some awful close-ups of the creepy old hag, this is a relatively tame plot compared with the Brothers Grimm version of the tale. The Brothers Grimm version includes the death of Snow White’s mother during childbirth as well as multiple murder attempts of Snow by the Queen. One of these involved lacing Snow White up into a bodice so tight that Snow passes out. The dwarfs arrive in time to save her though. On the second attempt, Snow is poisoned with a comb and again passes out, but the dwarfs save her. With the third attempt of the poison apple, the Queen cleverly only poisons half the apple so that she can eat the unpoisoned half to calm Snow White’s suspicions. Another difference is that Snow was not awoken with a romantic kiss, but instead, as the Prince and his servants transport Snow White’s body back to her father’s castle, the poison apple simply dislodges from her throat. The two still get married though and on the wedding day, the Queen learns from her Magic Mirror that the Prince’s bride is now the fairest of them all. As she investigates, she sees Snow White is the bride. The Queen is then caught and made to wear red-hot slippers that force her to dance until she drops dead. Nice. That’s actually the main plot point of The Red Shoes – but that’s a different story[1].

CHARACTERS & CAST

These days, Snow White is not considered to be a good feminist role model. She’s a bit too sweet, a bit too naïve, and she only dreams of finding her true love. There’s nothing especially wrong with that, but unlike some of Disney’s more contemporary princesses or female lead characters, Snow White gets a lot of criticism these days.

Watching Snow White, or Cinderella, or Aurora all through my childhood just made me decide that being kind and caring to others is important, and that there’s nothing wrong with having dreams. Not exactly a negative, is it? So, I don’t really care about all that.

There is one thing I really don’t like about Snow White – and that’s her voice. I’m not a big fan of my own voice, so I guess I’m just a hypocrite, but I find Snow White’s voice to be too high-pitched and very grating. I was very surprised when I was younger to find that the “face characters” at the Disney Parks speak in exactly the same way – though why I was surprised, I don’t know, because of course, they’re try to be as authentic as possible.

But she’s not so bad. Snow White is very caring and helpful; she’s not spiteful or resentful even though she has basically been banished from her kingdom by her crazed stepmother, and she just wants to move on with her new life. She is too trusting, by letting a random old woman come into her house, but then again, she is kind and doesn’t have a suspicious or cynical bone in her body, so that’s something she would do.

When the character of Snow White was being designed, it was a struggle for the animators to make her look like a real person. The signature animation style of the Disney Studios at the time had not been to make anybody look particularly authentic, it was all quite caricatured, so when they first attempted to draw Snow’s face, the animators said she ended up looking more like Betty Boop than a real girl, giving her huge cartoon eyes After some additional training around drawing realistic human movements, they figured out how Snow White should look though[2]. When it came time to ink and paint the character, another difficulty arose. The animators knew she needed some colour on her cheeks, however, if they applied red paint to her cheeks, Snow White ended up looking like a clown. The women who worked in the Ink and Paint Department, which was all women at the time due to the need for “a delicate hand”, decided to apply real rouge to the drawing directly, and Snow looked great. Walt Disney was concerned that the women wouldn’t be able to do it in exactly the same way each time Snow was being painted, but they scoffed and said of course they could since they already had to do their own make-up every day. Sure enough, they managed. The ladies later received compacts from Walt as a present after the release of the film. They looked at themselves in the mirrors, and thought they all looked so tired and awful after all the stress of getting Snow White finished on time[3]!

Adriana Caselotti voiced the character of Snow White, and she was named a Disney Legend in 1994 for this role. Caselotti first heard about the part when her father, who was a singing teacher in Los Angeles, was asked if he knew of any women or girls who could sing operatic notes but also speak as a child. Caselotti desperately wanted to audition for the part, so her father put her forward for it. A hundred other actresses also auditioned for the role, but Adriana got the coveted role. Sadly, because of Walt Disney’s desire to make the voice of Snow White unique, Caselotti’s career did not sky-rocket after the movie came out. In fact, she had very few roles after this, providing some operatic singing lines for The Wizard of Oz (1939) and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and then for some Disney animated short films, but these were mostly uncredited. Outside of that, she reprised her role of Snow White for a few Disney projects.

For Snow White’s counterpart, of course we have the Queen. Or the Evil Queen, or Queen Grimhilde, or the Witch, or the Old Hag; she has lots of names. She is beautiful, but also very vain, determined to be “the fairest one of all”. The Queen is not the fairest in the land, and is jealous that her stepdaughter, Snow White, happens to have that title even at her young age and without even trying; it drives the Queen mad with envy. The Queen is actually quite stunning, despite her personality being so cold and murderous. When the Queen transforms into the Witch or the Hag, whichever term you prefer, she becomes as ugly as her inside. The close-up shot of the Witch transformed is particularly scary, and it happens again shortly after when she pops up at the window of the Dwarfs’ cottage. Children of all ages have been scared of her for years, including me. But the Evil Queen is a brilliant character. She is calmly villainous, a straight talker, and just plain wicked. The iciness of her voice and stern look is classic Disney villain, and that’s why she is consistently included amongst the Disney Villains franchise, even after all these years.

Lucille La Verne was chosen to voice the Queen originally, but she then said she could also voice the Witch, so La Verne voiced both parts, which makes sense, given the two characters are one and the same. The animators knew La Verne as a great stage actress, having made her Broadway debut in 1888, but they had also seen her as The Vengeance in A Tale of Two Cities (1935) in which she performed a great, witchy cackle, perfect for the Witch here, with her theatrical voice being a match for the Evil Queen. Every evil queen needs their sidekick though, and the all-knowing Magic Mirror happens to be hers. The Magic Mirror is very brave for actually telling the Queen the truth; I think I would’ve lied if that had been me! The Mirror was voiced by Moroni Olsen, who went on to voice the Senior Angel in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) and play Herbert Dunstan, the father-in-law, in Father of the Bride (1950) and its sequel Father’s Little Dividend (1951).

Next, we have Snow White’s prince. The prince with no name. What a shame, given the Queen has several of them. He is simply known as The Prince, though some fan sites have said his name is Prince Florian. I like just calling him The Prince, it makes him a man of mystery. I am not a massive fan of the Prince as a character though. He’s a bit stalker-like if you think about it cynically, walking into the palace gardens without being invited, desperately searching for Snow’s coffin for months on end, kissing a dead girl on the lips… Then again, if he hadn’t done that, Snow White wouldn’t have lived and that wouldn’t be right for a fairy-tale ending. I guess riding off into the sunset with an attractive guy you don’t really know is better than getting murdered by your stepmother, right? The Prince was going to have more involvement in the story of the film according to early storyboards, by being captured by the Queen and having to escape from her prison. This idea was abandoned for some reason or another. This could’ve helped his character development so much more, because all we see of him is a brief clip of him singing at the start and then saving Snow White with a kiss at the end; it’s not much of a character arc. No name, no character arc. The poor prince. Who would’ve expected the “lead” male character to be so under-done? Harry Stockwell provided the voice of the Prince. After this voice role, he went on to perform as Curly, the lead role in Oklahoma!, on Broadway from 1943 to 1948. Harry Stockwell is the father of actors Dean and Guy Stockwell.

The Dwarfs were not as difficult to animate as the other characters, as they were based on caricatures instead of real-life humans. The complications came in ensuring that each of the seven had their own personalities and quirks, with these matching their names. The names of the dwarfs were not even settled until a year before the release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with Dopey just being known as “Seventh” for a while. There were many other possible names for the dwarfs being tossed around including Dirty, Lazy, Wistful, Snoopy, Goopy, Dippy, and Chesty[4]. If you can remember all seven names that were decided upon, then it’s quite obvious to the viewer which dwarf is which.

Doc is the leader of the group, with his biggest quirk being the fact he consistently misspeaks and trips over his words. He is voiced by Roy Atwell, who was known for playing characters that stammer or mis-deliver their lines. Sneezy obviously sneezes a lot, so his voice actor was Billy Gilbert, who was known for his comic sneezing routines. Happy is the optimistic one, voiced by Otis Harlan, and Bashful is the shy one, voiced by Scotty Mattraw. Pinto Colvig, who was the original performer of Goofy and Pluto, voiced Sleepy and Grumpy. Dopey is the final and perhaps most memorable dwarf, despite the fact he never speaks. He’s the sweet but dim one, and the only dwarf without a beard. Eddie Collins provided the small amount of vocals that Dopey does have.

