Disney Enterprises, Inc.Even after eight decades, Snow White is still the fairest of them all.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiered 80 years ago, on Dec. 21, 1937, at the Carthay Circle Theatre in L.A. It was followed by a nationwide release on February 4, 1938. Adjusted for inflation, the animated movie is one of the Top 10 performers at the North American box office.
In celebration of its 80th anniversary, E! News has rounded up 20 fun facts about the movie:
1. Walt Disney came up with the idea bring Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the big screen when he was 15 years old, after seeing a silent film version of the classic fairytale in Kansas City.
2. The movie was initially budgeted at $250,000, but due to various delays, it ballooned to $1.5 million—a big amount at the time. Disney later mortgaged his home to finance the production.
3. The film took roughly three years to produce, from 1934 to 1937.
4. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first feature-length animated film in U.S. history.
5. Over 750 artists completed more than 2 million sketches. The film included 250,000 drawings.
6. Animator Ward Kimball nearly quit after his two main sequences were cut.
7. Disney tasked his team with creating the multiplane camera, a device capable of shooting several images at once in order to create more depth (and imagination) in the artists' drawings.
8. Convinced the film would fail, critics nicknamed the film "Walt Disney's Folly."
9. Early concept art depicted Snow White as a blonde. Her raven hair became one of her defining physical characteristics, as the Magic Mirror described her beauty in detail to the Evil Queen: "Alas, she is more fair than thee: Lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, skin white as snow."
10. Blabby, Busy, Crabby, Daffy, Deefy, Dirty, Dumpy, Flabby, Gabby, Gaspy, Gloomy, Hotsy, Lazy, Nifty, Scrappy, Shifty, Snoopy, Stubby, Thrifty and Weezy were all considered for the dwarfs' names and personalities. Sneezy, for example, was actually a last-minute substitute for Deefy.
11. Happy is the only dwarf whom Snow White does not refer to by name.
12. In the dwarfs' cottage, nearly every wooden surface has an animal carved into it.
13. Twenty-five songs were written for the movie—but only eight were used.
14. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first movie to release a soundtrack for purchase.
15. It was the highest grossing film ever, until it was surpassed by Gone With the Wind a year later.
16. Deemed too scary for children in England, people under 16 had to be accompanied by a parent.
17. In 1939, Disney received a special Academy Award for the film—and seven smaller ones.
18. Disney Studios in Burbank was built with the profits from the movie.
19. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first animated feature to be selected for the National Film Registry, recognized in 1989 for "being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant."
20. The movie was first re-released in 1944, to raise revenue for the budding studio during World War II. It was re-released seven more times( in 1952, 1958, 1967, 1975, 1983, 1987 and 1993). On Oct. 28, 1994, the film was released for the first time on home video, on LaserDisc and VHS.
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