Jiminy Cricket is the Disney version of the Talking Cricket, a fictional character created by Italian writer Carlo Collodi for his 1883 children's book The Adventures of Pinocchio, which Walt Disney adapted into the animated film Pinocchio in 1940. Originally an unnamed, minor character in Collodi's novel who is killed by Pinocchio before returning as a ghost, he was transformed for the Disney adaptation into a comical and wisecracking partner who accompanies Pinocchio on his adventures, having been appointed by the Blue Fairy to serve as Pinocchio's official conscience. In the film, he sings "When You Wish Upon a Star", the Walt Disney Company's signature song, and "Give a Little Whistle".
Mickey's Christmas Carol is a 1983 American animated Christmas fantasy featurette directed and produced by Burny Mattinson. The cartoon is an adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, and stars Scrooge McDuck as Ebenezer Scrooge. Many other Disney characters, primarily from the Mickey Mouse universe, as well as Jiminy Cricket from Pinocchio (1940), and characters from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949) and Robin Hood (1973), were cast throughout the film. The featurette was produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution on December 16, 1983, with the re-issue of The Rescuers (1977). In the United States, it was first aired on television on NBC, on December 10, 1984.
Fun and Fancy Free is a 1947 American animated musical fantasy anthology film produced by Walt Disney and Ben Sharpsteen and released on September 27, 1947 by RKO Radio Pictures. The film is a compilation of two stories: Bongo, narrated by Dinah Shore and loosely based on the short story "Little Bear Bongo" by Sinclair Lewis; and Mickey and the Beanstalk, narrated by Edgar Bergen and based on the "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairy tale. Though the film is primarily animated, it also uses live-action segments starring Edgar Bergen to join its two stories.
The multiplane camera is a motion-picture camera that was used in the traditional animation process that moves a number of pieces of artwork past the camera at various speeds and at various distances from one another. This creates a sense of parallax or depth.
Make Mine Music is a 1946 American animated musical anthology film produced by Walt Disney and released by RKO Radio Pictures on April 20, 1946.
Wolfgang Reitherman, also known and sometimes credited as Woolie Reitherman, was a German-American animator, director and producer and one of the "Nine Old Men" of core animators at Walt Disney Productions. He emerged as a key figure at Disney during the 1960s and 1970s, a transitionary period which saw the death of Walt Disney in 1966, with Reitherman serving as director and/or producer on eight consecutive Disney animated feature films from One Hundred and One Dalmatians through The Fox and the Hound.
Disney Sing-Along Songs is a series of videos on VHS, betamax, laserdisc, and DVD with musical moments from various Disney films, TV shows, and attractions. Lyrics for the songs are sometimes displayed on-screen with the Mickey Mouse icon as a "bouncing ball". Early releases open with a theme song introduction containing footage featuring Professor Owl and his class, seen originally in 1953 in two Disney shorts, Melody and Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom. Professor Owl hosts some of the videos, while either Jiminy Cricket or Ludwig Von Drake host others. Later volumes, as well as the two Christmas videos, do not feature a host at all. Scenes with Jiminy Cricket and Ludwig Von Drake were taken from television programs, including the Walt Disney anthology television series and The Mickey Mouse Club, which featured the characters in the 1950s and 1960s.
John Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts. Kinney is the older brother of fellow Disney animator Dick Kinney.
Storybook Land Canal Boats is an attraction located at the Disneyland and Disneyland Park (Paris) theme parks. Passengers embark on a leisurely paced outdoor boat ride through a winding canal featuring settings from Disney animated films recreated in miniature. The Disneyland version was one of the original attractions when the park opened on July 17, 1955, although the miniature buildings and landscaping were not added until the following year. The version in Disneyland Paris is named Le Pays des Contes de Fées and opened in the spring of 1994.
The Magic of Disney Animation was a show and tour located at Disney's Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. A Disney animator would show guests how the characters in Disney animated films were chosen and designed. The attraction closed permanently on July 12, 2015. In December 2015, the building began to be used to house the Star Wars Launch Bay.