Although all the dwarfs do look similar, their heights and body shapes are slightly different based on their main characteristic, with Doc, for example, being slightly bigger to give him the gravitas of being the group’s leader. Dopey is slightly shorter than the others, and never walks in time with the rest of the dwarfs, which suggests that he is different to them. It was animator Frank Thomas’s idea to give Dopey a recurring hitch step to help him keep up with the others. Though Walt Disney loved this action, it irritated the other animators who thought they had finished their work on the character but then had to add in Thomas’s hitch step to any drawings of Dopey[5]!

MUSIC

Some of the songs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs have become iconic over the decades since the movie’s release. How many of us haven’t whistled whilst we’ve worked, or heard “Heigh-Ho” playing somewhere? It’s been impossible to avoid these songs.

Walt Disney was a strong believer in letting the music move forward the story of his projects, with music being incorporated into many of the Silly Symphonies, so he knew how important this would be for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The magical score for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was composed by Frank Churchill, Paul Smith, and Leigh Harline. Smith had composed the scores for some of Disney’s nature documentaries The True-Life Adventures, as well as working on the scores for other Disney movies, such as Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944) and Cinderella (1950). Harline went on to compose the score and some of the songs for Pinocchio (1940) alongside Ned Washington, winning the Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “When You Wish Upon a Star”. Harline left the Disney Studios in 1941.

The music for the songs was also composed by Frank Churchill, who had written the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” for The Three Little Pigs (1933) Silly Symphony short, and went on to write music for other Disney animated films, including Dumbo (1941), for which he won two Oscars, for the score and the song “Baby Mine”, and Bambi (1942). The lyrics were provided by Larry Morey, who collaborated with Churchill again for the Disney films The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and Bambi (1942).

25 songs were originally written for the film, with only eight being used. One song “Music in Your Soup” was cut from the film when its accompanying sequence was removed from the final edit. Another, “You’re Never Too Old to Be Young”, was simply replaced with “The Silly Song”. “The Silly Song” is that strange yodelling song that plays as Snow White and the dwarfs dance together one evening. I don’t mind it so much, although it does go on a bit and I would suspect it would get irritating very quickly if you listened to it on a loop! But it’s much better than the deleted song. Another song the dwarfs have is that very well-known song “Heigh-Ho”. It’s clearly very catchy because everyone at least knows the chorus if nothing else! It’s ok, but I don’t love it. Like the yodelling song, it’s quite samey.

My favourite of the dwarfs’ songs actually doesn’t really have a name, other than “Bluddle-Uddle-Um-Dum” or “The Dwarfs’ Washing Song”, which plays as they are washing up for dinner. It’s a very satisfying scene to watch, especially if you’re a germophobe, like me. It is literally just telling you how to wash your hands, but for some reason, I really like it.

For Snow White’s songs, obviously, she has a few. One of these is “With a Smile and a Song”, which Snow sings to the forest animals after she’s gotten over her scare in the forest. It’s very upbeat and positive, but if you’re not a fan of Snow White’s high-pitched voice, it’s not an easy song to love. She also sings “Whistle While You Work”, which is a satisfying scene to watch too, if you like to see rooms cleaned to perfection. It’s a bouncy sort of tune that is hard to ignore, even if you want to.

Snow White also gets a (sort of) duet with the Prince early on in the film, “I’m Wishing/One Song”. I like to imitate Snow White with the opening lines of “I’m Wishing” sometimes, because I actually quite like the song. It’s a romantic song and it keeps Snow’s spirits up whilst she’s being used as a slave. The Prince then comes in, before singing “One Song” to Snow after she runs away. It sounds like a classic romantic song from a musical of that era. Since I quite like that era of musicals, this is also a good song for me.

The final song to mention is “Someday My Prince Will Come”, with Snow White describing her earlier encounter with the Prince to the dwarfs, as she dreams of him coming back for her and taking her to her castle to live happily ever after. It’s a sweet dream to have, and one that could only happen in fairy tales, but it’s an iconic song from the film, so let’s not be too cynical about it. The song is reprised at the end of the film, with a chorus coming in to sing triumphantly about how all of Snow’s dreams have finally come true. The song has been covered by many artists since its release, including Barbra Streisand for the Platinum Edition of the DVD in 2001, singer Anastacia for the Disneymania CD (2002), as well as Disney Channel stars Ashley Tisdale and The Cheetah Girls for Disneymania 4 and 6, and Sonny with a Chance’s Tiffany Thornton performed it for the Diamond Edition DVD in 2009.

Interestingly, Disney was sued for this song. Owner of the copyright to the song “Old Eli”, Thornton Allen, claimed the same chorus was used in the Snow White song. Allen said he’d sent a copy of “Old Eli” to Disney in 1932. Allen didn’t have a copy of the letter to say the Studios had received it, but Disney did, though it had been sent to the New York office, not the Hollywood one. It contained a list of musical compositions Allen had sent and “Old Eli” was not listed. Frank Churchill, composer of “Someday My Prince Will Come” said he had never seen it, and there was no evidence to suggest he had. Deems Taylor, a famous composer at the time who would go on to be involved in Disney’s Fantasia (1940), was asked to testify as an expert witness. He noted some similarity in the notes, but stated that it was a common harmonic progression. He also said the rhythmic structure and chorus were very different. The judge for the case ruled against Allen, saying that although he could hear some similarity, there was no chance of mistaking one song for the other[6].

PRODUCTION

By the 1930s, Walt Disney had already made a series of animated/live-action shorts in the 1920s as part of his original Laugh-O-Gram Studio. These were called the Alice Comedies, that combined live-action acting with animated backgrounds. He was also known for being the creator of Mickey Mouse, with Steamboat Willie (1928) being one of the first fully synchronised sound cartoons. The Disney Studios then produced a series of musical shorts, the Silly Symphonies, some of which were ground-breaking for their use of Technicolor, with others spanning hit records, such as “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf”.

But this wasn’t enough. Walt Disney had considered making a feature-length animated film in 1932. In May 1933, he thought he had the best idea of making a film of Alice in Wonderland, where Alice would be a live-action actress and Wonderland would have been animated. However, when Paramount released their own film version of Alice in Wonderland in December 1933, Walt decided against it. Briefly, he looked at doing something similar, a live-action/animated hybrid film, with the story of Rip van Winkle, but that idea was cancelled when the actor Walt had in mind to play the main role, Will Rogers, died in a plane crash.

By October 1934 though, after having already won four Academy Awards for his short cartoons by this point, Walt had decided to use the fairy tale of Snow White as the basis for a full-length animated film. Though Grimm’s fairy tale is said to be the inspiration for the story, in actual fact, Walt was more inspired by the 1916 silent movie Snow White, starring Marguerite Clark in the title role, that he had seen as a child[7]. One day, key artists at the Disney Studios were asked at the end of their working day to go away, have dinner, and then come back to the studios for a meeting. At this meeting, Walt proceeded to act out his entire plan and storyline for his version of an animated Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The animators were drawn in by Walt’s acting and enthusiasm, and loved the idea. 

But when the press got wind of the fact Walt Disney was trying to make a full-length animated feature film, they all thought he was crazy, with the film being given the nickname “Disney’s Folly”. The film industry felt that no-one would be able to sit through a cartoon for 90 minutes. Cartoons were too brightly coloured, too packed with sight gags and unrealistic movements to satisfy a regular film audience. Walt didn’t let the nay-sayers put him off though; he knew better. He knew they could make their Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a full story with humour, but also emotion and realism. He was aware that full-length feature films were more likely to make money than an animated short, and wanted to expand the animation medium beyond “silly cartoons” and push its use as a storytelling artform.

Walt Disney wanted to ensure that his animators were ready for this new challenge, so he invested money in art classes, so that the animators could study their art form further in the evenings and at weekends. They needed to properly analyse human movements for this story. Their previous cartoons had never needed to do this as they were not meant to be realistic to life. The Silly Symphonies were still being created during production on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs so they could use those short cartoons as a way of experimenting with special effects and human animation.

Since Snow White is a typical European fairy tale, Walt Disney wanted the film to look visually like a European storybook, so the best way to do that was to look to some European artists and their concept artwork. Two of these were Albert Hurter and Gustaf Tenggren. Hurter’s work was quite gothic and decorative in nature. His concept work of the forest scene, with the scary trees, as well as his poses for the crying dwarfs as they mourn Snow White’s death inspired the final scenes. Tenggren made inspirational sketches of the backgrounds, like the cottage, forest, and the castle. He was an illustrator and watercolourists, so he had a firm basis in what illustrations for European children’s book looked like. Tenggren went on to be a key artist for the settings of Pinocchio (1940)[8].

