Toon Talk: 100 Years of Magic - 100 Movies, Part One
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#11. THIS LOOKS LIKE THE BEGINNING OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP
The three biggest stars of the Disney Studios appeared together on-screen for the first time in the original Orphan's Benefit (August 11, 1934). Mickey, Donald and Goofy would go on to team-up in such all-time favorites as Clock Cleaners, Lonesome Ghosts (both 1937), Mickey's Trailer (1938) and the 1941 color remake of Orphan's Benefit.
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Image courtesy of The Encyclopedia of Disney Animated Shorts
#12. IN LIVING COLOR, PART TWO
The world's most popular mouse made his color debut in The Band Concert (February 23, 1935), a huge success that further cemented the comedic dichotomy of Mickey and Donald. With the exception of two more black and white Mickeys, from now on all Disney cartoons would be in glorious Technicolor.
#13. ARRIVING: MISS DAISY
From the feathered tip of her bow-topped head down to her pink pumped webbed feet, Donald's better half Daisy Duck was introduced, as "Donna Duck", in Don Donald (January 9, 1937). She would go on to make fourteen film appearances.
#14. THE MULTI-PLANE AT WORK
When the Disney Studios invented the multi-plane camera, it revolutionized animation and greatly enhanced the cinematic possibilities of the art form. First used in the Oscar-winning Silly Symphony The Old Mill (November 5, 1937), the new technology made the growth from shorts to features all the more possible.
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#15. DISNEY'S FOLLY
At the time that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was unveiled to an adoring public at the Carthay Circle Theater in Hollywood on December 21, 1937, it set so many records, it should have it's own chapter in the Guinness Book: the first full-length American animated feature, the first soundtrack album ... the list goes on and on. The most successful film of the time (until Gone With the Wind two years later), Snow White financed the creation of the Burbank Studios, won Walt a special eight-tiered Academy Award, and has influenced and inspired every piece of animation that has followed.
#16. HUBERT, DUETERONOMY AND LOUIS
Otherwise known as Huey, Dewey and Louie, Donald's nephews actually debuted in the Donald Duck comic strip in 1937. They made their big screen debut in the appropriately titled Donald's Nephews (April 15, 1938).
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#17. HIS STRONGEST SUIT
Mickey's 100th short, The Brave Little Taylor (September 23, 1938) was a fanciful retelling of the fairy tale, where the phrase "seven in one blow" leads our hero into a battle with a giant and eventually into the loving arms of Princess Minnie. The Oscar-nominated short cost a "treasure of golden pazoozes", leading to decreased budgets for future cartoons.
#18. (RE)INTRODUCING MICKEY
Now with pupils (Little Orphan Annie, eat your heart out ... ), the newly redesigned Mickey Mouse starred with Pluto in the Oscar-nominated short The Pointer (July 21, 1939). It was the first time that audiences saw the mouse that we all know and love as he appears today.
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#19. NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Often regarded as the most technically proficient animated film of all-time, Pinocchio (February 7, 1940) is also one of the most dramatic, with ax-wielding puppeteers and man-eating whales. On the lighter side, we are introduced to one of the most famous Disney characters, Jiminy Cricket, who sings what would become not only the first Disney Best Song Oscar-winner, but also the inspirational anthem of the entire Disney entertainment empire, "When You Wish Upon a Star".
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#20. THE CONCERT FEATURE
Dancing mushrooms. Enchanted broomsticks. A winged demon straddling a mountaintop. A comical pas de deux of alligator and hippo. A mouse wearing a very special hat. These are the iconic images created by Walt's vision of marrying classical music to experimental animation, known as Fantasia. Intended as an ever-evolving symphony, the film's Oscar-winning technical achievements limited it's exhibition to just fourteen theaters when it premiered on November 13, 1940. Clearly before it's time, later generations embraced it and, 60 years later, Walt's dream of Fantasia was finally continued.