disney's fantasia movie questions for music education

Calm Classics with Myleene Klass 10pm - 1am

Now Playing

Natural Light Ludovico Einaudi Download 'Natural Light' on iTunes

Discover Music

Fantasia – all the classical music used in the Disney film

17 November 2018, 15:09

By Sofia Rizzi

The 1940 film 'Fantasia' was Disney's animated ode to classical music – and was followed by 'Fantasia 2000'. Here's a guide to all the great music included in the films.

Fantasia was Disney's love-letter to classical music and became a classic, loved by generations of children and adults. So it's no surprise that the company revisited the idea with Fantasia 2000, Disney's 38th animated feature length film and the sequel to the original Fantasia film.

Both films are made up of animated scenes to to some of the most famous pieces of classical music. In the 1940s original, the music was performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra and conductor James Stokowski. The composer and music critic Deems Taylor introduced the different segments.

In Fantasia 2000, the cast includes violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman , producer and musician Quincy Jones, magic duo Penn & Teller as well as actors Steve Martin, Bette Midler and Angela Lansbury.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice – Paul Dukas

This is the only piece of music that featured in both the 1940 and 2000 versions of Fantasia . In the 2000 version, the scene is introduced by magicians Penn & Teller and tells the story of Mickey Mouse as a sorcerer's apprentice. He battles an army of broomsticks that come to life as he tries to regain control of his magical abilities.

Symphony No. 5 – Ludwig van Beethoven

Fantasia 2000 - "5th Symphony"

The dramatic first movement of Beethoven 's fifth symphony scores an animation of abstract shapes that form butterflies battling it out against a swarm of bats.

Pines of Rome – Ottorino Respighi

Violinist Itzhak Perlman introduces this scene to the audience. In a world where humpback whales are able to fly, a whale calf becomes trapped in an iceberg. It manages to escape and reunite with its parents and the whales happily fly into outer space.

The Rite of Spring – Stravinsky

Stravinsky almost certainly wasn't thinking of dinosaurs when he wrote his ballet The Rite of Spring. But Walt and his team of animators decided to tell the story of these prehistoric creatures using the dramatic, angular sounds of Stravinsky's masterpiece.

And it's become one of the most famous sequences of the 1940s film.

Rhapsody in Blue – George Gershwin

Gershwin 's jazzy Rhapsody in Blue scores scenes of New York in the 1930s. The animation is set in the style of Al Hirschfeld, a caricaturist of the time, and follows the intertwining stories of four individuals living in the city. The scene is introduced by jazz icon Quincy Jones with pianist Ralph Grierson.

Piano Concerto No. 2 – Dmitri Shostakovich

Shostakovich - Piano concerto No.2

Based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier', this scene uses Shostakovich 's Piano Concerto No. 2 to illustrate the story of a broken toy soldier who falls in love with a toy ballerina. The music features pianist Yefim Bronfman.

The Carnival of the Animals – Camille Saint-Saëns

Flamingos from Fantasia 2000 (Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, Finale)

What would happen if you gave a yo-yo to a flock of flamingos? Disney uses Saint-Saën 's music to try and find out in this slapstick animation.

Pomp and Circumstance – Edward Elgar

Music+Cinema: Fantasia 2000- Pomp and Circumstance- Disney/Elgar

In this scene based on the story of Noah's Ark, Donald Duck is Noah's assistant and Daisy Duck is Donald's wife. Elgar 's rousing music underscores Donald Duck's trials and tribulations as he gathers the animals to board the ark.

Firebird Suite – Igor Stravinsky

Stravinsky 's Firebird Suite accompanies the story of a sprite and an elk who accidentally wake the Firebird, a fiery spirit that destroys the forest. The Sprite uses its powers to restore the forest to its former glory.

Night on Bald Mountain – Modest Mussorgsky

Mussorgsky 's unsettling music find the perfect visual counterpart in this dark sequence from the original Fantasia: an dark winged figure swoops down into a valley bringing darkness, and presumably evil intent with him.

Latest on Classic FM

75% of students agree, classical music is the best soundtrack to revision, miloš karadaglić: ‘picking up the guitar was a complete accident – it’s now my best friend’.

Miloš Karadaglić

Classical Pride returns with 5-day festival with media partner Classic FM

‘music is vital to her’ – how neurodivergent the piano star lucy speaks through the piano, operatic mezzo stuns with impromptu bizet ‘habanera’ in busy london restaurant, in historic first, a lord of the rings opera has been approved by the tolkien estate, new ‘amadeus’ tv series reveals mozart and salieri actors, musicians break guinness world record with 26-hour concert of music by women composers, why are orchestras arranged the way they are, russian republic announces ban on music that is too slow or too fast, best classical music.

See more Best classical music

The 15 most famous tunes in classical music

The 15 greatest symphonies of all time, the 4 eras of classical music: a quick guide, the 25 greatest conductors of all time, 30 of the greatest classical music composers of all time, the 25 best pianists of all time, more periods and genres.

See more More Periods and Genres

Film & TV

Video games.

• Our Insiders
• Choral & Song
• Instrumental
• Great Recordings
• Musical terms
• TV and Film music
• Instruments
• Audio Equipment
• Free Download
• Listen to Radio 3
• Subscriber FAQ
• 2023 Awards
• 2024 Awards

Disney's Fantasia: all the pieces of classical music featured in the animated film

It's not just The Sorcerer's Apprentice that makes an appearance in Fantasia. We name all the works – by the likes of Beethoven, Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky – that appear in the original 1940 film

BBC Music Magazine

The 1940 animated film Fantasia remains one of Walt Disney 's finest achievements, and helped put classical music in front of a worldwide audience. Disney collaborated with conductor Leopold Stokowski for his third animated film, presenting a feature divided into eight separate segments set to well-known works, seven of which are performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra.

The film was originally conceived as a comeback vehicle for Mickey Mouse in which the beloved cartoon character stars in the Sorcerer's Apprentice , but spiralling costs instead convinced Disney to include the short as just one of segments of the feature-length production. Making use of 'Fantasound', a new system developed by Disney and RCA, Fantasia was the first commercial film shown in stereo, paving the way for cinematic surround sound.

A sequel was released in 1999, titled Fantasia 2000 , which, like its predecessor, uses pieces of classical music alongside the animated segments, performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with conductor James Levine.

We named Fantasia as one of the best uses of classical music in cartoons . Below are the eight pieces of music used in the original 1940 feature's eight segments.

Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor

Fantasia 's graphic opening introduced viewers to the symphony orchestra, with live action scenes of members of the orchestra playing against a blue backdrop. Animated lines and graphic details then reflect the sound of Bach 's Toccata and Fugue.

Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker

There is an entire animated section devoted to The Nutcracker , with music from the 'Sugar-Plum Fairy', the 'Arabian Dance', the 'Trepak' and the 'Waltz of the Flowers'. We named it as one of the most unexpected uses of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker in popular culture .