Live-action models were also used to act out some of the planned movements for the characters, so that the animators could use those as a guide. Marge Champion was the live-action model for Snow White, with actor Don Brodie dressing up in a cape and walking up tall scaffolding to give the reference material for the Witch’s demise.

By late 1936, the first drawings were sent to the Ink and Paint Department. Colour tests were run to decide on the best colours for the film, with Snow White’s dress colours not being finalised until just a few months before the release of the film. The multiplane camera that was being developed to provide tracking shots and a sense of depth was not even ready at the start of production, so some scenes had to be rushed through the process, meaning this innovative idea was not even used in the way it was meant to be. The multiplane camera would really be used to its full effect in Disney’s next film, Pinocchio (1940). The technique had originally been tested on the Silly Symphony The Old Mill (1937).

By the summer of 1937, the Disney Studios had run out of money, and didn’t have enough to finish the film. They had already spent around $1 million, and estimated they needed about $500,000 more. A banker was invited to the Studios to see a test screening of what Disney had so far on the film. The banker barely reacted at all to the screening, with this making Walt and his brother, Roy, nervous that the bank would not allow any further investment, however, the banker said he was sure the film would make them a lot of money, and gave them the amount needed to complete the film.

This didn’t mean that all sequences could stay in the film though, with many sequences edited. These include Snow White’s run through the forest, the Queen at her cauldron, and the dwarfs march home being shortened. A fight between Grumpy and Doc was cut, with a whole scene of the dwarfs eating soup, that animator Ward Kimball had spent ages working on, also being removed from the final edit. To make up for Kimball’s disappointment, it is said that Walt assigned Kimball to animate the character of Jiminy Cricket for their upcoming film, Pinocchio (1940)[9].

Although it was a lot of work, with many of the employees at the Studios working overtime without pay to complete the project, they were enthusiastic to work on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, believing this would be a moment in film-making history. 

RECEPTION

After all that work, Walt Disney was determined to give Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs a proper Hollywood-style premiere, to showcase the animated masterpiece in the same way as the live-action films of the day.

The premiere was set for 21^st December 1937 at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, with the whole film only being completed around the 1^st December. Many celebrities attempted the event, including Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, and Marlene Dietrich. Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Donald Duck were also in attendance, along with Adriana Caselotti and Harry Stockwell, the voice actors of Snow White and the Prince, who sang some of the numbers from the film before the showing. Those two actually were not even given tickets to the premiere and snuck up to the balcony to see themselves in the movie! The dwarfs were also there, along with a set-up of the dwarfs’ cottage, and an exhibit showing some of the artwork from the film[10].

Walt Disney and the rest of the Studios’ employees were nervous about the reaction to the film, but they didn’t need to be concerned. The audience at the premiere was completely taken in by the pure drama and emotion of the film, with some even crying at the end. It was immediately clear that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was not “Disney’s Folly” at all, but “Disney’s Triumph”. It had a captivating story, expressive characters, charming music, and was artistically innovative and impressive.

It was popular at the time of its release, immediately becoming one of the most important movies ever made, and being seen as a milestone in movie-making history. Walt Disney was later awarded with an honorary Oscar at the 1939 Academy Awards ceremony. It was presented to him by Shirley Temple, and consisted of one large statuette, with seven mini ones alongside it, to represent the seven dwarfs. It was not only a popular movie in its “home country”, but became a worldwide hit, being dubbed into more than 20 languages, having its own soundtrack released, and having its own line of merchandise. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs supposedly inspired MGM to make The Wizard of Oz as Walt Disney’s film had shown how adaptations of children’s stories could be widely successful. It changed the movie industry forever and was an inspiration to so many movie makers. It was a dream come true for Walt Disney.

The final box-office result for the original run of Snow White was $8.5 million, making it the highest-grossing Hollywood film at the time. In 1939, Gone with the Wind would knock Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs off that top spot[11]! But it didn’t stop there, because Snow White has been re-released numerous times in theatres, with the first of these re-releases being in 1944, and continuing throughout the next four decades. The instant success of it set a trend for Disney to continue with theatrical re-releases. In 1993, the movie was digitally restored and re-released again. It was also released on home video in the 1990s, with DVD and Blu-Ray releases following suit in the 2000s and 2010s[12].

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs even inspired children’s playhouses. Judge Alfred K. Nippert built a “Snow White House” playhouse for his nieces in 1938 on the estate he inherited from his father-in-law, James N. Gamble of Procter and Gamble, in Volusia County, Florida. It was completed in March 1938 and Walt Disney reportedly visited the house. He loved the attention to detail and gifted Nippert eight life-sized dolls of Snow White and each of the dwarfs[13]. Walt Disney also built his children their own Snow White-inspired playhouse, with a replica dwarfs’ cottage being constructed by studio carpenters in the backyard of their home as a Christmas present to his daughters, Diane and Sharon[14].

LEGACY

Because Snow White was the very first Disney princess, and since the film was the very first Disney Animated Classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was always going to be quite prominent at the Disney Parks, especially since the movie was released in 1937, almost twenty years prior to Disneyland’s opening date in 1955, meaning there was plenty of time to think of ways of including this movie in upcoming attractions. However, it is worth noting that in recent years, and with their numerous company acquisitions, Disney now have access to many more modern, strong female characters, so it seems that Snow White and her Prince are slowly becoming less and less frequent as these newer characters come in to the fold. 

But there are still plenty of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs references at the parks currently. Clips and music from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs are included within many of the Disney Parks’ nighttime and fireworks shows, such as Momentous at Hong Kong Disneyland, Happily Ever After at Walt Disney World, the Harmony in Color parade at Tokyo Disneyland, and of course, Fantasmic! at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, where the Evil Queen features as the leader of the Disney Villains revolution. The characters are also likely to appear in parades, with the Evil Queen frequently appearing in Halloween-themed ones. A Snow White makeover package is also available at the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutiques that exist at the Disney Parks around the world.

Four of the six Disney Parks have, or had, a dark ride going through the events of the movie, with all four of them being opening day attractions. It took guests through the story of the film in minecart shaped ride vehicles. At Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, this ride was called Snow White’s Adventures from 1971 to 1994. Instead of having the guests watch the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs play out in front of them, the guests were meant to feel like they were Snow White, so Snow herself made no appearance in the ride. This was also the case at Disneyland. However, when it was deemed to be too scary to have riders feel like the Evil Queen was after them, and that their ride vehicle was going to be crushed by a falling rock, Snow White was then added to the ride, and the attraction name was changed to Snow White’s Scary Adventures. I always found this attraction scary as a child, but I do scare easily. Anyone who has been on the Snow White themed dark rides at the Disney Parks will know just how horrible the Evil Queen’s transformation scene is, where she spins round quickly to face the cars as they pass her – the stuff of nightmares. The ride then continued to run at Walt Disney World until 2012, when it was closed to make way for Princess Fairytale Hall, a permanent meet-and-greet location in Fantasyland.

However, the ride does still run at Disneyland, as it has since July 1955, under the name Snow White’s Enchanted Wish. This was not the original name, however, which was actually Snow White and her Adventures, before being refurbished in 1983 to make it less scary, and renamed to Snow White’s Scary Adventures[15]. The attraction was most recently refurbished and updated in 2021, with new effects and a new “Happily Ever After” finale scene added to it. There is an interesting point to mention about the outside of the show building – if you look up at the window long enough, you may see the Evil Queen watching you… Also at Disneyland, you’ll find a miniature scene showing the Seven Dwarfs’ cottage on the Storybook Land Canal Boats attraction, as well as on the Casey Jr. Circus Train which oversees the boat ride. At Disney California Adventure Park, you can even eat at the Carthay Circle Restaurant, a fine dining experience residing inside a reproduction of the actual Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, where the premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs took place all those years ago in 1937.  

At Tokyo Disneyland, you’ll find their version of the Snow White attraction, Snow White’s Adventures, which opened with the park in April 1983. Also, at the Fantasy Springs Hotel, the area is themed to iconic Disney movies, such as Sleeping Beauty (1959), Tangled (2010), and obviously, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 

Disneyland Paris also has a Snow White ride, opening with the park in April 1992 and is similar to Tokyo’s version of the ride. It is named Blanche-Neige et les Sept Nains, the French title for the film. I have been on this version too, and I remember it being much scarier than Disney World’s one; I’m still haunted by visions of skeletons being thrust from the side of the room right at the ride vehicles. There is also La Chaumière des Sept Nains shop in Fantasyland, themed to the Seven Dwarfs’ cottage. Much like Disneyland’s ride, there is also a miniature scene of the cottage on Le Pays des Contes de Fées, Disneyland Paris’ version of the Storybook Land Canal Boats.

