Fantasia (motion picture)

Fantasia (motion picture), animated musical produced by Walt Disney. Released in 1940, the film won two special Academy Awards for its innovative way of combining classical music with animation. In one of the movie’s eight musical sequences, Mickey Mouse plays a sorcerer’s apprentice who commands a broom to carry water for him and is dismayed when the spell spins out of his control. Other sections of the film feature dancing mushrooms, cavorting hippos, and swirling abstract shapes.

Directors

• Samuel Armstrong
• James Algar
• Bill Roberts
• Paul Satterfield
• Hamilton Luske
• Jim Handley
• Ford Beebe
• Walt Disney
• Norman Ferguson
• Wilfred Jackson

Cast

• Deems Taylor (Narrator)
• Mickey Mouse (Sorcerer's apprentice)
• Leopold Stokowski (Conductor)
• The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra

Awards

• Special Academy Award for Creation of a New Form of Visualized Music (1941): Leopold Stokowski
• Special Academy Award for Contribution to the Advancement of the Use of Sound in Motion Pictures (1941): Walt Disney, William Garity, John N. A. Hawkins

Trivia

• The sorcerer is named “Yen sid,” which is the word Disney spelled backwards.