Disney classic ‘Fantasia’ will be shown at Movie Night at the Museum

Beautiful music, dancing animals, waltzing flowers and Mickey Mouse as the sorcerer’s apprentice in the Disney classic “Fantasia,” returns to the screen during Movie Night at the Museum May 28.

What began in 1938 as Walt Disney’s idea for a “Silly Symphony” cartoon featuring Mickey Mouse grew into a full-length animated feature film with Fantasound, a pioneer sound system developed by Disney and RCA that made Fantasia the first commercial film shown in stereo. For many Americans, the movie also was an introduction to classical music. The 1940 production features eight animated segments set to classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski. 

The film opened to critical acclaim but failed to make a profit, partly due to the loss of European distribution during World War II. Since 1942, the film has been reissued many times and is now ranked as the 58th greatest American film in the American Film Institute’s list of top 100 movies. It was also selected for preservation by the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”