 At Magic Kingdom and Shanghai Disneyland, both parks have a family-friendly rollercoaster attraction, Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The coasters aren’t too wild and crazy; the ride vehicles swing from side-to-side, but the track is not too fast or twisty. There is also a nice section of the ride where you go through the dwarfs whilst they are working in the mines and can hear them singing “Heigh Ho”. Magic Kingdom’s ride then ends past the Dwarfs’ cottage, with Snow White inside and the Witch knocking at the door with her apples. Shanghai’s ride ends with the cottage in the distance and a well closer to the vehicles, where two raccoons are playing around. This is a fun ride, at least I know Magic Kingdom’s is; I haven’t been to Shanghai. Even my mum, who dislikes most rollercoasters, loves this attraction. Near Shanghai’s Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, you can visit the Mountainside Treasures shop. Also at Shanghai Disneyland is the Once Upon a Time Adventure attraction. It is a walkthrough attraction within Shanghai’s Enchanted Storybook Castle, telling the story of the film via screen projections, special effects, and designed sets.

Sadly, Hong Kong Disneyland does not currently have a Snow White dark ride, or a Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. However, as part of the walkthrough experience Fairy Tale Forest you’ll see areas themed to some of Disney’s best fairy-tale movies, with one of these being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

In terms of meet-and-greet locations, Snow White seems to be quite frequently seen at all six Disney Parks. At Walt Disney World, she has a permanent meet-and-greet location at the Germany Pavilion in Epcot. The dwarfs occasionally have a meet-and-greet location at Special Events such as Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, but not always. They are very popular when they do appear. The Evil Queen is likely to be spotted at Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. At the Wilderness Lodge Resort, if you dine at Story Book Dining at Artist Point, a Snow White-themed character dinner, you will see Snow White, Grumpy, Dopey, and the Evil Queen.  

At the other five parks, though there are not permanent meet-and-greet locations, you will likely find Snow White, and sometimes the Prince, visiting guests around the castles and Fantasyland areas. Disneyland’s Fantasy Faire location and Disneyland Paris’ Princess Pavilion spot are good areas to see Snow White also. She is likely to be a part of any Princess character dining experience, such as Cinderella’s Royal Table at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World, or Auberge de Cendrillon at Disneyland Paris. The Evil Queen, sometimes appearing as the Old Hag, is likely to be available for meet-and-greets at the Disney Halloween events, but she is sometimes seen randomly in the Fantasyland areas, especially at Disneyland, where they seem to have much more frequent, rare, and casual character interactions. Unfair…Anaheim is just so much further away than Orlando…

Finally, Snow White Grotto, a wishing well with statuettes of Snow White and the seven dwarfs standing on top and along the waterfall, is an attraction at Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and Hong Kong Disneyland, located to the side of their respective castles.

Moving on to the screen, Snow White the fairy tale has been adapted numerous times by many different film studios. Some of these include the live-action movies 20^th Century Fox’s Mirror Mirror (2012) and Universal’s Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), with both putting a darker, more modern spin on the classic tale. ABC series Once Upon a Time (2011-18) also chose to twist the story of Snow White with its retelling of the fairy tale, with Ginnifer Goodwin cast as Snow White, and Lana Parrilla as the fabulously cruel Evil Queen. These characters, including Josh Dallas as Prince Charming, and Jennifer Morrison as Emma, Snow and Charming’s daughter, drive the first six seasons of storylines.

However, Disney themselves will be releasing their own live-action version, Snow White, on 21^st March 2025; it was meant to be released in 2024, but was delayed due to the SAG-AFTRA strike of 2023. Many Disney fans are not too happy about this upcoming movie, as lead actress Rachel Zegler has caused some upset with a few of her comments around the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. By stating that her Snow White will be much more modern and not dreaming about love or needing rescuing by a prince, Zegler inadvertently offended some of Disney’s most loyal fans, leading many to claim that they will boycott the film. These comments also led to a rumour that the role of Snow White was to be recast; it was not true. I didn’t agree or like what Zegler said about the original Snow White, however, I think the furore that surrounded this incident was over-the-top and uncalled for. Another controversy surrounding the film is over Disney’s handling of the seven dwarfs. They originally reassured people that these would actually now be “magical creatures” to avoid reinforcing negative stereotypes, however, images from the movie have since shown that the seven dwarfs have simply been created as CGI characters[16]. A trailer and poster for Snow White were later revealed at the 2024 D23 Expo, with the trailer racking up many more negative than positive comments on YouTube…

On a lighter note, it is possible that the world could have seen a short animated sequel to Snow White a few years after its release. A folder of story sketches was found in Disney’s Animation Research Library, which seemed to suggest that a sequel named Snow White Returns had been in the works, and would have used two sequences that were originally meant to be included in the full film, however were cut. The story would have seen the dwarfs getting ready for their annual visit from Snow White, with them wanting to make a bed for her as a present. On returning home from their bed building, they would have found Snow in their cottage making soup. After slurping their soup down, despite Snow trying to get them to eat like gentlemen, the dwarfs would’ve gone to present the bed to Snow. Except they try to lift the bed and it won’t move, since one of the carved bedposts was not sawn off the tree. As Snow waits ages for the dwarfs to return, she falls asleep. The dwarfs find Snow asleep and decide to wait until the morning to give her the present. They instead jump into the bed and fall asleep themselves[17].

FINAL THOUGHTS

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will always be remembered for being a ground-breaking piece of movie history. It paved the way for other movies of this kind to come out of the Disney Studios to be loved by millions for years to come. It truly is a very special movie.

In all honesty, it doesn’t really matter what anyone’s opinion of Snow White is, because it was the movie that sprung Walt Disney and his animators into the spotlight.

Personal opinions aren’t what’s important here. The fact is Snow White launched a legacy and a revival in cinema. Its history speaks for itself, and it will be treasured forever.

---

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Dan Peeke, ‘Snow White And The Seven Dwarves: 10 Differences Between The Book And The Film’, ScreenRant.com, 16^th March 2020.

[2] Credit: Disney, Still the Fairest of Them All: The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2001).

[3] Credit: Disney, “Hyperion Studios Tour”, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Disney+ (2009).

[4] Credit: Disney, “Disney’s First Feature: The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney+ (2016).

[5] Credit: Disney, Still the Fairest of Them All: The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2001).

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Some Day My Lawsuit Will Come’, CartoonResearch.com, 30^th September 2022.

[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015). ‘Introduction’, pp. xi-xiii.

[8] Credit: Disney, “Disney’s First Feature: The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Disney+ (2016).

[9] Credit: Disney, Still the Fairest of Them All: The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2001).

[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt: Volume 1 (2012),’Snow White Christmas Premiere’, pp. 83-92.

[11] Credit: Disney, Still the Fairest of Them All: The Making of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (2001).

[12] Credit: Disney, Disney Through the Decades (2009).

[13] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Snow White, Off the Beaten Path’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

[14] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 7: Christmas Edition (2018), ‘The Snow White Christmas Cottage’, pp. 21-22.

[15] Credit: Werner Weiss, ‘Snow White’s Scary Adventures: Florida Edition’, Yesterland.com, 12^th April 2024.

[16] Credit: Nikolas Lanum, ‘‘No longer 1937’: Resurfaced video of ‘Snow White’ actress Rachel Zegler continues controversy’, NYPost.com, 25^th July 2023.

[17] Credit: Disney, “Snow White Returns”, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) Diamond Edition DVD (2009).

1. BACKGROUND
2. PLOT
3. CHARACTERS & CAST
4. MUSIC
5. PRODUCTION
6. RECEPTION
7. LEGACY
8. FINAL THOUGHTS
9. REFERENCES

BACKGROUND

Becoming just the second Disney animated classic to ever hit the movie screens, Pinocchio had a lot to live up to after the huge success that the Disney Studios had with their first ever full-length animated feature film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).

Snow White was great, with its traditional fairy-tale format and plenty of additions of that magical storytelling, strong characters, and bright music that we all associate with Disney Animation today. It’s hard to imagine that acclaim being replicated so easily.

In actual fact, it really was that easy.

Pinocchio wasn’t just as good as Snow White had been; it was even better.          