Dukas's The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Dukas's symphonic poem The Sorcerer's Apprentice is intrinsically linked with Fantasia thanks to its use in the now-iconic sequence starring Mickey Mouse as (you guessed it) a sorcerer's apprentice. Bored of mopping the floors, the apprentice noses through the sorcerer's spell book to find a spell that will give him a break from the work... with disastrous results. Although it was already a popular concert piece, Disney acquired the music rights in 1937 when he planned to release a unique Mickey Mouse film, which became part of Fantasia.

• These movie directors are using classical music to create viral memes and memorable moments

Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring

One of the animations featured in Fantasia shows a visual history of the beginning of Planet Earth, from the planet's formation to the first living creates and subsequently the rise and demise of the dinosaur population.

Read about why the Rite of Spring was so revolutionary .

Beethoven's Symphony No. 6 'Pastoral'

This animated sequence features the world of Centaurs from classical mythology, set against the music of Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony. Zeus disturbs a festival for Bacchus, and creates a storm, directing Vulcan to make him lightning bolts to throw at the party's attendees.

• 10 best Disney soundtracks: the music from your favourite Disney films ranked
• A guide to the music of Disney's The Lion King
• Encanto: our guide to the music featured in Disney's latest animated feature film

Ponchielli's Dance of the Hours

This comic ballet features four sections: Madame Upanova and her ostriches (Morning); Hyacinth Hippo and her servants (Afternoon); Elephanchine and her elephants (Evening); and Ben Ali Gator and his alligators (Night). In the finale, all the characters dance together until their palace collapses.

Musorgsky's Night on the Bare Mountain

Inspired by Russian legend, Musorgsky 's Night on the Bare Mountain is already a story in itself. Tone poems are perfectly designed for film adaptation, due to the fact that they illustrate a continual story and evolve as the piece progresses. In Fantasia , the devil awakes and summons evil spirits from their graves to the mountain.

Schubert's Ave Maria

Schubert's Ave Maria appears in Fantasia just after Musorgsky's Night on the Bare Mountain. As the evil spirits are dancing on the mountain, a chorus is heard singing Schubert's Ave Maria as monks are seen walking through a forest and into the ruins of a cathedral.

We named the organ at Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles as one of the best pipe organs in the world .

Share this article

• Privacy policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Cookies policy
• Manage preferences

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

Music And Animation Combine In Disney's 'Fantasia'

Lloyd Schwartz

Fantasia Disney hide caption

The visualization of music on film is an old impulse. During the 1930s, besides cartoons with classical music soundtracks, a number of short films -- like one called Optical Poe ­-- contained kaleidoscopic, abstract images of musical pieces. But the most famous attempt to provide visual images for classical music was Walt Disney's Fantasia .

Released in 1940, after Snow White and Pinocchio , it's really an anthology of short segments with very mixed results. Composer and music critic Deems Taylor, who helped select the music, introduces each section, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. The best-known sequence, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," is quite faithful to the story by Goethe that's depicted in Dukas' music -- only now it's Mickey Mouse who loses control of the magical broomsticks that flood the Sorcerer's laboratory.

Some of the musical choices are quite ambitious. Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" turns the composer's peaceful countryside images into a mythological Arcadia, with flying horses and their families, and centaurs dating "centaurettes" -- who look like 1930s starlets, only with four legs. It's definitely a kiddie version, but at least it keeps to the spirit of the music. So does the even more surprising sequence based on Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," which changes Stravinsky's image of primitive Russia into an even more primitive depiction of prehistory, with erupting volcanoes, grazing brontosaures, a terrifying Tyrannosaurus Rex and flying raptors -- clearly an inspiration for Avatar . Stravinsky actually liked the animation, though he rightly hated the abbreviation and restructuring of his great ballet score.

My favorite sequence is Ponchielli's familiar "Dance of the Hours." Here, it's a parody of classical ballet, with ostriches and elephants as the corps de ballet. The male lead is a salacious alligator and the prima ballerina a demure hippo in a flimsy tutu. It's hilarious and suits the music perfectly.

Music composed for dancing was obviously intended to be seen and works especially well in Fantasia, such as the passages from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite." It's amusing to hear Deems Taylor, in 1940, say that while the suite is famous, the ballet has been almost entirely forgotten.

Times have changed. The "Chinese Dance," sequence, which has dancing mushrooms looking like coolies, makes one cringe. A few seconds of even more egregious racial stereotyping in the Beethoven symphony have been edited out, but if you're curious about American insensitivity to racial issues 70 years ago, you can see clips of these moments on YouTube.

The new box set also includes a feature-length sequel called Fantasia 2000 . It's mostly awful -- butterflies in the Beethoven Fifth and whales in Respighi's "Pines of Rome." Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" is supposed to be a tribute to theatrical cartoonist Al Hirschfield, but it's an embarrassment. The best thing is a repeat of the original "Sorcerer's Apprentice." The new Blu-ray also includes Destino , a bizarre six-minute realization of an abandoned collaboration between Disney and Salvador Dali, a surrealist nightmare, in more ways than one, about a weird love affair. The music is a 1940s Mexican pop song and the images include the hero's baseball bat slamming the heroine's severed head into space. There's also a new 82-minute documentary that attempts to connect Disney and Dali.

Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Dukas -- even Stravinsky -- intended some of their music to be visualized, either in the imagination or in an actual theater. I love Disney's project, and for kids, it's a delightful introduction to classical music. But both Fantasia films reveal how difficult it is to arrive at convincing images. Visual artists have to be deeply sensitive to music not to oversimplify, or betray, what's so deeply in the music.

Related NPR Stories

Remembrances, disney animator ollie johnston remembered, music interviews, stravinsky's riotous 'rite of spring', classical masterpieces turn up in cartoons, art & design, oskar fischinger's avant-garde animation.

WALT DISNEY’S FANTASIA – PART ONE LESSON PLANS FOR YEAR 1: WEEK 3

Elements of fun learning homeschool curriculum, this page has amazon affiliate links..

The following lessons are to be used with Elements of Fun Learning Curriculum, Year 1: Week 3. Use these WALT DISNEY’S FANTASIA – PART ONE Lesson Plans to inspire, teach, engage and play with your child. Before beginning, make sure to access the Book List for Weeks 1-12 . This will have the books used for Weeks 1-12. Also, make sure to see the Supply List for Weeks 1-12 to make sure you have the supplies for this unit on-hand. Finally, access the Appendix  for this week where you will find additional book suggestions, games, recipes and more! 

WEEK 3: WALT DISNEY’S FANTASIA – PART ONE LESSON PLANS

To read Introductory Notes, Click Here!

Each day for three days we will watch one of the segments from Walt Disney’s Fantasia. On days four and five plan some field trips (if possible).

Additional video selections:, the making of fantasia:.

This film is approximately 50 minutes long and is a documentary. 

FANTASIA BEHIND THE SCENES:

Super short advertising clip (3 mins) for a video game that talks about the Making of Fantasia.

BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE, AND ADVANCED: Work on Memorizing Bible Verse– ENTIRE WEEK. Verse of the Week is Proverbs 14:23 “All hard work brings profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”

Day 1 through 5: Work on memory verse each day. I selected this passage, because, in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Mickey Mouse is lazy. Instead of doing the work he is supposed to do, he tries to take the “easy” way out and creates a mess.

For younger children, write the verse on index cards, one word per card. Write the entire verse on a piece of paper and have them put the index cards in order. Continue to read from their children’s Bible.

INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED:  Each day work on memorizing your verse.

Day 1: Read Genesis 15-17

Day 2: Read Genesis 18-20 

Day 3: Read Genesis 21-23

Day 4: Read Genesis 24-25

Day 5: Read Genesis 26-27

CHARACTER:  Responsibility

Mickey Mouse in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice does not show responsibility. He is supposed to do a job and tries to find a way to get out of it. 

Responsibility  – Definition: Taking ownership of my thoughts, words, and actions.

ALL LEVELS:

Read Definition of responsibility. Chores are a great way to give a child a responsibility and have them follow-through on it. Make sure the chores you assign are age-appropriate and do not demand perfection. There are some excellent chore chart suggestions .

GEOGRAPHY/HISTORY: 

TIMELINE: Walt Disney’s Fantasia was released on November 13, 1940

Day 1: Talk about the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Mickey Mouse was an apprentice. What does that mean? Apprenticeships have been around for centuries, but modern apprenticeships are different than ones from centuries ago. This website will help you easily explain to your children. 

INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED:

Day 1: Talk about apprenticeships and how   modern-day apprenticeships are an alternative to college. 

BEGINNER, INTERMEDIATE AND ADVANCED:  

Day 1: Watch The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. You can opt to watch the entire film today.

Day 2:  BEFORE WATCHING the Fantasia segment – Toccata and Fugue in D – have your child paint a picture while listening to the music. See ART: Day 2. After doing ART, watch the Fantasia segment.

Day 3: Watch Fantasia – The Nutcracker Suite. The music is by Tchaikovsky. Disney’s interpretation depicts the changing of the seasons. 

Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies is performed by tiny fairies who sprinkle dew on flowers and stems. Chinese Dance is performed by mushrooms. They are dressed in Chinese robes and hats. Dance of the Flutes is performed by blossoms. Arab Dance is performed by goldfish. Russian Dance is performed by Cossack thistles and orchids dressed like peasant girls. Waltz of the Flowers is performed by fairies who color everything brown and gold and finally frost fairies touch everything with their frost wands and snowflakes fall.

Day 4: Watch Fantasia – the entire film or just watch this weeks segments. 

Talk about the Continental Drift – explanation here! It is believed that at one time all the continents formed one landmass. This site allows you to do a puzzle and put the landmasses back. Why don’t the pieces fit back together perfectly? Break a graham cracker and have your child try to put it back together.

READING/CREATIVE WRITING: 

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a symphonic poem by French composer, Paul Dukas. It was originally a poem by Goethe. Mickey (as the apprentice) tries his hand at magic without being ready for the task. Here is the original poem by Goethe. If possible, get the book by Wanda Gag, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Day 1: Read Usborne’s The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Chapter 1

Day 2: Read The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Chapter 2

Day 3: Read The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Chapter 3

Day 4: Read The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Chapter 4

Day 5: Read The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Chapter 5

INTERMEDIATE:

Day 1-5: If you finished your version of Around the World in Eighty Days, feel free to select another book from the Appendix. If you are still reading Around the World in Eighty Days, continue until finished.

Day 1-5: Continue reading Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. If you have finished, select another book from the Appendix.

CREATIVE WRITING:

Day 2: Depending on the skill level of the child, write a paragraph about your favorite color and how it makes you feel.

Consider letting Intermediate and Advanced watch the following YouTube Video about an experiment with music and mice. It had a fascinating outcome.

BEGINNER AND INTERMEDIATE:

Day 1: Make a Water Wheel p. 94 – Usborne 365 Science Experiments.

Day 2: Read a Tree for All Seasons 

Day 3: Watch the Youtube video – Why Do We Have the Seasons?

  ADVANCED:

Day 1: Read Astronomy p. 23-24

Day 2: Read Astronomy p. 24-27 (Self-Test on page 28-29)

Day 3: Read Astronomy p. 31-31

Day 4: Read Astronomy p. 34-37

Day 5: Read Astronomy p. 38-41

PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

ALL LEVELS :

Day 1: March up and down steps in time to the music. Do a repetitive chore to the music such as sweeping or folding laundry.

Day 3:   Patterns in movement – Walk 3 steps, hop 3 steps, repeat. Have older children call out instructions to the younger children.

ART: ALL LEVELS:

Day 2: Paint a picture while listening to the music below.

Day 3: Make a 4-panel picture depicting each season, or make 4 pictures of the same scene, one for each season.

Put up a Christmas tree and decorate it for each season (or select a tree outside to decorate for each season). If you select one outside and decorate it as the season’s change, your child will see the same tree in different stages. This will help teach how things change over time. If you continue this for years, they can see the tree grow as they grow (plus kids love “traditions” that you carry on each year. You will find that they keep some of those same traditions with their children).

MUSIC: BEGINNER AND INTERMEDIATE:

Day 1: Read The Story of the Orchestra and listen to the CD.

 ALL LEVELS:

I have assigned this to all levels because all levels of children (and adults) love food! When Mickey tries to get rid of the broom, it splits in two, and then each of those split in two. Using some food item (M&M’s, marshmallows, cheese crackers, pretzel sticks) or toothpicks, place a number of them (easy for your child to understand) in a small dixie cup. Example: 12 fish – if they split into 2 cups (6 in each cup), and then those cups split into two more cups (3 in each cup). If you use pretzel sticks, you can have a bundle of sticks like the mop and then those split into two mops, and so on.

Day 2: 

Lines and Geometric shapes – flat shapes versus solid shapes, i.e. cones versus triangles. Make pictures using  geometric shapes . This is an activity that all ages and skill levels can do. For smaller children, keep it simple, but for the older child, they can create complex patterns using geometric shapes.

Study patterns. For younger grades, patterns can be as simple as using M&M’s and doing red, yellow, red, yellow, red – finish the pattern. Counting by 2’s, 5’s, 10s. For an older child, study the Fibonacci numbers. This  website explains Fibonacci numbers and has great resources to consider.

Use a Spirograph.

Day 1: 

Brooms  made with string cheese and pretzel sticks. Brooms  made with shredded phyllo dough and pretzel sticks.

Day 2: Cut and arrange slices of cheese, fruit, and vegetables in abstract patterns.

Day 3: 

Blow bubbles in chocolate milk. Make  snowflakes  using miniature marshmallows and toothpicks.

TO ACCESS WEEK 4,  RETURN TO THE MASTER LIST HERE FOR WEEKS 1-12

Reviewing movies for parents from a Christian perspective since 2005. Know Before You Go!

