1. Magic mirror, connected the wall, conscionable however acold did Walt Disney spell to marque this 1937 movie the fairest of them all? Miles. Having initially seen a soundless movie mentation of the fairy communicative arsenic a teen, helium made it his ngo to enactment retired the archetypal feature-length animated movie successful U.S. history. When the fund for the three-year process ballooned to $1.5 million, helium mortgaged his location to concern the production. 

2. Sneezy was really a last-minute substitution for different dwarf. Others that were conceptualized and drawn, but yet cut, included Snoopy, Blabby, Dizzy, Graceful, Hotsy, Jumpy and Biggy-Wiggy.

3. When Walt received an honorary Oscar for the movie successful 1939, it was designed arsenic 1 modular statuette surrounded by 7 miniature ones. 

Dumbo

4. The 1941 communicative of an elephant who grew to admit the uniqueness of his oversized ears (based connected the 36-page book, Dumbo the Flying Elephant) astir landed the screen of TIME, with Dumbo slated to beryllium honored as Mammal of the Year. But aft the onslaught connected Pearl Harbor, editors decided to shift course. 

5. Long earlier Taylor Swift, Disney was the king of the Easter eggs. WDP Circus, wherever Dumbo lands, is simply a (rather obvious) acronym for Walt Disney Productions.

6. At conscionable 64 minutes it's 1 of Disney's shortest diagnostic films and, acknowledgment to ongoing warfare efforts, the fund was compressed arsenic well, totaling conscionable $812,000.

7. Those horrified by the (decades-old spoiler alert!) aboriginal decease of Bambi's parent aren't alone. Diane Disney complained to her dad about the inclusion lone to beryllium told helium was pursuing the narration of the book, Bambi: A Life successful the Woods. In response, she pointed retired the liberties he'd taken successful the past. 

8. To get the beingness communicative of a fawn just right, animators watched quality films, took tract trips to the Los Angeles Zoo, studied the movements of 2 cervid donated to the workplace and, successful the biggest amusement of commitment, observed the decomposition of a dormant deer. 

9. After accepting what would beryllium the relation of his beingness astatine property 6, Donnie Dunagan, the dependable of Bambi, went connected to articulation the Marines and serve successful the Vietnam War. Taking pains to ne'er speech astir his brushwood with fame ("Most of the representation successful people's minds of Bambi was a small frail deer, not doing precise well, sliding astir connected the crystal connected his belly," he noted to NPR's StoryCorps) it came up erstwhile helium was conscionable weeks distant from status arsenic helium respectfully told a wide helium didn't person clip to implicit an assigned task. 

"He looked astatine me, pulled his glasses down similar immoderate benignant of assemblage professor," helium recalled. "There's a big, red, top-secret folder that helium got retired of immoderate harmless determination that had my sanction connected it. He pats this folder, looks maine successful the oculus and says, 'You volition audit the auditors. Won't you, Maj. Bambi?'"

10. Thanks to a premix of container bureau misses and overspending, by the process extremity of World War II, the workplace was millions successful debt. So, it decided to rotation the dice by spending $3 cardinal to marque a dressed-up mentation of the people tale. The reward? Adjusting for inflation, the 1950 flick has had a beingness gross of much than $532 cardinal and has continued to wage dividends with merchandise sales. Happily ever after, indeed. 

11. Cinderelly is 1 of the oldest of the Disney princesses astatine the geriatric property of 19. (By contrast, Snow White is conscionable 14.) Her footwear size, meanwhile, is simply a rather diminutive four-and-a-half.

12. What's successful a name, really? Disney didn't fuss with 1 for its lead's captivating mate. Prince Charming is simply Prince Charming. 

13. Remaking J.M. Barrie's instauration successful 1953 was precise idiosyncratic for Disney, who'd busted into his piggy bank to spot a touring performance arsenic a young lad and past went connected to play Peter successful a schoolhouse production. 

14. The quality of the actors formed to play eldest Darling kid Wendy (Kathryn Beaumont, who besides voiced the titular quality in Alice successful Wonderland) and Peter himself (Bobby Driscoll) heavy influenced the animators' designs. Sadly, Driscoll suffered with addiction issues and died of bosom nonaccomplishment astatine 31.  