Pinocchio was released in 1940 to very positive reviews from critics, saying that Pinocchio surpassed Snow White in almost every way – the music was apparently not as great, but that is debated nowadays.

But the animation is where Pinocchio really shines, as the Disney animators knew they had made mistakes in Snow White, and found that they needed ways of improving those shortcomings for future movies. So, with the profits from Snow White firmly in Walt Disney’s pocket, he set about using those funds to make Pinocchio the most artistic and innovation film that those at the Disney Studios could make. It certainly shows off the quality of animation and proves that animation is just as impressive as any live-action movie, more so in some cases.

Now, that’s what the critics all say – back in the 1940s and even in retrospective reviews from the current decade. But that’s not me, because I have to admit something.

I have a big fear of dolls, anything with a human face that isn’t alive really. Therefore, unsurprisingly, I have an incredibly negative bias towards Pinocchio, and I really do not enjoy watching it. I have multiple theories of how I came to have this “strange” fear: maybe it was that episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch with the “Molly Dolly”; perhaps it was my sister moving my toys when I left the room and hiding under the bed so I’d think they moved by themselves; maybe it was seeing the adverts for the Goosebumps on old Disney VHS tapes; or perhaps it was from watching Toy Story.

I have no idea. It could’ve been from watching Pinocchio when I was younger for all I know, though I don’t remember seeing it, but I’ve been informed I did watch it back then.

Anyway, my point is I have major personal issues with Pinocchio. I appreciate that Pinocchio was a momentous moment in both the history of the Disney Studios and generally in the history of animation, but I really don’t like this film, and never will, no matter how many times I force myself to see it.

PLOT

For anyone that does not know the story, and I don’t blame you if you don’t or can’t remember it because you had to wipe any memory of it from your mind so as not to be scarred for life, Pinocchio revolves around a wooden puppet, carved by the wood carver Geppetto. Geppetto wishes on a star for this puppet to be a “real boy”, as he never had a child of his own, though he does have two pets, a cute cat named Figaro and a sassy goldfish called Cleo. As Geppetto sleeps, his wish partially comes true. Pinocchio is alive, but not a boy yet; he’s still a wooden puppet. As the Blue Fairy states, Pinocchio must prove himself to be “brave, truthful, and unselfish” for that to happen. Geppetto wakes up to find Pinocchio alive and is overjoyed. Jiminy Cricket, who basically broke into Geppetto’s home to warm himself by the fire, reveals himself to the Blue Fairy. She says that Jiminy should help Pinocchio on his way to becoming a real boy, to be his conscience and show him right from wrong. Jiminy readily agrees and he is given a smart, snappy suit to wear to match this new important position.

The next morning, Geppetto sends Pinocchio off to school, with a book, an apple, and of course, Jiminy Cricket. But on the way to school, “Honest” John the fox and Gideon the cat delay Pinocchio and tell him all about the wonders of becoming an actor. Jiminy tries to warn Pinocchio away from these two creeps, but it does not work, and Pinocchio is instead sold to puppeteer Stromboli to become a cabaret slave in his travelling show. To be fair to Pinocchio, Geppetto had not given him the whole “stranger danger” warning so no wonder he was led astray; that’s just bad parenting on Geppetto’s part. “Bad Dad” award.

Although everything seems great at Pinocchio’s debut show, as he is the star attraction and the crowd love him, it soon becomes clear to Pinocchio that Stromboli is not a good guy. Stromboli has made tons of money from Pinocchio’s show today and plans to take him on tour, so when Pinocchio asks to go home, Stromboli angrily locks him in a birdcage, saying he can never go home. Jiminy arrives and tries to free Pinocchio from his prison, but to no avail. Luckily, the Blue Fairy appears. Pinocchio, embarrassed by the predicament he’s got himself in, begins to lie to the Blue Fairy about what happened, causing his nose to grow and grow. The Blue Fairy tells Pinocchio she can free him and return his nose to normal size if he promises to return to his original mission: of being brave, truthful, and unselfish. Pinocchio agrees to this and is free to go home.

But once again, “Honest” John and Gideon intercept Pinocchio, as they have been ordered by the Coachman to round up young boys to go to a shady, mysterious place called Pleasure Island – in exchange for money, of course, not out of the “goodness” of their hearts. After some convincing and ignoring the advice of Jiminy yet again, Pinocchio agrees to go. He befriends a boy called Lampwick and the two experience the wonders of Pleasure Island together, where they can drink alcohol, smoke cigars, play pool, get into fights, and do all sorts of bad things. Jiminy eventually finds Pinocchio again, and tries to convince Pinocchio to leave this place, but he refuses as he’s having so much fun there. Jiminy is about to leave the island when he learns that the boys on this island end up cursed, becoming donkeys and are then used by the Coachman as slave labour. Jiminy rushes back to save Pinocchio. At the same time, Pinocchio sees his friend Lampwick turn into a donkey right in front of him. Pinocchio is horrified – and it gets worse, because Pinocchio soon sprouts donkey ears and a tail! Pinocchio manages to escape the island before the curse can fully transform him.

Jiminy and Pinocchio finally return home, but find the house empty. Outside, they receive a note from the Blue Fairy, saying that Geppetto, Figaro and Cleo all went looking for him on a raft but they were swallowed by a huge whale called Monstro, where he currently remains. Pinocchio and Jiminy jump into the sea and swim until they find the whale. Monstro swallows Pinocchio and Jiminy, where they are reunited with Geppetto. Pinocchio comes up with a plan to make Monstro sneeze, by starting a fire inside the belly of the whale, so that they can escape. As they are sneezed out of the whale – eww – Monstro chases after their raft and smashes it to pieces, leaving them flailing in the water. Pinocchio saves his father by pulling him into a cove. Monstro then crashes into the rock face, and Geppetto washes up on the beach, alive, with Figaro and Cleo. Jiminy then washes up on the shore too. Sadly, Pinocchio is found face-down in the water; he has drowned and died.

Back home, Geppetto, Jiminy, Figaro, and Cleo all mourn the loss of Pinocchio. However, as through this act, Pinocchio proved himself to be brave, truthful, and unselfish, the Blue Fairy turns Pinocchio into a real boy – minus the donkey ears and tail – at last. The group celebrates. Jiminy thanks the Wishing Star, which is also the Blue Fairy, and is rewarded with a badge for all of his good work, which certifies him as an official conscience.

After all that, you can hardly say Pinocchio is a feel-good children’s film, can you? It’s much more of a morality play than anything else. If you’re looking for family-friendly entertainment to escape from how terrible the world can be, this is not the Disney film to choose! I suppose, providing it doesn’t traumatise the children first, some of the messages about being a good, honest person might be absorbed, at least for a little bit, though.

Disney did their very best to tame their movie compared with the original source material, the book The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. The name Pinocchio comes from the two Italian words “pino” and “occhio”, which mean “pine” and “eye”, an appropriate name for a wooden puppet. The Adventures of Pinocchio was originally published as a serial as part an Italian children’s magazine. Disney used some of the same plot points, for example, the boys turning into donkeys on Pleasure Island, though it is named the Land of Toys in the original story; Monstro swallowing Geppetto; the Fox and the Cat tricking Pinocchio, but other than, it is so much more terrifying! Pinocchio is incredibly badly-behaved too: kicking Geppetto as soon as his feet are carved; running away from home, where the police arrest Geppetto as they assume Pinocchio has been mistreated by him; having his feet burnt off by the fireplace; squishing the Talking Cricket with a hammer; being hung from a tree by the Fox and the Cat[1]. It just gets worse and worse! Although, Disney’s Pinocchio is already quite terrifying to watch, imagine if they hadn’t strayed from the original source. How awful would that have been….

CHARACTERS & CAST

Collodi’s version of the puppet Pinocchio was actually very unlikeable and cocky, nothing at all like Disney’s character because Walt Disney knew they had to make Pinocchio like an innocent little boy, so that the audience would want him to succeed in his journey to becoming a real boy, and that they should be concerned about the distressing situations Pinocchio ends up in. I don’t think I would’ve cared about Collodi’s Pinocchio at all if I’d read the book, but I certainly care about Disney’s little Pinocchio who is so naïve and easily persuaded that you have to feel sorry for him when all these terrible things happen. It is also clear that Pinocchio genuinely cares about his father and doesn’t want to disappoint him. Pinocchio becomes a real hero at the end of the film, sacrificing his own life to save Geppetto’s, for which he is given the ultimate reward: to finally be a real boy.