Christian Homeschooling mom – 30 years and counting

Autism Mom & Disney enthusiast

Related Posts

Teaching with Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Schooling with disney’s pinocchio movie plus review, leave a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Top 50 by Year

Lists Explorer

100 Most Featured Movie Songs

100 Most Featured TV Songs

Fantasia Soundtrack [ 1940 ]

List of songs.

Toccata and Fugue In D Minor, BWV 565

Leopold Stokowski & The Philadelphia Orchestra

Starts with images of the orchestra. Continues with images of abstract clouds and landscapes.

The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71A, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy

Fairies dance around a woodland landscape, sprinkling their fairy dust on everything they pass.

The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71A, Chinese Dance

Dancing mushrooms.

The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71A, Dance of the Reed Flutes

Flowers dancing on the surface of a lake and off a waterfall.

The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71A, Arabian Dance

An underwater scene with fish swimming in time to the music.

The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71A, Russian Dance

A group of thistles and orchids perform a Russian dance.

The Nutcracker Suite, Op. 71A, Waltz of the Flowers

Fairies fly around the woods, turning Spring into Summer, Summer into Fall, and Fall into Winter.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The sorcerer Yen Sid leaves his magic hat behind, and Mickey picks it up and tries casting magic spells himself.

Rite of Spring

The story of creation, from the first life forms to the rise and fall of dinosaurs.

Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral"), Op. 68, I Allegro Ma Non Troppo

Unicorns and other mythological creatures play around Mount Olympus.

Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral"), Op. 68, II Andante Molto Mosso

The creatures get ready for and gather for a festival to honor Bacchus, the god of wine.

Symphony No. 6 ("Pastoral"), Op. 68, III Allegro/IV Allegro/V Allegretto

The festival for Bacchus, which is interrupted by a storm (caused by Zeus).

Dance of the Hours from the Opera "La Gioconda"

A ballet performed by ostriches, hippos, elephants, and alligators.

A Night On Bald Mountain

Chernabog and his evil spirits dance and fly through the night around Bald Mountain.

Ave Maria, Op. 52 No. 6

The spirits return to where they came from and a new day dawns.

Trailer Songs

Oh no! No trailer songs have been added yet. Add them by logging in.

C'mon, there's no such thing as a stupid question. Get the ball rolling and be the first.

Music Supervisors

External Links

Contributors

WhatSong is the worlds largest collection of movie & tv show soundtracks and playlists.

© 2023 WhatSong Soundtracks. All rights reserved

Quick links

Kay Smith Music

Flute performance, Teaching, and More

10 Facts About Disney’s Fantasia

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

When people hear the name Disney, they usually reminisce over theme parks, characters, and full-length animated movies. Many people have praised Walt Disney for his innovation in full-length animation and imagination. But one movie, that is not talked about enough, takes innovation one step further and shows just how much ahead of his time Walt Disney and his creators were. I’m talking about Disney’s third full-length animated installment, Fantasia . So today, we’ll learn ten facts about this 1940 film.

1. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, A Short Film

The whole idea of Fantasia began as just a short film to boost Disney studio’s star character Mickey Mouse, who, at the time, was losing popularity. Walt Disney decided to feature the mouse in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, based on the poem written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and match the animation to the orchestral piece by Paul Dukas inspired by the original tale. When the pitch was made to Leopold Stokowski, a famous conductor at the time, he was more than willing to take part. Upon animating for the short film, Fred Moore redesigned Mickey to include pupils to his eyes for the first time to achieve greater ranges of expression. Before that point, Mickey had black dots for eyes.

2. It Was An All Inclusive Effort For a New Kind of Film

Disney made story writers Joe Grant and Dick Huemer gather with conductor Leopold Stokowski, composer Deems Taylor, and the heads of various departments, to discuss their ideas of stories and music selections. Later, Stuart Buchanan held a contest at the studio for a film title, for it was still being called The Concert Feature. Almost 1,800 suggestions were given, with the favorite being Fantasia. This title had grown among the film’s supervisors from Disney expressing the greater importance of music in Fantasia compared to his past work, stating, “In our ordinary stuff, our music is always under action, but on this…we’re supposed to be picturing this music–not the music fitting our story.” Disney had the ideal that the film would bring classical music to non-classical listeners.

3. Walt Wanted It To Be A 4D Experience

We’ll get into how innovative the film already was later, but in early production, Disney had the idea of creating a dimensional sensation to viewers. Besides experimenting with a dimensional soundscape, Disney also had ideas like creating 3D visual experience for Toccata and Fugue in D Minor or releasing the smell of incense throughout the theater during Ave Maria . However, those ideas were scrapped pretty early on.

4. It Was The First Film With Stereophonic Sound

Before Fantasia , film scores would be a mono soundtrack (one track) played on speakers behind the projector screen. Disney wanted to recreate the sounds of the orchestra as if you were standing on the podium with the conductor. This was achieved through recording and mixing multiple tracks simultaneously and upgrading theaters with more speakers and other equipment. The innovative technology during its time would have different tracks channeling a left, right, and center speaker, in other words, the predecessor to surround sound (almost forty years before surround sound, and more than fifty before it became popular). This would be called “Fantasound.”

5. It Was Initially a Failure

Fantasia is regarded as one of the highest grossing films of all time, but due to the special equipment needed to show the film in its 1940 release, there was only showings in thirteen cities across the United States. People were so astounded by the production that Fantasia ran for 49 consecutive weeks in New York and nearly as long in Los Angeles, which set an all-time record back in 1941. Disney was not profiting much though, for the sophisticated “Fantasound” was about $85,000 to set-up per theater. When adjusting for inflation, that’s about $1.5 million today. Not only that, but the onset of World War II also created setbacks. Due to Fantasia’s pricey advancements and limited venues, not the reception, it would have been considered a commercial failure.

6. It Survived Through Its Longevity

For the next fifty years, there would be about nine more runs in theaters across the nation and many edits to the film. The runs from 1942 through 1963 would revert to the standard mono soundtrack and then stereo, as well as cut the film down from its whopping two hours and five minutes to between one hour and twenty minutes to one hour and fifty-five minutes. Fantasia began to make a profit from its $2.28 million budget after its return to theaters in 1969 by promoting the film as a psychedelic experience. When the film reissued in 1982 and 1985, Disney presented Fantasia with a completely new soundtrack with Irwin Kostal instead of Stokowski. This would have been the first time a film’s soundtrack had been digitally re-recorded in its entirety. For its fiftieth anniversary, Fantasia returned to theaters in 1990 in its traditional 1946 version including the live action scenes with Deems Taylor and the original negatives that had been in storage since 1946. This marked the first time since then that a release of the film had been processed from the original and not from a copy. The 1990 reissue of Fantasia went on to gross $25 million domestically.

