West Valley Arts wants to bring you information on topics that are interesting and entertaining. For our first 'Get to Know the Arts' segment, we highlight the classic Disney movie Fantasia.  If you want us to put together information on a specific topic, please don't hesitate to let us know. 

By Melanie Budge

​I love basically all things Disney. Disneyland is a frequent vacation destination and Disney+ probably gets way more use than it should. When I think of my love for Disney, it all started with a gift. When I was a teenager my brother gave me the VHS tape of Fantasia. It was the first movie I owned, and it started a lifelong love of bringing the imagination to life. Fantasia isn’t my usual go-to movie when I think of Disney animated movies, but I recently fell in love with it all over again. 
 
The concept for Fantasia began in 1936 when Walt Disney wanted to reintroduce the world to Mickey Mouse. He felt the mouse that started it all was waning in popularity, so went to work creating an animated short featuring Mickey as the title character in The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Unfortunately, production costs were high enough that the decision was made to expand the project into a feature film in hopes of making it more lucrative.
 
On November 13, 1940 the film had its original theatrical release in New York City. It includes seven vignettes, as well as an intermission jam session, showcasing classical works reimagined as animated short films. Narrated by Deems Taylor and conducted by Leopold Stokowski, each section is worth examining:

1.  Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach – Disney used abstract animation for this section, a concept that had fascinated him for years. At one time Disney wanted to make this section into an experimental 3-D film, with audiences being given stereoscopic frames.  

2.  The Nutcracker Suite by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – The animation in this section used the ballet suite to depict the changing of the seasons presented with fairies, fish, flowers, mushrooms and leaves.

3.  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas – The story is based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s 1797 poem “Der Zauberlehrling”, which served as the inspiration for Dukas’ music. Mickey Mouse is the apprentice to the sorcerer Yen Sid (Disney spelled backwards). This segment influenced many aspects of Disney culture and production through the years, including the Disney Parks nighttime spectacular “Fantasmic!”, the current musical production “Mickey and the Magical Map” at Disneyland, and the use of the sorcerer’s hat in décor and “Mickey’s Philharmagic” 3-D film.

4.  Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky – Selected sections of the score are used to depict the Earth’s beginning, from its formation through the extinction of the dinosaurs. Some of the dinosaur scenes seem like they may have strongly influenced the pre-historic section on the Disneyland Railroad route. The filmmakers received guidance on this segment from experts in the field – Roy Chapman Andrews, director of the America Museum of Natural History; English biologist Julian Huxley, paleontologist Barnum Brown and astronomer Edwin Hubble. 

5.   Intermission/Meet the Soundtrack – A brief jam session leads to a visual demonstration of sound as rendered on film.

6.  The Pastoral Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven – The animation for the segment illustrates a mythical world of colorful centaurs, cupids, fauns and other classical mythological creatures and figures.

7.  Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli – This comic ballet is one of the more memorable animated shorts from Fantasia, with its dancing ostriches, hippos, elephants and alligators. Who could ever forget Hyacinth Hippo in her tutu? The four-part number uses these characters as a pageant of the hours of the day – morning, afternoon, evening and night.

8.  Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky and Ave Maria by Franz Schubert – The evil Chernabog, a thing of nightmares, summons evil spirits and restless souls from their graves on Bald Mountain. As night gives way to dawn, the spirits are driven back by a chorus singing Ave Maria. Actor Bela Lugosi, who had played Dracula, was brought in to provide reference poses for Chernabog, but the animator didn’t like the results. The two pieces of music are meant to be a contrast of the profane and the sacred.  
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Walt Disney said, “In a profession that has been an unending voyage of discovery in the realms of color, sound and motion, Fantasia represents our most exciting adventure.” One of the unique features of this film is the use of Fantasound, a stereophonic surround sound system. It incorporated two projectors running at the same time – one ran the video and a mono track and the other ran the sound film that used multiple audio tracks – to simulate the sound of having an orchestra in the theater.

Fantasia was re-released several times after 1940, but it wasn’t until its release in 1969 that it became a success. The advertising for this release was psychedelic in style and attracted teenagers and college students looking for a unique experience. Over the years the film has been altered and remastered many times. When it was reissued in 1990 it underwent a two-year restoration process, which included reinstating the original Stokowski soundtrack and restoring each of the 535,680 frames of animation by hand.
 
As mentioned above, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was a big influence in the creation of Fantasmic! at Disneyland and Walt Disney World parks. In fact, a short section from several segments in Fantasia can be seen during the show, from the Chernabog in Night at Bald Mountain, to the goldfish in The Nutcracker Suite.
 
Fantasia is a testament to the brilliance of the imagination. Though it may not be as popular as other classic Disney favorites such as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio, it is worth another look, especially if it has been a while since you’ve seen it. ​

There are plenty of memes going around right now and since we just posted our photos from our inaugural production of Footloose at Harman Theatre, we decided it would be fun to have you help us create a meme or two. Below are three photos from the recent production. Choose one, make a meme and share it on our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/wvcarts.