Originally, the character was designed to be very geometrically-shaped, like a real wooden puppet, but Walt Disney didn’t like that, so he asked for the character to be redesigned. Pinocchio had to look like a sweet little boy, so that is what the animators did; he became more boy than puppet. Child actor Dick Jones provided the voice for Pinocchio, but he had already been cast in numerous minor screen roles before then. In 1939, he appeared in the movies Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Destry Rides Again. During voice recordings for Pinocchio, at one point the Disney team were struggling to figure out how to make it sound like Pinocchio was underwater searching for Geppetto, so they had the bright idea of having Jones lie down on a table and have he read his lines out as water was poured into his mouth! As he almost drowned from this, they soon worked out that putting a filter on the microphone would be a sufficient alternative to make the character sound like he was underwater[2]! After Pinocchio, Jones appeared in a few episodes of the series Annie Oakley (1954-57). In 1955, Jones starred as the title character in the Western television series Buffalo Bill, Jr. (1955-56). His final film role was in 1965 in the Western film Requiem for a Gunfighter. Jones passed away in 2014 at the age of 87.

Of all the characters in Pinocchio that have dialogue, Jiminy Cricket is my favourite. I also really like the suit he wears. I’d completely forgotten that he doesn’t start the movie wearing it; he actually shows up looking bedraggled and homeless, and the Blue Fairy gives him a new suit, the proper uniform to be a “conscience”, apparently. Jiminy isn’t overly helpful to Pinocchio throughout the film, though that is made worse by the fact that Pinocchio ignores him a lot…He tries his best but if someone just won’t listen to you, what more can you do! Jiminy also says what the viewers are likely all thinking, which makes me laugh. For instance, whilst in Geppetto’s workshop at the start of the film, he gets frustrated by the sound of the cuckoo clocks, which I agree are so annoying, and he has some great lines, like “Conscience is that still small voice that people won’t listen to.” That’s quite true!

The Talking Cricket as the character is known in the original book is a very minor character, who only shows up a couple of times in the story: once when he gets killed by Pinocchio after attempting to give him advice, and again when he comes back as a ghost. The team at Disney decided that having the cricket as a main character would give Pinocchio a sidekick, and bring some friendship and humour to the otherwise dark story. In the end, Jiminy’s wise-cracking ways dominate the screen, and as such Jiminy Cricket has become one of Disney’s most memorable characters. Being an official conscience will do that for you. Ward Kimball was assigned the task of designing Jiminy Cricket, which was quite difficult as crickets are not the cutest insects and Walt Disney wanted something cute. So, Kimball drew multiple designs of this walking-talking cricket, until eventually they got the design that we now know as Jiminy Cricket – who looks very little like an actual cricket.

Cliff Edwards, who was also known by the name “Ukulele Ike”, due to his performances playing the ukulele, voiced the character. Edwards first popularised the song “Singin’ in the Rain” after performing it in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 musical film, alongside The Brox Sisters. Edwards had a few movie roles, with one being in the comedy film His Girl Friday (1940). Edwards voiced one of the crows in Dumbo (1941) and reprised his role as Jiminy Cricket often for other Disney projects up until his death in 1971.

Geppetto is Pinocchio’s kindly father. He wants nothing more than to have a child of his own, and so Pinocchio coming into his life is a great gift. Geppetto doesn’t feature all that much in the film, just at the beginning and at the end, because this film is all about Pinocchio, but you can see how devoted he is to Pinocchio by the fact he goes out to sea to find him and ends up being swallowed by a whale… Although Pinocchio is an Italian story, Geppetto speaks with an Austrian accent. That is because Christian Rub was an Austrian-born actor. He made Geppetto soft-spoken and calm, even in the face of adversity, which is a nice contrast to all the evil villainous men in this film. Rub had appeared in numerous movies, with his film debut being in The Belle of New York (1919) and his final film role being in Something for the Birds (1952). Also in 1940, Rub was cast as Thoren in RKO’s Swiss Family Robinson, not to be confused with Disney’s 1960 live-action film. Apparently, Christian Rub was a Nazi sympathiser, which made working with him quite difficult, given the time of Pinocchio’s development.

Whilst on the subject of Geppetto, I also have to say that I absolutely love Figaro, Geppetto’s black and white cat. He’s so cute! Disney really got the temperament of the cat spot on because Figaro has two emotions: moody and needy. He’s the best character in this film, no question. Because Figaro was so popular, and supposedly Walt Disney’s favourite character in the film, Figaro became Minnie Mouse’s cat after this. Clarence Nash, famous for voicing the character of Donald Duck, “voices” Figaro here. Cleo, Geppetto’s goldfish, is also quite cute, but is no Figaro. I did see one of the deleted scenes though, which would have seen Figaro trying to eat Cleo whilst stuck in the stomach of Monstro; that wasn’t nice to watch. Bad Figaro.

Now let’s get to the despicable villains. I like Disney Villains, but I draw the line at these four. They are just awful and horrible to watch. “Honest” John, or John Worthington Foulfellow to give him his full name, which just sounds incredibly pretentious, and his mute sidekick Gideon are the two con artists who use Pinocchio to make themselves richer. They bother Pinocchio twice, and sell him to Stromboli and then to the Coachman, basically. You’d think Pinocchio would have learnt to stay away from them after the first incident, but nope! John is quite persuasive and charming, which is how he is able to convince Pinocchio to do bad things, but generally, the two of them are quite bumbling and relatively comedic. Apparently, “Honest” John was partly inspired by Walt Disney’s brother, Ray, who sold insurance. He wanted animator Ward Kimball as a client, but whenever Ray came to the Studios, Kimball always tried to hide from him, even hiding in an armoire at one point[3].

Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny for the Looney Tunes, was originally going to be the voice of Gideon, but Disney decided that Gideon should be mute, so the only “line” that Blanc managed to voice here was Gideon’s hiccup[4]. Walter Catlett voiced “Honest” John. Catlett had appeared on stage in musicals like the 1920 production of the Jerome Kern musical Sally, and Lady, Be Good by George and Ira Gershwin in 1924. Catlett also appeared in various movies, including Bringing Up Baby (1938) as Constable Slocum, and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) as Morrow, the Poet.

Finally, the last two villains are Stromboli and the Coachman. Both of them are greedy and abusive, with the Coachman happily sending boys to an island to be cursed so that he can get some cheap donkey labour, and Stromboli planning to use Pinocchio like some dancing slave. I really don’t like either of them and find them the scariest and most repulsive characters in the film. Charles Judels voiced both characters. 

MUSIC

Let’s move on to something brighter, like Pinocchio’s soundtrack. The songs were composed by Leigh Harline, who also co-scored the movie, with Ned Washington contributing the lyrics. After Pinocchio, Washington went on to write the lyrics to the songs in Disney’s Dumbo (1941), earning an Academy Award nomination for “Baby Mine”, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for “High Noon” from the 1952 film High Noon. There are five original songs in Pinocchio, though more were written for the movie and ultimately not used. One of these is Jiminy Cricket’s song “I’m A Happy Go Lucky Fellow” which instead was used in the animated film Fun and Fancy Free (1947).

To be honest, I’m not a fan of any of the songs from Pinocchio, although if I had to pick a favourite it would either be “Give A Little Whistle” or “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee”. I remember hearing a variation on “Give A Little Whistle” in the former Walt Disney World parade Celebrate a Dream Come True so that’s probably why I don’t mind that song. It is performed by Cliff Edwards and Dickie Jones as Jiminy teaches Pinocchio how to whistle so that he can call for help, and reminds him to “always let your conscience be your guide”. “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee” is performed by Walter Catlett as “Honest” John as he tries and succeeds in convincing Pinocchio to be an “actor” in Stromboli’s puppet show. For a villainous tune, it’s quite catchy and bouncy. It is briefly reprised as John speaks to the Coachman in the inn.

There is also a short song called “Little Wooden Head” sung by Christian Rub as Geppetto, as he tries out his new wooden puppet Pinocchio and walks him around the room. I already find the scene creepy – because, puppets – and the repetitive mechanical sound to the music is a little bit irritating to me, so I don’t like this song. It’s also sad how little Figaro is being tormented by Geppetto as he moves Pinocchio towards him. Poor kitty. I also don’t like “I’ve Got No Strings” because there are even more puppets here! Pinocchio’s singing isn’t great either, but I can appreciate the different variations of the song that were written to match the nationality of the puppets that join Pinocchio on stage.