7. It Took Fifty Years To Make It To Home Video

Fantasia has received three home video releases. This first, featuring the 1990 restored theatrical version on VHS, Betamax, and LaserDisc. The 50-day release prompted 9.25 million advance orders for cassettes and a record 200,000 for discs, doubling the figure of the previous record. Fantasia became the biggest-selling sell-through cassette of all time with 14.2 million copies being purchased, only to be surpassed by Beauty and the Beast in 1992. The film was released the second time along with Fantasia 2000 on DVD with 5.1 surround sound. Both films were reissued again in 2010 as a DVD/Blue-ray set that featured 1080p high-definition video and 7.1 surround sound.

8. It Has Had A Positive Reception From The Beginning

Fantasia was ranked fifth at the 1940 National Board of Review Awards in the Top Ten Films category. Disney and Stokowski won a Special Award for the film at the 1940 New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Fantasia was the subject of two Academy Honorary Awards in 1942; one for Disney and the RCA Manufacturing company for their “outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia , and the other to Stokowski “and his associates for their unique achievement in the creation of a new form of visualized music in Walt Disney’s production…as entertainment and as an art form.” Also in 1990, Fantasia was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

9. Controversial Stereotypes

In the late 1960’s four shots from The Pastoral Symphony were removed that depicted two characters in a racially stereotyped manner. One was a black centaur called Sunflower was shown polishing the hooves of a white centaur. The other, named Otika, appeared briefly during the procession scenes with Bacchus and his followers. The edits have been in place in all subsequent theatrical and home video releases.

10. Disney Envisioned Fantasia To Be an Ongoing Legacy

Disney wanted Fantasia to be an ongoing project, in a cycle with a new segment substituting one of the original segments and being released every few years. Even tough story material was already in development, the film’s disappointing initial box office performance and the USA’s entry into World War II brought an end to these plans. Roy E. Disney, Walt Disney’s nephew, co-produced Fantasia 2000 which entered production in 1990 and features seven new segments performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with conductor James Levine. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the only segment retained from the original film. Fantasia 2000 premiered at Carnegie Hall on December 1999, followed by a four-month engagement in IMAX cinemas, as well as regular theaters.

All of this information was obtained using the Creative Commons site, Wikipedia. There are many more interesting facts that you can find on that site as well as others. If you enjoyed this article, please give it a like and share among others. If you have an idea for future music facts, you can either leave your comments below or contact us. Thank you and learn more next time.

Bach's Toccata and Fugue: The 'Fantasia' opener that drove Disney to abstraction self.__wrap_n=self.__wrap_n||(self.CSS&&CSS.supports("text-wrap","balance")?1:2);self.__wrap_b=(t,n,e)=>{e=e||document.querySelector(`[data-br="${t}"]`);let s=e.parentElement,r=O=>e.style.maxWidth=O+"px";e.style.maxWidth="";let o=s.clientWidth,u=s.clientHeight,a=o/2-.25,l=o+.5,d;if(o){for(r(a),a=Math.max(e.scrollWidth,a);a+1 {self.__wrap_b(0,+e.dataset.brr,e)})).observe(s):process.env.NODE_ENV==="development"&&console.warn("The browser you are using does not support the ResizeObserver API. Please consider add polyfill for this API to avoid potential layout shifts or upgrade your browser. Read more: https://github.com/shuding/react-wrap-balancer#browser-support-information"))};self.__wrap_n!=1&&self.__wrap_b("undefined",1)

Log in to share your opinion with YourClassical and add it to your profile.

Thanks for liking this song! We have added it to a personal playlist for you.

By 1940, abstraction in art wasn't new or shocking. Was the world ready, though, for dark, dense abstraction in an animated family feature? That was what Walt Disney was ready to find out when he brought his new film Fantasia to debut in New York City, which had been rocked 27 years earlier by Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase .

In celebration of Fantasia 's 75th anniversary, we're exploring each segment of the movie that's now regarded as among the most seminal feature films of all time. Last month I wrote about the genesis of Disney's most distinctive creation , and this month we're looking at the segment that was, in many ways, the film's most pioneering: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor .

Opening Fantasia with the Bach animation was a very deliberate choice. Not only did the challenging segment establish from the outset that this would be a very different sort of film than Snow White or Pinocchio , it served as a bridge between the orchestra and the screen.

With Fantasia , Disney aimed not only to explore new frontiers in the medium of animation, but to help a mass audience unlock the layers of complex classical music such as Bach's organ composition.

"There are things in this music that the general public will not understand until they see the things on the screen representing that music," Disney said in a Fantasia story conference. "Our object is to reach the very people who have walked out on this Toccata and Fugue because they didn't understand it. I am one of those people; but when I understand it, I like it."

In a rave review of Fantasia , the New York Times wrote that the Bach is "illustrated abstractly on the screen with brilliant colors flowing and merging, lacy figures cometing through space, a sky-writing cipher tracing patterns and sprays of falling stars. It is intended, obviously, to create the necessary mood of reverie, of immaterial detachment necessary to the complete comprehension and enjoyment of the entire program."

Bach's music had been transcribed from its original organ arrangement into an orchestral score by conductor Leopold Stokowski, whose Bach transcriptions were among his signal achievements. Stokowski's Bach orchestrations, notes Pipedreams host Michael Barone, "proved hugely popular with his Philadelphia Orchestra audiences which, along with his history-making experiments in stereophonic recording caught the attention of the emerging master of the animated film, Walt Disney." (To read more by Barone on Stokowski, Bach, and Disney, click here .)

Stokowski agreed that the Bach was the perfect choice to open the film. "The Toccata starts off with three phrases," he told Disney, "which are like the playing of immense trumpets to call you to attention. For that reason, this composition is a wonderful selection with which to begin your picture."

Disney's goal in the Bach animation was to illustrate the audience's thoughts as they might flow during a performance of the piece: from abstracted images of bows and other orchestral motifs into flights of pure fantasy. To assist, Disney enlisted Cy Young — a Chinese-American animator (and amateur fiddler) who had taken lead on the independently made 1931 short Mendelssohn's Spring Song .

In Disney's mind, the success of Snow White and the Mickey Mouse cartoons had purchased for the studio the artistic and financial freedom to take their art to new heights — and to take the risk of venturing into abstraction. "The abstractions that were done in Toccata and Fugue ," he explained, "were no sudden idea. Rather, they were something that we had nursed along for several years but we never had a chance to try."

German-American animator Oskar Fischinger, whose Optical Poem (1938) had been set to music by Liszt, was regarded as the world's finest creator of abstract animation.

Disney called on Fischinger to design visuals for the Bach animation — but when Disney insisted on adapting Fischinger's work to a degree Fischinger found excessive, he quit and did not receive credit for his work. (Fischinger's original vision for the segment has been partially reconstructed, and is included as a bonus feature on The Fantasia Anthology DVD set.)

To achieve the segment's distinctive multilayered effects, Disney's animators often double-exposed images on the film negative, creating a strong sense of depth. For all its formal innovation, though, the Bach segment wasn't as technically innovative as others in Fantasia : the segment was largely built on techniques that Disney's team had already mastered in order to depict the subtleties of the natural world (rolling waves, shimmering light, cloudy skies) for earlier features.

