Robin Hood, the twenty-first animated film released by Walt Disney Studios, premiered on November 8, 1973. It was the first feature the studio released that had no creative input from Disney himself, who died in 1966, and had many Hollywood insiders doubting the ability of the studio to carry on without him. The success or failure of this one film would make or break the most successful animation studio in U.S. history.

With so much at stake, it is amazing that the studio had allotted such a small budget to the production. To save money, the animators were ordered to recycle animation cells from previous films. These cells could be amended, touched up, and re-colored, allowing new characters to perform old routines. Specifically, the song-and-dance sequence for “The Phony King of England” used cells from The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Snow White. Moreover, the animation cells of Baloo in The Jungle Book were used to animate Little John, while Robin Hood’s cells were originally those used for Peter Pan. The sequences involving the snake Sir Hiss and his hypnotizing of King John are recycled cells used for Kaa in The Jungle Book.

The original theatrical release, in 1973, made approximately $9.5 million. This was the biggest box office return Disney had ever enjoyed up to that point. It was a tremendous success, though some critics cited the lack of grandeur that marked earlier Disney films.

Despite the minor detractions, Robin Hood is still one of the most beloved films in the Disney canon, with fans citing the lively characters, catchy songs, and intelligent dialogue as reasons for its appeal. The 1982 re-release garnered even more box office success for Disney, catapulting the studio past its creative founder and well into a new generation of animated filmmaking.

Popularity: unranked [?]

In 1941, Walt Disney released his fourth animated feature, Dumbo. Based on the children’s book of the same name, written by Helen Aberson and illustrated by Harold Perl, Dumbo follows the exploits of Jumbo, Jr., a baby elephant. Because of his unnaturally large ears, which give him the ability to fly, Jumbo, Jr. is nicknamed “Dumbo.” His only friend, other than his mother, is Timothy the mouse.

When Disney submitted his first cut of Dumbo to RKO, their distributor at the time, the studio was dismayed to find the running time was only 64 minutes. George J. Schaefer, the president of RKO, demanded Disney either edit the feature down to a short film or beef it up to 70 minutes. Disney refused, and insisted Dumbo be released as an A picture, in the maximum number of theaters nation-wide. Schaefer reluctantly agreed.

It cost Disney only $813,000 to finish Dumbo, which was approximately half the cost of Snow White and a third of the cost of Pinocchio. Along with Snow White, it would be one of the only two feature to turn a profit for Disney during the 1940s. Its original release, in 1941, went on to gross $1.3 million – a monumental success at the time. Indeed, according to Wikipedia, Dumbo was scheduled to grace the December cover of Time magazine, only to be dropped at the last minute to cover the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. Indeed, the Second World War would nearly break Disney’s young studio as they were quickly recruited by the United States government to create a number of training and propaganda cartoons for the Armed Forces.

Dumbo garnered the nomination for and subsequently won the 1941 Academy Awards for Original Music Score. It was also nominated for Best Song for Frank Churchill and Ned Washington’s “Baby Mine” and won the 1947 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Animation Design. The popularity of the film was capitalized on again during the 1949 re-release, making a tremendous profit for both RKO and Disney.

Dumbo was one of the first features to be aired on television as part of Disney’s anthology series, cementing its popularity for an entire new generation of American viewers. In 1981, it was the first Disney film to be released on VHS. In 2006, the 60th Anniversary Special Edition was released to wide acclaim, while a special edition “Big Top Edition” was released on DVD.

Popularity: unranked [?]

2008 ushered in the 85th year for the movie giant the world all refers to as Disney in general. Disney, specifically, began very simply in 1923. The first productions were called “Alice” comedies, beginning with “Alice’s Day at Sea.” Many folks today have no memory of Alice, but the name Mickey Mouse rings a bell with almost everyone in the country.

Mickey made his debut in Steamboat Willie in 1928 and became an instant star. He was not alone for long, however, as “siblings” soon followed with regularity. 1930 saw the birth of Pluto; 1932 brought Goofy, and Donald grouched his way onto movie screens in 1934. These beloved characters made Walt Disney a much talked about name before the first feature length animated film, Snow White, premiered in 1937.

After more than twenty years of attention to animation, Disney introduced the first human actors into one of their films in Song of the South (1945). Not until 1949 did they make a film which was all live action, Treasure Island. Walt Disney continued to offer the public fantastic entertainment right up until he succumbed to lung cancer in 1966. The last release before his demise was Mary Poppins in 1964.

Disney continues to dominate the movie world and has branched out into lots of other areas, including a line of Disney Stores, the Disney Movie Club, the Disney Cruise Lines, and The Disney Theme and Resort Parks. Beginning with the release of Dumbo in 1981, Disney launched a huge home entertainment industry offering videos and video games featuring their most popular movies. Along with their own Walt Disney Studios productions, they market films from their other holdings, such as Miramax, Touchstone, and ABC/Capital Cities. In addition, Disney owns the popular Muppets.

From the first cartoon to the modern computer-animated feature film, Disney has never ceased to fascinate us. Sharing cherished Disney memories with children and grandchildren has become a much anticipated part of parenthood. For millions, there is nothing the moment when you snuggle up on the couch with a sweet little one to watch Bambi for the first time. It is a unique way to revisit childhood.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Fantasia is the third film Walt Disney produced and is perhaps the most ambitious. The film has no dialogue, relying instead on a sumptuous soundtrack performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Though the film is mostly animated, it does have some live-action sequences featuring Stokowski and the Orchestra. Fantasia was also notable for being the first major film to be screened in stereophonic sound.

Disney originally exhibited the film as a two-hour special engagement across the country. It was met with a lukewarm reception, forcing RKO Radio Pictures, which bought the rights to distribute the film in 1942, to cut the running time down to roughly 81 minutes. Between 1946 and 1977 the film was reedited, resulting in a version 9 minutes shorter than the 1941 original release. The complete version would not be released until the 2000 DVD reissue. By the late 1930s, Mickey Mouse had begun to lose popularity. In fact, Donald Duck was proving to be a more profitable character for Disney at the time. In an effort to reestablish Mickey’s dominance, Disney placed his protg in an animated short entitled The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Based on the Goethe’s story of the same name, the story artists had intended to feature Dopey from Snow White in the title role, but Disney would have none of that. To that end, Mickey was reworked and given a host of new mannerisms, not to mention pupils. All of the reworking cost approximately $125,000, whereas a typical Disney animated short had cost the studio about $40,000.

It was Stokowski who suggested The Sorcerer’s Apprentice be incorporated into a full symphony of shorts. Disney was inspired to combine the shorts using the live-action orchestral sequences. In fact, it was Stokowski who suggested the title. A fantasia is a “medley of familiar themes, with variations and interludes.” When the short was made into a feature in 1939, Disney’s production team shifted into high gear, pouring the same amount of detail and attention into every sequence. The initial success of Snow White inspired Disney to produce a series of animated features. Whereas the gamble gained a tremendous amount of revenue for Snow White, Fantasia suffered from its length and lack of dialogue. It was produced for $2,280,000 with $400,000 of that amount reserved for Stokowski and his orchestra. The dreary returns derailed the emerging studio, forcing Disney to scramble for an audience friendly feature. That feature would be Dumbo.

Popularity: 13% [?]