But the most remembered song is obviously “When You Wish Upon a Star”, which is performed by Jiminy Cricket at the very start of the film, during the opening credits and then the opening scene of Jiminy sat atop the Pinocchio storybook. There is also a reprise of it at the end of the film. It is a sweet song and it basically became the Walt Disney Company’s theme song from this moment on, as it sums up their message about wishes and dreams being able to come true. Sadly, I don’t love this song either, maybe because I’ve heard it too many times – or maybe because I just don’t like the film – but it is iconically Disney.

Leigh Harline had previously co-scored Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), alongside Paul J. Smith, with the two scoring Pinocchio together. Harline had also scored many of the Silly Symphonies cartoon shorts in the 1930s. Smith contributed to the scores of many of Disney animated feature films from this point on, including Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), and Cinderella (1950), as well as some of the True-Life Adventures nature documentaries in the 1950s.

Within the score, I think “Clock Sequence” is quite clever, as it is a symphony of all the cuckoo clocks going off at once, but making them chime in harmony with each other. It is a bit annoying after a while though! “Coach to Pleasure Island” has quite a jazzy feel to it, which is in complete contrast to what we now know happens over there; it sounds fun and exciting, not like somewhere where these boys are ultimately going to meet their doom. It’s not my favourite score, but it adds tension, hope, and happiness when it needs to.

Pinocchio was the first Disney feature to win an Academy Award, actually winning two awards: one for Best Original Score and the other for Best Original Song with “When You Wish Upon a Star”. It wouldn’t be until Mary Poppins (1964) that these honours were received again, and then another thirty-odd years until The Little Mermaid (1989) would do so once more, from which point four other “Disney Renaissance” films also would[5].

PRODUCTION

After Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), the Disney Studios had to make another picture just as good, if not better. Initially, it was decided that the animators would set to work on Bambi (1942), and that that would become their second full-length animated feature. However, Walt Disney was unsure how to go about making that movie, as he wanted the animation to look as realistic to nature as possible, so Bambi was set aside.

Luckily, during production on Snow White, animator Norman Ferguson had brought in Collodi’s book, The Adventures of Pinocchio, and gave it to Walt to read. The book had become very popular since its publishing in 1883 and had been translated into numerous languages. Because of the story’s episodic nature, since it had been published in a magazine first and not as a full story, there were ample choices for their movie. They could choose to avoid the darker, crueller elements of the story, and focus on the moral message of the story, of how to become a better person, and recognising right from wrong, which would be especially good for the children who would be watching the movie.

This structure to the plot, giving Pinocchio many adventures and interactions with different characters, meant that the animators had even more opportunity to develop their character animation, giving each character a distinct personality. This was also the opportunity where many of those who came to be known as the “Nine Old Men” really got to shine. Frank Thomas, for example, animated the sequence of Pinocchio as a marionette at the start of the film, after being carved by Geppetto; Ollie Johnston worked on the sequence of Pinocchio’s nose growing as he is trying to explain his predicament to the Blue Fairy. As mentioned, Ward Kimball designed Jiminy Cricket after having his work on Snow White cut from the final edit; and Eric Larson animated Figaro. John Lounsbery did some animation of “Honest” John, whose animation was being supervised by Norm Ferguson. From this point on, the “Nine Old Men” became a huge influence in the animated movies that came afterwards. But older animators, like Bill Tytla, Art Babbitt, and Fred Moore also contributed to Pinocchio’s characters, animating Stromboli, Geppetto, and Lampwick respectively.

Snow White had given the world an animated fairy tale that looked magical. The team wanted to have the same artistic approach that had been used in that film for Pinocchio, to make the film reminiscent of Old-World storybook illustrations, many of which had been created by German artists. Gustaf Tenggren was the concept artist responsible for Pinocchio’s setting of an Alpine village. Tenggren had made many drawings of Bavarian town Rothenberg ob der Tauber as inspiration, with Geppetto’s house in particular closely matching the Hotel Altfrankische Weinstrube there. Tenggren was also influenced by Germanic architecture for the interior locations, such as Geppetto’s workshop with its numerous cuckoo clocks and music boxes. Too many if you ask me. How many does one man need? Has Geppetto struggled to sell them? This is why, despite Pinocchio being an Italian story, the backgrounds seem to replicate Bavarian and German areas[6].

However, despite taking some ideas from the making of Snow White, Walt Disney and the rest of the Studios’ staff knew that they had made mistakes, and knew how they wanted to improve the artform and cinematography. Using the profits from Snow White, Walt could now invest in new technology and more complex animation. One of their biggest technological advancements was their creation of the multiplane camera, designed by Disney Studio technician Bill Garity. At over twelve feet tall, the camera used multiple layers of back, middle, and foregrounds placed at different heights to add depth and space to the animated sequences. For example, one particular sequence known for its use of the multiplane camera is the sequence of Pinocchio going off to school, where the camera sweeps over the village, gradually getting closer and closer to the streets, before settling on Geppetto’s house. This was actually done using a horizontal plane instead of vertical, and replicates the action that a dolly track camera would do nowadays. This sole sequence cost $45,000 back then to make, which is almost $1.8 million today. Another good example of this type of shot is when the camera pushes through wisps of mist and moves closer and closer into the Red Lobster Inn, where John and Gideon are meeting the Coachman[7]. 

For character animation, maquettes, making 3D models of character designs, really became standard for the Disney Studios during the making of Pinocchio. They had been used a bit for Snow White, but the models were predominately first used on Pinocchio. These maquettes were useful for the animators to be able to accurately capture all angles of their characters. There were also other models made of things like Stromboli’s wagon and the coach to Pleasure Island, as well as Geppetto’s cuckoo clocks, with these models being useful to animate realistic movement of the objects[8]. Live-action reference material was also taken, of actors like Evelyn Venable as the Blue Fairy, who was also the voice of the character. Venable was also the original model for the “Torch Lady” logo that appears at the start of Columbia Pictures films. Disney’s live-action reference footage could be used as a guide for the animators, again, to capture realistic movement. A Pinocchio puppet was also built as an animation model, but was lost for fifty years. It was eventually discovered in one of the studio cabinets[9].

The Effects Department were able to push forward with more impressive techniques as well. The water effects are a particular focus during discussions around Pinocchio’s animation, as they were able to replicate the waves of the sea, splashes, bubbles, and foam, with all of these being used in the sequence with Monstro the whale. It was very complex work as it was all hand-drawn. The magic effects of the Blue Fairy were also hand-drawn.

All of these additional animation techniques pushed the artform forward, and now Pinocchio is famed for its innovations.

RECEPTION

Pinocchio premiered in New York City on 7^th February 1940 at the Center Theatre. According to Hollywood legend, as part of promotional activities for the premiere, eleven men were hired and dressed up as Pinocchio. They were placed on top of the theatre marquee for the day and were told to interact with the crowd. At lunchtime, they were given refreshments, including beer. A few hours later, the men were all naked, burping, shouting obscenities at the crowd, and generally behaving very “un-Pinocchio-like”. They refused to put their costumes back on and come down, so the police were called. They brought the men down using pillow cases to cover up their modesty[10]. I have no idea how true this story actually is or not, the veracity of this story is debated, but I have seen screenshots of people dressed as Pinocchio on top of the theatre, so at least that part was true. Actor David Niven wrote this story in his memoir Bring on the Empty Horses (1975), where it has taken on a life of its own. It sounds like a very funny publicity stunt gone wrong, but news articles from the time don’t go quite as far as Niven, instead simply saying that the men had just got bored, and started smoking and playing dice on top of the theatre.

After that possible disaster of a premiere, Pinocchio was released in theatres in the US on 23^rd February 1940, where it received outstanding reviews from critics, with many stating that Pinocchio was technically better than Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as well as having a more powerful story. Although more contemporary critics have said that the story may be too heavy for a children’s film, they all agree that Pinocchio is one of the best animated movies of all time, with memorable songs and characters.

Randomly, after Pinocchio’s release, the nephew of Carlo Collodi, the author of the original book, Paolo Lorenzini apparently begged the Italian Ministry of Popular Culture to sue Walt Disney for libel for portraying Pinocchio in such a way that the character could be mistaken for American instead of his authentic Italian heritage[11].