As to what the mysterious images actually meant and where they came from, Disney cautioned against overthinking: the images had arisen from story conferences where Disney and his animators free-associated. Disney said that one segment reminded him of spaghetti, and so spaghetti was what appeared on screen. Another odd image perplexed Disney's nephew Roy: "I always thought it looked like a tombstone, marching away," mused Roy.

With the Toccata and Fugue animation, Disney planted a stake. "We have worlds to conquer here," Disney explained in discussing this segment, a masterpiece of abstract animation unlike anything else in his oeuvre. "We've got more in this medium than making people laugh."

Fantasia fans: listen to a performance of Dukas's Sorcerer's Apprentice this coming Wednesday, March 4 on Performance Today .

• Inon Zur and Disney's Fantasia: Music Evolved on Top Score
• How I learned to love classical music - loudly

Love the music?

Show your support by making a gift to YourClassical.

Each day, we’re here for you with thoughtful streams that set the tone for your day – not to mention the stories and programs that inspire you to new discovery and help you explore the music you love.

YourClassical is available for free, because we are listener-supported public media. Take a moment to make your gift today.

More Ways to Give

Your Donation

We can help you find classical music you'll love.

• Take a 2 minute quiz to share your taste
• We'll recommend YourClassical programming just for you
• Discover the power and joy of classical music

The Untold Truth Of Disney's Fantasia

Released in 1940 and touted as "the ultimate in sight and sound," Disney's "Fantasia" was (and is) a technical marvel, a bold experiment, and a landmark moment in animation history. As the third feature film from Walt Disney Animation Studios –- following "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and "Pinocchio" – "Fantasia" marked a departure from story-driven features to the avant-garde.

At the time, The Saturday Evening Post reported that "Snow White" was snidely called "Disney's folly," as many doubted the film would be as successful as it was. In hindsight, however, that film would be an easy sell compared to what came three years later, when the studio released their most audacious film yet. "Fantasia" combines groundbreaking animation with popular pieces of classical music -– ranging from abstract sequences of light and color to the more familiar narrative sequences we're used to seeing from Disney's history of short films.

The film itself remains a wonder more than 80 years since its release, and it still has the power to astound audiences with its unbridled creativity. Behind the scenes, the stories and secrets of "Fantasia" are as interesting as the film itself, with the studio at the peak of its powers and driven by the passion to create something spectacular. "Fantasia" was ahead of its time, and that is one of the many reasons why it has stuck with audiences for so long. Here, we take a look at the untold truth of the unforgettable "Fantasia."

Leopold Stokowski became involved in the film after a chance meeting with Walt

In 1937, Walt Disney began developing plans to set an animated short to composer Paul Dukas' "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," which helped plant the idea for what would become "Fantasia." However, it was due to a chance meeting with conductor Leopold Stokowski that the project evolved into what it is today.

In the 1930s, Stokowski was a superstar, and it was at the Los Angeles restaurant called Chasens – a well-known favorite of the Hollywood elite – that his path crossed with Walt Disney. After sharing his idea for a new "Silly Symphony" using Dukas' music, Walt asked Stokowski if he would be interested in collaborating, and while the conductor agreed, it was under the proviso that the piece would be one that respected the music. With Stokowski on board, the idea evolved into the "Concert Feature" and Walt instructed his animators to "please avoid slapstick gags in the ordinary sense; work instead toward fantasy and business with an imaginative touch," ( via The Washington Post ).

Initially waiving his fee for conducting "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," once the idea for "Fantasia" snow-balled from a short to a feature, Stokowski's contract was renegotiated. Following that renegotiation, he became heavily involved in the music selection and story development of the film, as well as conducting his Philadelphia Orchestra for all of the sequences — except "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," already recorded using Hollywood musicians. He also appears prominently in the film, albeit in silhouette form.

Salvador Dalí was originally going to be involved in Fantasia

A collaboration between surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and Walt Disney seems unlikely. However, the two creatives were drawn to each other and became great friends. Walt had conceived "Fantasia" as being something that would evolve and change over the years, and one of the ideas floating around after its release involved Dali's work.

According to the book "They Drew As They Pleased: Volume 2" by Didier Ghez, Disney's storyman Bill Walsh suggested "a dream ballet designed by Salvador Dalí" for a possible feature called "A Night at the Ballet." The Saturday Evening Post remembers that after meeting Dalí in 1945, Disney asked him to design a surrealistic short to be part of a musical package film in the vein of "Fantasia."

Work began on "Destino" in 1945 with Dalí collaborating closely with Disney artist John Hench, but it soon became apparent that Dalí and Disney had very different ideas about the story. Dalí envisioned it as "A magical exposition of life in the labyrinth of time," whereas Disney saw it as "A simple love story" (via The Walt Disney Museum ). Sadly, less than a year later it was scrapped, although that wasn't to be the last of "Destino."

In 1999, the decision was made to bring the dormant "Destino" back to life. Using the studio's small Parisian team, and French director Dominique Monféry, Dalí and Hench's original shelved storyboards were brought back to life. The finished short was released in 2003 and included Hench's original test animation.

It is the longest Disney animated feature

These days, it isn't uncommon for big-screen blockbusters to push a three-hour runtime. Animation, meanwhile, remains fairly consistent in terms of film length, usually sitting around the 90 to 100-minute mark. Disney's previous feature films, "Snow White" and "Pinocchio," clocked in at 83 and 88 minutes respectively. However, "Fantasia" surpassed them both, sitting at a mammoth 124 minutes.

To this day, it remains the longest Disney Animation Studios film , with the next longest being 2018's "Ralph Breaks the Internet," which lasts 112 minutes. In an amusing coincidence, the film that followed "Fantasia," 1941's "Dumbo" is one of Disney's shortest at a mere 64 minutes. The film's length is something which puts a lot of people off, and it isn't the easiest film to sell, particularly to a child. In his review for The New York Times , Bosley Crowther made an honest assessment of the film's runtime, writing that it "tends to weary the senses," but was still full of praise for the film, going on to say it is the "most original and provocative film in some time."

"Fantasia" is a complete departure from Disney's other films and particularly audacious given the studio's history of bite-sized shorts. This makes it particularly hard to compare to Disney's other narrative feature films as there isn't really anything else like it. Walt's experiments may not have always paid off, but the sheer creativity on display here in "Fantasia" is something that has to be seen to be believed.

A controversial character depiction was removed from Fantasia

There is no shortage of controversial scenes in Disney's back catalog . Variety reports that this prompted them to add stronger content warnings ahead of some of their films on Disney+. Those content warnings flag "negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures," while also acknowledging, "rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together."

