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This gorgeous 1940 classic won our hearts as young children, despite featuring classical music and no dialogue, except for a few intros (and they say kids have no attention span!). There’s not much more I can say about it. Enjoy!
Feel free to post your favorite parts of Fantasia in the comments.
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Fantasia is to movies as Thanksgiving turkey is to meals: You watch it and it’s really good at first, but then you get really tired and need a nap. Also, it’s better with gravy.
Not having grown up with specific foods for specific meals I never get tired of turkey, and I never get tired of Fantasia, except for the Sorcerer’s Apprentice – only because I don’t care for Mickey Mouse.
[Incidentally, it isn't the turkey itself that puts you to sleep, there isn't enough tryptophan in it (despite the legend); all the food people stuff into themselves at "special" times of the year causes the blood to move to the digestive system, leaving less to run the body and brain, resulting in fatigue; plus any alcohol that may or may not be consumed at the time is also a contributing factor. Not that you need to know that.]
Fantasia scared a lot of little kids, when I was growing up. Cartoons without silly voices were frightening things.
The section featuring Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” scared the pants off me as a child (the section detailing evolution and the extinction of the dinosaurs). Years later, I earned my master’s degree in musicology by writing my thesis on Stravinsky, although not the Rite of Spring. Symphony No. 6 by Beethoven is still one of my favorite pieces of music. I guess you could say “Fantasia” had a profound influence on my life!
As a horn player, Pastorale is probably my second favorite of the Big 9 (after the Eroica, obviously). Although the excerpt book I have was able to condense the important bits down to about six and a half pages (and of those, two are for the Eroica). That’s for all of the horn parts (not just first). And I thought Night on Bald Mountain was scarier, myself.
Both of those pieces scared me. The Pastorale was always my favorire. I still have the VHS, I refuse to part with it. Now I’m just waiting for it to come out of the vault and be released on DVD. ^_^
This movie was a huge flop when it was first released. The film industry at the time was doing well with spoken dialog in movies, then this comes out with no dialog at all.
Plus, originally, the movie wasn’t even meant for children, but adults.
Absolute WIN. But for adults, not kids.
Night on Bald Mountain – wow!
I know a Baptist minister who went on about it being ‘Satanic’ because of “Night of Bald Mountain;” I then pointed out how it segued into “Ave Maria”, to which he replied, “EVEN WORSE! CATHOLIC!!!”
Consider the source.
I would literally fast-forward to the Rite of Spring part (I loved the dinosaurs), then I loved everything after that but Night on Bald mountain was my absolute favorite. I would get my huge blankie and wrap it around me so I could open it dramatically like the “giant bat” as I interpreted him to be. I was very into bats. Then I’d rewind and watch the Night on Bald Mountain a hundred times and never sit through the Ave Maria
We are pretty baptist, and though he never found anything offensive about the demonic imagery, my dad always found it kind of ironic that far more quality and energy went into the “profane” sequence than the the boring imagery and mundane performance of Ave Maria.
I don’t know, I first saw this when I was probably 8 or 9, and I LOVED it. I have loved it ever since. I was totally stoked when Fantasia 2000 premiered (saw it at an Imax theater, it was good, but didn’t live up to the original in my own opinion).
I think kids CAN enjoy it. It’s just a matter of preference. I loved it, but my sister hated it (her opinion is, for movie or music, if they don’t take the time to put words to it, it isn’t worth her time to care about it).
I do agree though, this is an EPIC win.
Agreed. This is the only movie we ever bought where we had to buy a second copy because I watched the first VHS enough to wear it out.
Epic win.
Chernabog (sp?) was soo awesome, he was even a boss in Kingdom Hearts.
In the mid-1970’s, this was a favorite “midnight movie” on college campuses. Of course, most of the audience was high on weed.
The recent “Fantasia 2000″, originally shown in 3-D, has an incredible “Rhapsody in Blue” sequence done in the style of Broadway cartoonist Al Hirschfeld. The rest of the movie is pretty dull, except for the inclusion of “Sorcereor’s Apprentice” from the original.
What! What about the flamingos?
I agree, “Rhapsody in Blue” was by far the stand-out of all the segments.
I liked the flamingos (short and sweet) and Firebird and it’s lovely Pagan symbolism…but I agree about the rest. The flying whales part was…trying too hard, to say the least.
“Fantasia 2000″ was NEVER shown in 3-D! It was shown in standard IMAX, which isn’t 3-D. (There is an IMAX 3-D process, but that wasn’t used for “Fantasia 2000″.)
Dancing mushrooms!!! Dancing PINK HIPPOS in tu-tus!!!YAY!!! WIN!
