FANTASIA (1940) The Disney classic of my generation

As a child, I got some of my first earfuls of classical music from FANTASIA, arguably Disney’s finest hand-animated feature and the world's first compilation of music videos. Leopold Stokowski conducts The Philadelphia Orchestra playing well-known works such as Pastoral Symphony, Ride of the Valkyries, and Swan of Tuonela, which are mated to breathlessly inventive dramatic and comedic visualizations. Perhaps the best remembered of the eight featured compositions is the Sorcerers Apprentice, brought to animated life by none other than Mickey Mouse. As an adult, I took a friend’s young daughter to see it for the first time, promising her the magical experience I remembered. Alas, she, of the hip-hop generation, was totally bored, but I had a great time revisiting stampeding dinosaurs, dancing mushrooms, and marching broomsticks. (Trivia note: The film, with a production cost of more than $2 million (at that time, about four times more than an average live-action picture, and today, barely enough to pay for Tom Cruise’s shoe lifts), initially failed at the box-office. But over the years its popularity increased, and its cult status was assured in the '60s when stoners adopted it as a favorite hallucinatory experience when it was re-released.)