15. Despite what her sanction mightiness suggest, Tinker Bell's signature sound was really created by stringing unneurotic pieces of aluminum. 

16. Doggone if this wasn't the sweetest emotion communicative connected 4 paws inspired by writer Joe Grant's real-life Springer Spaniel, Lady. But it was Disney who came up with the moniker of the posh pup's improbable paramour, crossing retired the sanction "Mutt" successful a publication and scribbling down, "Tramp".

17. During the making of the 1955 feature, Disney offices went to the dogs, with unrecorded canines connected manus to animate animators. 

18. The flick's astir iconic country was almost near connected the cutting country floor, with Disney feeling the shared spaghetti infinitesimal mightiness beryllium pushing the animals-with-human-emotions boundaries. Thankfully, directing animator Frank Thomas came up with the close look to prevention it.  

19. The movie was a spot of a sleeper hit: After an archetypal disappointing container office, which led to an avoidance of animated fairytales until The Little Mermaid 30 years later, re-releases in 1970, 1979, 1986 and 1995 made it the second-most profitable movie of 1959. 

20. To support the slumber metaphor going...it had rather the hibernation period. Initially conceived backmost successful 1951, the painstakingly stylized drawings (thought to differentiate it from that different Disney princess film, Cinderella) and Disney's insistence that each framework be a enactment of art meant it took years to bring the 17th period Charles Perrault fairy communicative to theaters. Plus Disney was distracted by different tiny broadside project: Disneyland.

21. Trained opera vocalist Mary Costa provided the dependable of Sleeping Beauty, but that was acold from her only high-profile gig. After Jackie Kennedy Onassis heard her sing the nationalist anthem astatine the Academy Awards, she was aboriginal asked to execute at John F. Kennedy's funeral. 

22. Just the bare necessities (the elemental bare necessities): Bumbling Rocky the Rhino was cut from this 1967 adapted look astatine carnal beingness due to the fact that his country came aft orangutang King Louis and Disney didn't privation back-to-back drama scenes. 

23. Composers Richard and Robert Sherman had their sights acceptable on booking The Beatles for the vultures' "That's What Friends Are For," but the Fab Four weren't funny successful moving it out.

24. This 1989 classic set disconnected what is wide known arsenic the Disney Renaissance. On the heels of Oliver & Company, The Black Cauldron and respective live-action films successful the Herbie franchise, the occurrence of Ariel and co. was followed by extremely well-received '90s fare: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Toy Story...

25. Give the opening country with King Triton a rewatch: Eagle-eyed viewers (or, you know, those of america with the quality to property pause) tin spot Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Donald Duck successful the underwater crowd, continuing the studio's fashionable contented of giving nods to different members of its immense oeuvre.

26. Color was cardinal for the ocean-set picture. According to the authoritative Walt Disney Company blog, Ariel's reddish locks were chosen to assistance differentiate her from Daryl Hannah's blonde mermaid successful 1984's Splash and to complement the blue-green of her fin, a hue specially mixed by the Disney overgarment laboratory and named Ariel. 

27. As for her facial features, those were inspired by then-Who's the Boss? star Alyssa Milano. "I didn't cognize that erstwhile it was going on," the actress told Wendy Williams in 2013. "But they asked maine to host The Making of The Little Mermaid and it came determination that the drafting and likeness of The Little Mermaid was based connected pictures of maine from when I was younger, which is so cool!"

28. To make Belle, a pistillate formidable capable to tame the Beast, screenwriter Linda Woolverton borrowed inspiration from Katharine Hepburn's Little Women role. "Though the quality of Jo is much tomboyish, some were strong, progressive women who loved to read—and wanted much than beingness was offering them," she told the Los Angeles Times. Her bluish formal successful the opening country served arsenic a motion to that. The lone quality successful the chill hue it was meant to amusement however she wanted much than this provincial life.

29. Beast, meanwhile, was designed utilizing an amalgamation of animals. Wanting him "to beryllium based connected thing that was real," animator Glen Keane said, helium has the brow of a gorilla, the caput of a buffalo, the mane of a lion, the tusks of a boar, the legs of a wolf and the eyes of a once-entitled, present precise trapped prince.

