Beauty and the Beast - 1991

Beauty And The Beast Poster
27 in. x 41 in.

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Arguably the most successful Disney animated film of all time, this film was the first animated feature film to ever receive a Best Picture Academy Award nomination. It was based on the classic 1756 fairy tale (written by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont) and the importance of inner beauty. There were almost a dozen previous film incarnations, the most notable being the silent 1922 version and Jean Cocteau's French film La Belle et La Bête (1946). Beauty and the Beast returned the Disney animation studios to their former glory. The story told about a French peasant girl (O'Hara) who was treated kindly by a monstrous Prince-turned-Beast captor (Benson) and fell in love with him. The beautiful artwork and colors were supplemented by a well-written song score, from the Oscar-winning title song to the jaunty "Belle" and "Be Our Guest," all written by Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman. It was also the second Disney film to combine its famous hand-drawn animation with computer graphics (The Rescuers Down Under (1990) was the first), as well as the first Disney animated movie to use a fully-developed script prior to animation. After this, Disney would release more huge traditionally animated hits in the summer, both commercial and critical, such as Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Mulan (1998) and The Emperor's New Groove (2000), before deciding to close their hand-drawn animation wing in 2003.

Bambi - 1942

Bambi Double-Sided poster
27 in. x 41 in.

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The last of the classic, early Disney animated features - a 'coming of age' tale of a young male deer growing up in the world to be a magnificent stag. Taken from a Felix Salten tale, Bambi first learns to walk and adventurously explore his world under the watchful eye of his parents, dealing with trivial problems, such as walking on ice with his new friends, Thumper (a rabbit) and Flower (a skunk). In one of the more heartbreaking scenes in film history, Bambi's mother is killed by a human hunter, and suddenly the young fawn is forced into adulthood, led away by his stag father - ("Your mother can't be with you anymore. Come. My son"). Bambi must deal with a devastating forest fire, and he learns to court a doe named Faline, as well as fight other bucks for her attention. Bambi is not only a charming tale, but also uncompromising, recalling an earlier Disney film with surprisingly dark themes and scenes, Dumbo (1941). The doe-eyed characters would become the chief inspiration for anime characters in Japan.

Fantasia - 1940

Sorcerer Mickey: Fantasia Magic Art Print
12 in. x 16 in.
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Fantasia (1940), a Disney animated feature-length "concert" film milestone, is an experimental film integrating eight magnificent classical musical compositions with enchanting, exhilarating, and imaginative, artistically-choreographed animation. The conceptual framework of the individual pieces embraces such areas as prehistoric times, the four seasons, nature, hell/heaven, the themes of light vs. darkness and chaos vs. order, dancing animals, classical mythology, and legend.

This Disney production was an ambitious experiment to try to popularize classical music, especially by accompanying it with animation. Originally, the film was to consist of only The Sorcerer's Apprentice segment, but it was expanded to include the full anthology of shorts. And it was slightly controversial for its depiction of bare-breasted centaurettes in the Pastoral Symphony segment and other stereotypical racial depictions. [At the request of the Hays Production Code, the figures were garlanded with flower bras for cover-up after swimming in a brook.

Also, in later releases of the film, in the Pastoral Symphony segment (again), two black Nubian/zebra centaurs who attend the Bacchus celebration were edited out, along with a female pickaninny centaurette with braided hair who shines the hoof of a white female centaurette.] Other segments, such as Ride Of The Valkyries, Swan of Tuonela, and Flight of the Bumblebee were storyboarded but never fully animated, and thus were never put into production for inclusion in future Fantasia-style releases.