In the original version of "Fantasia," the segment set to Beethoven's "The Pastoral Symphony" originally featured a character called Sunflower, who is a racist caricature of an African-American girl who shines the shoes of one of the preening white Centaurettes. When the film was re-released theatrically at the end of the 1960s, these scenes were completely removed. However, in the 1991 video release, a different approach was used. John Carnochan, who was responsible for editing the film and preserving it as delicately as possible, re-framed the original shots so they featured close-ups of the Centaurettes instead of the offensive depictions. Acknowledging this troubling aspect of the original film, Carnochan told Entertainment Weekly , "It's sort of appalling to me that these stereotypes were ever put in."

All versions of "Fantasia" are now the re-framed John Carnochan edit, but the controversial scenes can still be found online. While undoubtedly offensive, it is important to acknowledge that these segments exist so that -– like Disney themselves have said -– they can be learned from.

Fantasia was a box office failure

Much like "Pinocchio" -– also released in 1940 -– "Fantasia" was a box office failure despite being largely well-received by critics . The New York Times may have called it "a creation so thoroughly delightful and exciting in its novelty that one's senses are captivated by it," but "Fantasia" arrived not long after the outbreak of World War 2. As a result, the European market was decimated overnight, which had a huge impact on the box office.

Due to the film's complex technical requirements, "Fantasia" was not only an incredibly expensive film to produce but a costly one to screen. Only a few theaters had the patented "Fantasound" speaker system installed to present the film in the way Walt intended. The impact of the war on the overseas market, coupled with the fact not many theaters could show the film properly, harmed the commercial chances of "Fantasia." According to Smithsonian Magazine , it is estimated that it "lost more than the modern equivalent of $15 million and nearly drove the company into bankruptcy."

Ever the shrewd businessman, Disney soon recouped his losses from "Fantasia" by releasing the film repeatedly in the 1940s and 1950s until it turned a profit. It was in the 1960s that the film had a new lease of life, re-branded as a trippy, psychedelic masterpiece that appealed to that generation's conscience. It certainly worked as, according to The Numbers , worldwide box office for "Fantasia" now stands at around $83 million.

The film was intended to be a constantly evolving feature with yearly new segments

The ambition and creativity behind "Fantasia" were unparalleled, but Walt had even bigger ideas for what the film could be, saying that he intended to "make a new version of Fantasia every year" (via Houston Symphony ). In May 1940, Walt, Leopold Stokowski, and the Disney artists met to discuss future "Fantasia" projects, throwing in ideas such as Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter And The Wolf," according to "They Drew As They Pleased: Volume 2." However, by early 1941 it was decided that this dream was too ambitious, and the film's disappointing box office performance meant the plans for an encore were scrapped.

This wasn't to be the end of Disney's musical era, as the impact of war forced them into producing "package films" –- collections of shorts put together to make a feature film. Many of the proposed ideas for a future "Fantasia," along with some of the scrapped ideas from the original, made it into these films, with the aforementioned "Peter and the Wolf" appearing in 1946's "Make Mine Music." The same film also included a sequence called "Blue Bayou" with animation that was initially intended to be used in "Fantasia," set to the Claude Debussy piece, "Clair de Lune." It wasn't until 1999's "Fantasia 2000," however that the previously mentioned "Rhapsody in Blue" made an appearance, and in a way, Walt's dream was realized eventually.

Bela Lugosi provided the initial live-action reference for Chernabog

Bela Lugosi was a Hollywood legend perhaps best known for his appearance as the titular bloodsucker in 1931's "Dracula." So when it came to finding the perfect person to provide the live-action reference for Chernabog, the demonic villain of "Fantasia," Lugosi seemed like the most natural choice.

Disney animators frequently used live-action reference models to inspire their drawings, and there is some incredible behind-the-scenes footage of this from their archives. While their physical likenesses may not necessarily have made it into the film, they played a crucial part in ensuring the animators and artists could accurately re-create real expressions and movements in their drawings.

According to D23 , It was in November 1939 that Bela Lugosi spent a day at the Disney Studios "posing for animators and being filmed as live-action reference" for Chernabog in the terrifying "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence in "Fantasia." While Lugosi may seem like he would be the perfect choice for Chernabog, animator Bill Tytla was not satisfied with the footage featuring Lugosi. Instead, the sequence's director, Wilfred Jackson, stepped in as the reference model. It was Jackson's reference photographs, along with the concept art by Kay Nielsen , that ultimately provided Bill Tytla with what he needed to create this iconic villain.

The first film to use stereophonic sound

In the early days of Disney, the company was constantly innovating by creating new technology and equipment to elevate their output from simple cartoons to works of art. Following their invention of the multiplane camera for "Pinocchio," the studio turned its attention to sound and how they could best re-create the immersive experience of listening to an orchestra for theater audiences watching "Fantasia."

Nowadays, surround sound is commonplace, but back then it was completely new, and Walt Disney Studios pioneered this breakthrough. Speaking about his vision for the sound design for"Fantasia," Walt said, "We know ... that music emerging from one speaker behind the screen sounds thin, tinkly, and strainy. We wanted to reproduce such beautiful masterpieces ... so that audiences would feel as though they were standing at the podium with Stokowski" (via The Take ).

Disney engineer Bill Garity and the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) were tasked with making Walt's vision a reality, making a multi-channel optical sound system that they appropriately named "Fantasound." Stereophonic sound wasn't available in most American cinemas until 1954, as this piece in Medium explains, which "places the Walt Disney Studios about 20 years ahead of time." The drawback of this enormous leap forward in technology was that most theaters were ill-equipped to screen "Fantasia," with only a handful of theaters having the correct configuration of speakers required –- something that directly impacted the box office numbers for "Fantasia."

Walt wanted Fantasia to be a 4D experience

The finished "Fantasia" remains a bold and experimental film from Disney. However, there were plenty of innovative ideas and suggestions that had to be scrapped during the film's production. "Fantasia" saw the studio innovating on all levels, from the abstract animation style seen in the "Toccata and Fugue" sequence to the cutting-edge stereophonic "Fantasound" invented to create a rich soundscape for the film.

Disney intended the film to be one that would "stimulate the audience's senses," as described in "They Drew As They Pleased: Volume 2" by Didier Ghez, going beyond just the sight and sound aspects that traditional movies presented. In Ghez's book, it is mentioned how Walt had considered the use of scents, saying, "For 'The Nutcracker Suite,' he contemplated using atmospheric fans to waft perfume into the theater. Likewise, for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," "he considered the peppy aroma of gunpowder." The book goes on to say that Disney "even envisioned a panoptic projector that would project all around the cinema."

Many years before they became commonplace, Walt also toyed with the idea of having a sequence of the film in 3D. However, due to the technology limitations, this would've only been possible to do if the segment was in black and white. Unfortunately, the budget for "Fantasia" could never match Walt's ambition and imagination, and many of these ideas had to be shelved.

Ballet dancers provided live-action references for Dance of the Hours

Disney animators have always been known for making the impossible seem possible, and in "Fantasia" they brought audiences the delightful sight of graceful ballet dancing animals. This largely comedic sequence, directed by Norman Ferguson and Thornton Hee, features dancing ostriches, hippos, and alligators. However, even for this implausible scenario, Disney was striving for the most realistic animation references that they could find.