30. Angela Lansbury's Mrs. Potts was initially named Mrs. Chamomile due to the fact that "we primitively tried to find the astir soothing imaginable association," shaper Don Hahn told Vanity Fair. "But cipher could pronounce it." 

31. No cash, nary royal lineage, nary problem. With his wit, boldness and a sexy confidence, the titular quality broke Disney's charming mold: "I could ne'er recognize wherefore Snow White and Sleeping Beauty fell for those princes," said pb animator Keane of wanting a worthy mate for Princess Jasmine. "Those guys were cardboard symbols, and the emotion narration was assumed. We wanted determination to beryllium a however to the princess falling successful love."

32. The relation of brash parrot Iago was turned down by Danny DeVito and Joe Pesci before Gilbert Gottfried said yes. Genie, however, was wholly designed for Robin Williams, producers giving the legendary comic the hard merchantability up of the 1992 film. 

Despite having lone a fistful of days unfastened for recording, the histrion provided producers with a batch to enactment with. "Robin had truthful overmuch freedom, and [ad-libbing] was ever encouraged," supervising animator Eric Goldberg told Entertainment Weekly. "He ever gave america specified a immense magnitude to take from. He would bash a enactment arsenic written, but helium would bash it arsenic 20 antithetic characters."

33. Less assured were the stars down Aladdin (Scott Weinger, possibly amended known arsenic D.J.'s Full House fellow Steve) and Jasmine (Linda Larkin), some convinced they'd beryllium recast erstwhile admitting they weren't precisely nonrecreational singers. Instead filmmakers simply recovered musicians for the large numbers.

34. The archetypal Disney animated diagnostic not to beryllium based connected a publication oregon fairy tale, it went into accumulation astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic Pocahontas, the 1995 film very loosely borrowing from the biography of the real-life Native American woman. Many of the studio's apical animators chose to enactment connected the latter, feeling it'd beryllium much successful, lone to spot Simba and his pridefulness stroke it retired of the h2o with a nearly $1 cardinal gross. 

35. Perhaps springiness immoderate recognition to Pumba? The warthog was the archetypal Disney quality to fart onscreen.

36. As to beryllium expected, determination were galore edits to the archetypal script. But possibly 1 of the astir notable is their determination to marque the villainous Scar Mufasa's member alternatively than conscionable a random rebel. The switch, occurring aft the animated quality had been developed, accounts for the notable differences successful their appearance. 

37. That fashionable municipality fable astir a puff of particulate spelling retired the precise un-Disney "sex"? Not quite. Producers aboriginal admitted they'd spelled retired SFX, a tribute to the peculiar effects team. Whoops. 

38. Though Pocahontas' communicative was astir decidedly Disney-fied, the 1995 movie was a bit groundbreaking for the Mouse House arsenic the archetypal to diagnostic an interracial couple. And astatine slightest Percy the pug was historically close with research manager Mike Gabriel noting British royalty utilized to tote tiny pups with them astatine the time. 

39. It was a existent labour of emotion with immoderate 55 animators tapped to make the pb quality and each scene written and rewritten astatine slightest 35 times. 

40. Unclear connected precisely what a bluish maize satellite is? Judy Kuhn, the philharmonic dependable of Pocahontas was successful the aforesaid boat. As she admitted to Entertainment Weekly in 2015, "I person ever hoped idiosyncratic could explicate it to me."

41. Forever changing the mode we look astatine our toys, the 1995 deed was the archetypal feature-length machine animated movie ever, catapulting Pixar into the spotlight. And it could person been very different. In aboriginal drafts, Woody was a ventriloquist dummy alternatively of a cowboy and benignant of a d-bag, intentionally abusing toys. 

42. A pre-Buffy the Vampire Slayer Joss Whedon was brought into the writers' country and came up with one of the champion lines: "You're a sad, unusual small man, and you person my pity."

43. Tom Hanks has a person successful member Jim, who provides the dependable for each Woody merchandise erstwhile the Oscar victor is different entangled. "There are truthful galore machine games and video things," he explained on The Graham Norton Show, "and Jim conscionable works connected those each twelvemonth long."

Lilo & Stitch

44. The 2002 communicative astir a destructive carnal who escapes his huffy idiosyncratic creator successful abstraction and clang lands successful Hawaii was meant to service arsenic a instrumentality to the basics aft different films didn't unrecorded up to their lofty container bureau expectations. 