"Scary Tales" refers to several different versions of a Halloween-themed compilation of Walt Disney shorts, as well as an alternate and condensed version of "Disney's Halloween Treat" (1982) by the same name or derivation debuting in different years across various formats and countries:
- Scary Tales is a compilation of Walt Disney shorts. The compilation was released in 1983 on both VHS and laser disc and is the third volume in a release of Walt Disney Cartoon Classics. The running time is 52 minutes, not 43 minutes as the artwork contains this error.
- Scary Tales is a compilation of Walt Disney shorts released exclusively in Japan on LaserDisc in 1986. The running time is 91 minutes.
- Disney's Scary Tales of Halloween, as it referred to sometimes by the channel announcer, refers to an alternative title and condensed version of "Disney's Halloween Treat" (1982), released in 60-minute block formats as both syndicated and network broadcast formats on television.
The Magical Music of Walt Disney is a 4-volume compilation album of Disney music and songs up through 1978, to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of Mickey Mouse. However, it did not put The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Alice in Wonderland, The Aristocats, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks on the records.
Hamilton Somers Luske was an American animator and film director.
Disney's Nine Old Men were a group of Walt Disney Productions' core animators, who worked at the studio from the 1920s to the 1980s. Some of the Nine Old Men also worked as directors, creating some of Disney's most popular animated movies from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Rescuers. The group was named by Walt Disney himself, and they worked in both short and feature films. Disney delegated more and more tasks to them in the animation department in the 1950s when their interests expanded, and diversified their scope. Eric Larson was the last to retire from Disney, after his role as animation consultant on The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. All nine members of the group were acknowledged as Disney Legends in 1989 and all would receive the Winsor McCay Award for their lifetime or career contributions to the art of animation.
The Disney Collection: the Best-Loved Songs from Disney Motion Pictures, Television, and Theme Parks is a series of albums which were released three times. The first was a two-volume set released in 1987 from Disneyland Records. The second time was released in 1991 as a three-volume set from Walt Disney Records. The third time was released in 2006 as a four-volume set also from Walt Disney Records. It doesn't include songs from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Alice in Wonderland, and The Sword in the Stone.
The Castaway is a Mickey Mouse animated short feature released on March 27, 1931, as part of the Mickey Mouse film series. It was the twenty-seventh Mickey Mouse short to be produced, the third of that year.
A Disney Halloween is a 90-minute Halloween-themed television special which originally aired as an exclusive on The Disney Channel on October 1, 1983. The special is hosted by an offscreen narrator and the Magic Mirror which incorporates segments from both "Disney's Halloween Treat" (1982) and "Disney's Greatest Villains" (1977) episodes featuring classic short cartoons and excerpts of various villains from Disney feature films. The opening and closing credits feature footage of the 1929 Silly Symphony short The Skeleton Dance, as did "Disney's Halloween Treat", but the coloring on the skeletons has been changed to green, orange, and dark green. The special was rebroadcast during October for the following years on The Disney Channel until the late 1990s.
Wonderful World of Animation is a nighttime show at Disney's Hollywood Studios. The show is a celebration of all Disney animation, beginning with Mickey Mouse. It premiered on May 1, 2019, as part of the park's 30th anniversary celebration, replacing Disney Movie Magic.
Once Upon a Studio is a 2023 American live-action/animated crossover fantasy comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios in celebration of the Walt Disney Company's centennial. Written and directed by Dan Abraham and Trent Correy, it aired on ABC on October 15, 2023. In the film, Disney characters come to life from pictures hanging on the walls of the Roy E. Disney Animation Building following the end of a usual work day. The short's art style combines computer graphics, traditional animation and live-action, and features characters from the majority of the studio's works made up to that point. The film was dedicated in memory of Burny Mattinson, the company's longest-serving employee, who made a cameo in the short and died eight months before its release. This is also the final work of Richard M. Sherman before his death in 2024.