LOL the hippos and crocodiles! And the gargoyle bit scared the pants off me, but I still love it! <3
My favorite funfact about this particular Disney classic is the “racist” character in the fantasy segment that was cut out in the 1960’s. I’ve seen clips of her, she’s more adorable than offensive, but to each his own.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dnS0bgaf-o&NR=1
Personally, I think she detracts from the desired “our expectation of classical greek fantasy” atmosphere of the segment and the film’s better without her on that basis alone.
Actually, I thought I had memories of the female centaurs being topless (although not explicitly, exactly – that is, kinda like a Barbie doll). Did someone Bowdlerize it, or was it just me? Kinda like in the Pixar short Knick Knack, where they…deflated the two female characters significantly by the time they used it as a trailer (in the original, which I think we’ve got on VHS around here somewhere, they were more…Pamela-esque).
If I remember correctly, in the Night on Bald Mountain segment, we see topless harpies fly VERY close to the camera.
Disney is sort of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” here. If they leave the black maid centauress in, they are racist; if they cut her out, they’re accused of censorship/bowdlerizaiton/PC’sim.
I confess (and I apologize if it offends anyone) that I remember enjoying eating meals at Sambo’s restaurants when I was a kid. The name was based on the story (as I remember it) where the hero (Sambo) climbed a tree and the tigers ran so fast around it that they turned into butter (it was basically a breakfast/diner place). I was disappointed when they closed the restaurants due to “racist” concepts – it was the tigers that were made to look stupid, in my opinion, and the hero was made to look clever. Now that I think about it though, tigers are more part of the Indian sub-continent, right? So I’m wondering if the story was a British thing. I suppose I could Google it, but I’m feeling lazy right now. I admit that the depiction in the censored bit of Fantasia is very stereotypical (the equivalent of depicting all Asian people as having thick glasses and buck teeth). Plus the depiction as, essentially, a slave/servant.
If anyone’s interested, go see if you can find the original lyrics to “I’ve got a Little List” from the Mikado (something about a banjo player) – now that is offensive, I think.
From what I’ve heard, “Little Black Sambo” was supposed to be Indian (from India).
Superb! A classic from my childhood, I rented the video at least once a month when I was younger and would sit with my face almost attached to the television screen.
This was and still is my favorite:
My only beef with Fantasia is that they tended to chop up and modify the score a bit to make it fit with the animation. But the animation itself is top notch, the movie is a big reason why I love classical music so much to this day.
I’m sure that for a lot of kids this was their first intoduction to classical music. For me, not so much; my mother was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music, and the first major purchase my parents made after marriage was a grand piano, which will tell you how important music was to us. For me it wasn’t so much an introduction as a new way of seeing the things mother played on the piano or I heard on the stereo.
My two favorite scenes from the movie would have to be the Nutcracker Suite with the dancing flowers, mushrooms, snowflakes, etc. and Night on Bald Mountain. The first time I saw Night was when I rented the video Disney’s Halloween Treat. It was just so awesome. What was more awesome about the movie is that no computers were used in the animation.
I am constantly in awe of what the artists were able to do “back in the day.” It’s a true shame that production companies seem to be phasing out hand drawn animation.
1) Hippo Ballerinas
2) Dinosaurs!
3) Night On Bald Mountain, even though it gave me vicious nightmares from age 4 until, like, NOW.
Mine always was and still is
1) Beethoven’s Pastorale (I loved the centaurs scene)
2) The Nutcracker Suite
3) The little sound thing that should what the sounds “looked” like. (I’m sick and my brain isn’t functioning well enough to remember the name of it at the moment.)
My brothers and I would watch this movie about once a week growing up. Such a wonderful classic. We’d fast forward through all the talking though because we were kids with short attention spans. I will admit that it took me years to be able to watch Night on Bald Mountain without nightmares. I never found the fascination with the Sorcerer’s Apprentice though.
First watched this when I was about four… absolutely loved it. Who said it was only for adults?
watched night on bald mountain on holloween at my aunt, scared the pants off me, in a good way, and intence minor music usually is
i like the goldfish one too, but yeah night on bald mountain ftw
Does anyone remember the fish part?
That’s Tschaikovsky’s Arabian Dance from the Nutcracker.
YES! Although the fish was such a little whore.
That was the Arabian Dance from Tschaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
Sorry for the double post.
Anyway, great OUAW! I show the original and 200 when I’m teaching – I think kids like 2000 a bit better; the first is pretty long. But because of the original, the Pastorale is my FAVORITE symphony of all time (yes, including every other symphony out there). But to be honest, I did a side by side compairson of the original and 2000, and 2000 won by a bit.