"The thought was, 'Let’s marque the Dumbo for our generation,'" Disney exec Thomas Schumacher explained to Vulture successful 2022. A director-based movie that wasn’t immense and complicated, and truthful would springiness the animators much power implicit it.

45. But erstwhile co-director and co-writer Chris Sanders archetypal pitched his plan—based disconnected an thought for a children's publication he'd had years earlier—he told Vulture, "It was each acceptable successful the wood with animals." 

46. To get the quality of Lilo conscionable right, supervising animator Andreas Deja made a travel to Hawaii wherever helium had a circuit usher instrumentality him to a section school. "I retrieve we knocked astatine the doorway and a teacher came out," helium recounted. "She had a fewer questions, and I told her and the fewer kids down her that yeah, we were from Disney and we’re going to bash a movie based connected the island. This small miss who conscionable heard Disney, she said, 'Did you enactment connected The Little Mermaid?' I said, 'Yeah, I drew her father,' and she went, 'Yay!' Then they truly warmed up to us."

47. Among the Easter eggs hidden onscreen: A Dumbo artifact successful Lilo's room, a Mulan poster connected her sister Nani's partition and so galore hidden Mickeys. 

48. The thought of a household of superheroes forced into status kicked around writer-director Brad Bird's caput for immoderate 7 years earlier helium brought it to Pixar. Initially told "it would instrumentality 10 years and outgo a gazillion dollars," arsenic helium enactment it, the 2004 flick acold outpaced the $92 cardinal fund and adjacent nabbed 2 Oscars. 

49. Historian and writer Sarah Vowell scored the portion of Violet, Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl's daughter, aft Bird heard her on This American Life.

50. Technology had precocious truthful overmuch by the clip Incredibles 2 came to the screen successful 2018 that they had developed a caller hairsbreadth programme for much realistic-moving tresses (plus a full squad tasked with making definite they're flowing decently successful each shot), much advanced-looking ace suits and costumes elaborate to the zipper and buttons. Pretty, uh, incredible, huh?  

51. Disney's archetypal Black princess (in 2009!) could person been played by a existent queen. But, according to Confessions of a Casting Director author Jen Rudin, Beyoncé refused to audition for the part. After tryouts from Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson and Tyra Banks, it went to Bey's Dreamgirls costar Anika Noni Rose. The histrion suggested the New Orleans-based Tiana stock immoderate of her attributes, truthful animators made her left-handed and gave her dimples. 

52. Directors Ron Clements and John Musker pitched the conception (inspired by novel The Frog Princess and a Brothers Grimm fairy tale) to Oprah Winfrey during a Disneyland travel for amusive (as you do) and the media icon was truthful into it, she ended up voicing Tiana's mother, Eudora.

53. A imagination task immoderate 70 years successful the making, Disney archetypal thought of adapting Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen successful 1937 and conscionable couldn't, uh, fto the thought go. 

54. Animators did a batch of chill activities to guarantee they got the characters juuuust close successful the 2013 flick: A sister summit to amended recognize the narration betwixt Elsa and Anna, a clang people successful meteorology, a jaunt to Norway to stitchery inspiration for Arendelle and a two-day tract travel to Jackson Hole to survey snow. 

55. Once slated to beryllium an evil queen with a bluish face, spiky hairsbreadth and a overgarment of weasels (which, sure), Elsa was shifted distant from villain presumption aft songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez penned the oh-so-catchy "Let It Go". 

56. As they developed the 2016 movie astir the headstrong girl of a Polynesian village's chief, filmmakers enactment unneurotic the Oceanic Story Trust. Made up of anthropologists, educators, linguists, maestro tattooists, choreographers, haka practitioners, maestro navigators and different experts they'd met during probe trips to the Pacific Islands, their relation was to counsel connected each facet of the region's culture.

57. Pua and HeiHei, included due to the fact that of the fig of pigs and roosters spotted connected South Pacific probe trips, were voiced by existent animals.

58. Yes, histrion Auli'i Cravalho bears a striking resemblance to her onscreen change ego, but it's axenic coincidence. The quality of Moana was drawn earlier she was cast. Some things are conscionable meant to be.