Pinocchio cost $2.6 million to make, which, adjusted for inflation, would be over $50 million today. This means Pinocchio cost almost twice as much as Snow White did. Unfortunately, due to the start of World War II and a lack of access to European markets as well as those in Asia, Pinocchio did not do well financially on its original release, bringing in somewhere around $1.5 million. This would have been very disappointing at the time for Walt Disney. As Walt Disney put it in a 1956 archive interview, Pinocchio was released “at a time when the world was kind of collapsing”, which is unfortunate[12]. The Disney Studios then lost staff members when the US joined World War II in 1941, and were required to make propaganda films for the US government, so they had to slow down progress on their full-length feature films. Only three more feature-length films were released by the Disney Studios, between 1940 and 1942, and after that, the “package feature” films came to be.

Luckily, when Pinocchio was re-released in theatres for the first time after the war in 1945, and then many times after that including in 1954, 1962, 1971, and 1978, the movie was able to make the money it deserved to. It was also then released on VHS, followed by DVD and Blu-Ray re-releases on its milestone anniversary dates[13].

LEGACY

Considering Pinocchio was released over eighty years ago, the movie and its characters continue to have relevance at all the Disney Parks across the world. For example, the characters have featured in parades and as walkaround characters for years. Jiminy Cricket hosted the nighttime shows Wishes and the SpectroMagic parade at the Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World in the 1990s and 2000s. Jiminy also appears in the Festival of Fantasy parade here, as does Pinocchio who is riding on the float that looks like Monstro the whale covered in the fabric of Aladdin’s magic carpet. Pinocchio has also been seen around the Walt Disney World Resort with Geppetto recently, and Jiminy Cricket has been known to meet guests at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park occasionally. Gideon and Honest John have also been spotted at special events before, like at Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. Lampwick and Stromboli have been meet-and-greet characters at times here as well.

Let’s also not forget Pinocchio Village Haus quick-service restaurant in Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom. It was meant to look as accurate to the film as possible, and the Imagineers got the detail down so precisely that the view from above resembles the overhead opening scene of the village in Pinocchio. This would’ve been visible to guests riding on the Skyway from 1971 to 1999, when it closed. The dining location, serving Italian food such as pizzas and pastas, is themed to Pinocchio’s village both in its interior, where it looks like an outdoor village courtyard, and its exterior, which resembles multiple houses clustered together. There are many dining rooms themed to characters from the movie, and one even overlooks the it’s a small world attraction[14]. Similar dining locations can be found at Shanghai Disneyland, under the name Pinocchio Village Kitchen, and at Disneyland Paris as Au Chalet de la Marionette. There are slight differences in theming, but more obvious differences in food selection. At Shanghai Disneyland, alongside pizza and pasta, rice and noodle dishes are also available, whereas at Disneyland Paris, the food is vaguely German-themed, not Italian, strangely, serving hot dogs, pretzels sandwiches, and roast chicken.

Disneyland Paris doesn’t stop there with its Pinocchio theming, as they have La Bottega di Geppetto, a merchandise location made to look like Geppetto’s house and workshop, as well as the dark ride Les Voyages de Pinocchio, which opened with the park on 12^th April 1992, which takes guests through a shortened version of the movie’s story. In terms of character experiences, Geppetto and Pinocchio have been seen most recently in the park, as well as in the Disney Stars on Parade, with Pinocchio also being a possible character at the Plaza Gardens Restaurant character dining experience. Jiminy Cricket has been seen at this park before, as well as Gideon and Honest John.

At Disneyland, a miniature Alpine village scene from Pinocchio can be found on the Storybook Land Canal Boats, and on the Casey Jr. Circus Train. Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket dolls were also added to the it’s a small world attraction here. The Blue Fairy and Pinocchio feature during the Magic Happens Parade, and the Blue Fairy even got to fly across the castle during the original run of the Wondrous Journeys nighttime show. For walkaround characters, Blue Fairy, Pinocchio, Geppetto and Jiminy Cricket were all seen together as part of Throwback Nite in 2023. Disneyland also has a dark ride based on Pinocchio, called Pinocchio’s Daring Journey, which opened in May 1983. It is extremely similar to the one at Disneyland Paris, and the one at Tokyo Disneyland. Tokyo Disneyland’s ride, which has the same name, first opened with the park on 15^th April 1983. The ride was designed to first be installed at Disneyland, however, the project was put on hold and not revived until designs for Tokyo Disneyland were being decided. Disneyland then received their ride a month and a half later as part of their “New Fantasyland” refurbishment.

Tokyo Disneyland also includes some small themed areas, such as the Pleasure Island Candies shop, Stromboli’s Wagon store, and Cleo’s food stand, named after the goldfish, but don’t worry; it doesn’t serve fish…I don’t think… The Blue Fairy has a featured float within the Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade Dreamlights, and Pinocchio, Geppeto, Jiminy Cricket, and Honest John have also been seen here in recent years.

At Hong Kong Disneyland, and similarly in Shanghai Disneyland, it is unclear how frequently, if ever, characters from Pinocchio appear to meet and greet guests. There was in 2017 during a Halloween event a walkthrough attraction called Maze of Madness: The Nightmare Experiment Continues at Hong Kong Disneyland which featured a “face character” Pinocchio, which looks even creepier than his costumed look…

In general, Pinocchio’s characters and music from the film are likely to appear during current or future parades or shows at the Disney Parks, as well as on the Disney Cruise Line, since this was such a big movie for the company that continues to be popular.

On screen, Jiminy Cricket reappeared in the Disney animated “package feature” Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and he also hosted a series of educational short films for the Mickey Mouse Club television series from the 1950s through to the 1970s. He also hosted the Disney Sing-Along Songs VHS tapes, and played the part of the Ghost of Christmas Past in Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983). Jiminy is a popular choice of Disney character to host anything, since he is an official “conscience”.

There was also a live-action made-for-television movie which aired on ABC in 2000 called Geppetto, which told the story of Pinocchio from Geppetto’s perspective, with Drew Carey playing Geppetto, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as The Blue Fairy. More recently, Disney made a live-action remake of Pinocchio, which was released straight to Disney+ on Disney+ Day on 8^th September 2022. It starred Tom Hanks as Geppetto, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jiminy Cricket, and Keegan-Michael Key as Honest John, and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. It received mostly negative reviews. It should also not be confused with another Pinocchio adaptation released in 2022, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, which is a stop-motion animated film, and a darker version of the story, though it received much better reviews than Disney’s live-action remake, even winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Outside of traditional Disney work, Pinocchio, Geppetto, Jiminy Cricket, and The Blue Fairy all appear as supporting characters in the ABC television series Once Upon a Time (2011-18), with their characters being used most in the first couple of seasons.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Pinocchio really showcased the artform of animation, and proved the high-quality of the artists at the Disney Studios. Although Pinocchio struggled on its release due to the outbreak of World War II, over the decades, it has been re-released numerous times both for home release and in theatres and has more than made up for that initial box-office floundering. Families have been watching the film together for over eighty years.

Although Pinocchio is not one of the Disney Animated Classics I treasure, or will ever like, I can appreciate just how well it was made and how much work went into it. Perhaps this movie would speak to me more if I was part of an older generation that had not been spoilt by the so-called “Disney Renaissance” era and their musical-theatre style, which I prefer. Everybody has a favourite Disney film, and we’re all different.

Pinocchio remains a favourite of many – just not with those with a fear of puppets, like me.

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REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Tom Chapman, ‘Pinocchio is a lot darker than the story you think you know’, DigitalSpy.com, 10^th December 2022.

[2] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Disney Animation Anecdotes’, MousePlanet.com, 14^th December 2022.

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Disney Animation Anecdotes’, MousePlanet.com, 14^th December 2022.

[4] Credit: Disney, The Making of Pinocchio: No Strings Attached (2009).

[5] Credit: Disney, The Making of Pinocchio: No Strings Attached (2009).

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, Other Secret Stories of Walt Disney World (2017), ‘Pinocchio Village Haus’, pp. 7-8.

[7] Credit: Lucas O. Seastrom, ‘A Machine for the Imagination: Walt Disney’s Pinocchio and the Multiplane Camera’, The Walt Disney Family Museum Blog, 18^th September 2016.

[8] Credit: Disney, The Making of Pinocchio: No Strings Attached (2009).

[9] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Pinocchio’, pp. 4-6.

[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Animation Anecdotes #270’, CartoonResearch.com, 8^th July 2016.

[11] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Pinocchio’, pp. 4-6.

[12] Credit: In Walt’s Words: Pinocchio, Disney+, date unknown.

[13] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘Pinocchio Premiered’, D23.com, date unknown.

[14] Credit: Jim Korkis, Other Secret Stories of Walt Disney World (2017), ‘Pinocchio Village Haus’, pp. 7-8.