Animator John Hench was assigned to work on the sequence set to the music by Amilcare Ponchielli, although he was initially resistant as he apparently knew nothing about ballet. Unphased by this, Walt arranged for him to sit backstage for a week watching the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and study the movements of the performers. In an informal discussion celebrating the 50th anniversary of "Fantasia," Hench said, "I went back there and squatted around and made hundreds of drawings, and came to know the dancers and several ballets quite well. And I changed my mind about ballet."

Several of the companies dancers, including Irina Baronova and Tatiana Riabouchinska , provided the live-action reference models for the ostrich Madmoiselle Upanova and Hyacinth Hippo. Riabouchinska's husband,  David Lichine , danced with her, providing the reference for the character of Ben Ali Gator. This wouldn't be the last time the pair modeled for Disney, as "Make Mine Music" features the dancing duo in rotoscoped animation for the segment "Two Silhouettes."

The way Mickey was drawn for the film changed the way he was drawn going forward

In many ways, it is thanks to Mickey that "Fantasia" even exists. Walt had originally intended to release just "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" as a new short in the "Silly Symphonies" series, this time with the prestige boost of a classical score, hoping to take it from the silly to the sublime.

However, it soon became clear that the project was a little bigger than Walt had envisioned, and plans were made to expand the short to a number of animated sequences set to music, making up the "Concert Feature," later re-branded as "Fantasia." The rest was history, and Mickey's appearance in the film not only became one of the stand-out moments but also proved to be surprisingly influential on the way Mickey was drawn going forward.

Mickey's appearance has changed quite dramatically over the years , with his trademark shoes and gloves being added in his early short film appearances in 1928 to 1929 and the red shorts following in 1935 with his first color short film, "The Band Concert." Mickey's eyes also changed during this period, ranging from black ovals to the "pie-cut eyes" before the re-design for "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" that gave Mickey a more realistic look, adding the pupils. It was this design that persisted in the years that followed and is the version of Mickey that most will recognize today.

It has an under-appreciated sequel, Fantasia 2000

While Walt's original intention may have been to constantly change and evolve "Fantasia," it wasn't until 1999 that this vision was partially realized, but with the underrated sequel "Fantasia 2000." If the slightly weighty runtime of "Fantasia" is daunting, its sequel offers a slightly more palatable runtime of just 75 minutes while still retaining that magical quality that made the original so ground-breaking.

Shortly after Michael Eisner became Disney's CEO in 1984, Walt's nephew (and Disney Vice-Chairman), Roy E. Disney suggested a "Fantasia" sequel. Following the success of the home video release of the 1940 original in the 1990s, a sequel was green-lit.

In this interview with Roger Ebert , Roy explained the sequel was originally going to include a lot more of the original film's segments with a few new ones added. However, it was later decided to only keep "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," with Roy explaining, "partly as an homage to the original and partly just because it's still as much fun as when it was new."

Other sequences in the film include the abstract "Symphony No. 5," the "Dance of the Hours" inspired "Carnival of the Animals," and "Rhapsody in Blue," one of Walt's original ideas for the "future Fantasias." Interspersed with a plethora of celebrity guest introductions, including Steve Martin and Bette Midler, "Fantasia 2000" was generally praised by critics and serves as a great reminder of the original's power to enthrall for generations to come.

Fantasia Trivia

Fantasia movie trivia quizzes.

• Movie Trivia

2 .   'Fantasia' and 'Fantasia 2000'     Multiple Choice   15 Qns A quiz on what should be every child's introduction to classical music appreciation...Disney's 'Fantasia' and 'Fantasia 2000'. Tough , 15 Qns, Oddball, Nov 06 01 Tough Oddball 1349 plays

3 .   "Fantasia" Fun     Multiple Choice   10 Qns Test your knowledge on "Fantasia" with this quiz. Good luck! Average , 10 Qns, CAGuy0206, Apr 13 11 Average CAGuy0206 274 plays

4 .   "Fantasia": Name that Segment     Multiple Choice   10 Qns The "Fantsia" films draw you into worlds where animation fuses with music. Can you identify the segment from "Fantasia" or "Fantasia 2000" when given a picture of the action? Average , 10 Qns, Caseena, Nov 19 21 Average Caseena Nov 19 21 98 plays

6 .   "Fantasia 2000" Facts and Fun     Multiple Choice   10 Qns One of the most beloved Disney sequels, "Fantasia 2000" deserves its own special and unique quiz right here and right now! Good luck and have fun as you relive some of music's most cherished pieces in an uncanny Disney format. Enjoy! Average , 10 Qns, CAGuy0206, Aug 25 11 Average CAGuy0206 183 plays

7 .   Ultimate "Fantasia" Quiz     Multiple Choice   10 Qns Here is a quiz about one of my favorite Disney movies, "Fantasia". I hope you enjoy it. Please tell me what you think! Average , 10 Qns, sassytink03, Sep 22 03 Average sassytink03 1027 plays

8 .   Disney's "Fantasia"     Multiple Choice   10 Qns One of the most underrated films of all time, years before its time! Difficult , 10 Qns, hank2001, Mar 13 19 Difficult hank2001 Mar 13 19 1344 plays

Fantasia Trivia Questions

disney fantasia

All Formats

Resource types, all resource types.

• Rating Count
• Price (Ascending)
• Price (Descending)
• Most Recent

Disney fantasia

Disney 's Fantasia 2000 Follow Along Packet

Disney 's Fantasia 1940 Listening Guide

• Word Document File

FREE-Walt Disney 's Fantasia 2000- Follow Along Questions

The Sorcerer's Apprentice MP3 & Activity Book from Walt Disney 's Fantasia .

WALT DISNEY Biography Word Search Puzzle Worksheet Activity

Inferencing Through Disney World with Real Pictures

• Easel Activity

Disney Movies Word Search

Disney - Positive Notes Home

Walt Disney Word Search Puzzle

WALT DISNEY Word Search puzzle , WALT DISNEY Word Search Activities

Walt Disney Word Search Puzzle Worksheet Activity

Inferencing through Disney Google Slides™

• Google Slides™
• Internet Activities

Nazi Education: Walt Disney Film, Education For Death Source Analysis

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Musical Lesson, Worksheets & Activities

Paul Dukas Bundle - Lesson, Activities, Worksheets & Poster Set

Igor Stravinsky Bulletin Board Poster Set

Lesson Plan for " Fantasia " Movie

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Curriculum Guide

Night on Bald Mountain Musical Lesson, Activities & Worksheets

Modest Mussorgsky Bundle - Lesson, Activities, Worksheets & Poster Set

Listening worksheet: Music in ' Fantasia '

Musical Stories

• Google Drive™ folder

Fantasia Movie (1940) Questions for Music Education Middle & High

J. S. Bach Bundle - Lessons, Activities, Worksheets & Poster Set

• We're hiring
• Help & FAQ
• Privacy policy
• Student privacy
• Terms of service
• Tell us what you think