I’ve heard it said that “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is an allegory of contemporary humankind and technology.
Night on Bald Mountain (which i didn’t know was the title until tonight) was always my favorite as a kid. it scared the hell out of me, but i think thats why i liked it so much, heheh. i keep forgetting how beautiful traditional cell-by-cell animation is, and i agree thats its a shame how its being slowly lost. i also would watch the 2000 version, but i always liked the ’40s one better. ‘they’ (the pronoun people) need to hurry up and release this on dvd!
I remember my favorites as a kid was the Beethoven symphony, probably because of the flying horses and the Greek mythology (I was always big on Greek myth, even as a kid). I also liked the Nutcracker segments, especially the Chinese dance, and the Dance of the Hours.
I also remember hating the Rite of Spring (I never liked Dinosaurs) and for a long time I never watched Night on Bald Mountain, my parents always stopped the DVD. I still can’t listen to that song, and that part gave me serious nightmares once I watched it. xD
The Beethoven’s Pastorale is by far my favourite, and I watch that bit over and over and over and over. And of the second Fantasia…yeh, the Rhapsody in Blue is incredible!
Two faves — the Nutcracker, the section with the little dancing mushroom Hop Lo (yes, he has a name); and Night on Bald Mountain, all of it. The only section I wasn’t nuts about was Dance of the Hours (the hippos and gators doing ballet), that was just silly. I grew up with classical music, so even as a child I thought this was great. And I owned Fantasia 2000 the day it came out on DVD — as others have said the Rhapsody in Blue segment is awesome. Something I am sorry never got included, and I’ve never known why, was the finished segment done to Clair de Lune (you can see it in the extras) — stunning, looks complete, but it didn’t make the cut on either of them.
I’ve had the good fortune to have played all these pieces with my symphony. (Okay, so most of them were during a Fantasia tribute concert, but it still counts!)
To this day, Night on Bald Mountain is one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever performed. The only way to top seeing Czernobog rising out of the mountaintop… is to be sitting right in front of the low brass, in the center of all the action. Ooh, the back of my neck is prickling just remembering it, hee!
Aah, I love this movie. I never watched it much as a kid, but I remember liking the Nutcracker bit with the faeries and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Night on Bald Mountain is one of my favourite pieces, but only after I played Kingdom Hearts (whoa, the boss music is orgasmic! Who’s the scary dude?) did I watch the movie again, and realize, “oh, yeah, it… came from there…”.
I just liked it independently and then re-discovered it (o_O )
I like the pasorale’s presentation, but I especially enjoyed the great humor in Dance of the Hours with the crocodiles, ostriches, and hippos! LOL! priceless! (And yes, night on bald mountain still creeps me out…)
And I love the Nutcracker segment–so cute and graceful–LOTS of favorites in this movie.
I HATED Night on Bald Mountain. I always fast-forwarded through that bit (with my fancy VHS tapes… scene selection? What?). My favorite parts were always the fish and the bit with Bacchus and his wine-stomping issues. Poor guy. Just wants to party and keeps getting tripped up by Jupiter, that jerk…
nutcracker suite ftw!!
This is the rarest movie ever (I think?) We finally found one we had to order it from Germany!
When I was in kindergarten, a friend and I would watch the centaurs bit, pick out which pretty lady centaur we wanted to be, then stuck the tips of blankets in the backs of our pants (the blankets were our long, luxurious tails), then pranced around until Bald Mountain came on; then we hid under a table and acted frightened.
My favorite would have to be the Rhapsody in Blue
anyone notice that toccata and fugue was the song from the crossfire commercial posted just previously to this?
Great, it’s 22:25 and I want to watch Fantasia… to stay up or not to stay up, that is the question…
I’ve been watching Fantasia since I was 18 months old! It is by far my favorite movie of all time. I was never scared of anything
And by the way, Chernabog, the big guy in Night on Bald Mountain, (also a god in Slovak myth (wow nerd)) boss fight in Kingdom Hearts was epic nostalgia bomb for me.
A friend and I phoned up the radio station Classic FM during Mozart hour and requested the theme from Disney. They didn’t play it.
Wow video is really very nice, i always like Disney and mostly i seen all the programmes of Disney. I never seen the Disney’s Fantasia but this all the video’s are such an awesome..
i always liked the centaurs, the flying horses, and the hippos, etc… still dunno the names of the symphonies, i was too young when i first watched it…. crap. now i wanna see the centaur bit again!! dangit!
Fantasia introduced my kids to classical music and they love it.
Provided me with the imagination that I enjoy today.