Disney Animated Film Releases Trivia Quiz

The first full-length animated feature film under the Walt Disney Pictures name, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" appeared in movie theatres in 1937 and because a quick hit. The following year, Walt Disney was awarded an Honorary Oscar for his achievement.

The film follows a young Snow White as she attempts to escape the clutches of an evil witch, falling into the care of a septet of miners living in the woods. The substantial money made from this film would fund Walt Disney Studios in Los Angeles.

Released in late 1940, "Fantasia" was quite the experiment for Walt Disney and Co. as they sought to blend classic works of music with several synesthetic animated segments. Amongst the famous pieces from this collection were "The Nutcracker Suite", "Night on Bald Mountain", and the Mickey Mouse-starring "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". Though the film became a classic over time, the initial reception of it didn't warrant Walt Disney pursuing recurring iterations of "Fantasia".

A sequel was finally released to theatres in 1999 though it was less highly regarded.

Appearing in theatres in 1953, "Peter Pan" took viewers on a journey from London to Neverland where the three Darling children joined Peter, a boy who would never grow up, on adventures involving mermaids, fairies, Native Americans, and cruel pirates. Disney intended to make this movie much earlier on, during the 1940s, but when World War II hit, his plans were shifted to account for the U.S.' demands for propaganda films.

The film had strong box office earnings and its characters and songs are some of the most lasting of this era.

Sadly, the last film to be produced with Walt Disney's name listed in the producer role (as he would pass away during its creation), "The Jungle Book" is the animated classic based on Rudyard Kipling's 1894 tale of Mowgli, a man-cub who resides amongst the creatures of the Indian jungle. Though he makes friends with Baloo the Bear, he also comes into contact and conflict with snakes, tigers, and a number of orangutans amongst others. Like others of its ilk, "The Jungle Book" was chock full of popular tunes and became a nostalgic classic.

It netted more than $350,000,000 in the box office and retains a strong legacy in the Disney canon.

Based on a 1959 story by Margery Sharp, "The Rescuers" was one of the rare turns away from classic tales that Disney took in this decade, having completed "Robin Hood" and "The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" earlier on. "The Rescuers" went to theatres in 1977, following the tale of small mice Bernard and Bianca as they set out to the Louisiana bayou to save a young girl named Penny from a nefarious and greedy woman named Medusa who, on the hunt for a missing diamond, kidnapped her for a dangerous task.

A sequel film, "The Rescuers Down Under", was released in 1990, continuing the adventures of Bernard, Bianca, and the Rescue Aid Society in Australia.

After a string of less-popular animated films in the 1980s, "The Little Mermaid" (1989) marked a turning point for Walt Disney Animation as critics would later indicate that this movie started the Disney Renaissance, a series of highly-regarded, meticulously-animated offerings that would become instant classics (including "Aladdin", "Beauty and the Beast", and "The Lion King" amongst others. "The Little Mermaid" featured Ariel the Mermaid who, longing to walk on the land, involved herself in a problematic curse brought on by a sea witch.

The movie also marked the start of a series of Oscar nominations for Disney-- "The Little Mermaid" took the statuettes for Best Original Score and Best Original Song (for "Under the Sea"). Disney animated films would win the latter award five more times in the next decade.

A crown jewel for Disney, "Beauty and the Beast" is one of the highest-regarded animated offerings in the Disney library. Considered by Disney himself for adaptation (from the French "La belle et la bete") back in the 1930s, it took until 1991 for it to appear in theatres.

It made a major impact, receiving not only four Oscar nominations (and two wins), but Golden Globe wins, eight Grammy nods (and five wins) and a Broadway musical adaptation. The film itself is a tale as old as time-- a classic love story involving a provincial girl named Belle who is held captive by a castle-bound beast and falls in love with him.

Not only did "Finding Nemo" become the top-grossing animated film of all time upon its release in 2003, it became the top-selling DVD of all time, striking it big on home video at a time when DVD adoption had become widespread. An original story, this Disney animated feature was made alongside the computer animators at Pixar (who previously made "Toy Story" and "Monsters Inc."); it would staple their working relationship, allowing Disney to create more refined animated movies in line with technological advancements while also developing their traditionally-animated films in parallel.

"Finding Nemo" followed a clownfish father seeking out his son across the vast ocean, arriving in Sydney to save him from captivity. A sequel, "Finding Dory", was released in 2016.

If "Finding Nemo" broke the box office, "Frozen" obliterated it. Upon its release in 2013, "Frozen" became a pop culture phenomenon, adapting the Hans Christian Andersen tale "The Snow Queen" and netting $1,200,000,000 internationally. Not only did it top the highest-grossing films list for its year, but it has the fifth-largest earnings of any motion picture to date. "Frozen II" would release in 2019.

The tale of "Frozen" follows two sisters, Elsa and Anna, as they rekindle their relationship despite ever-growing tensions from the people around them. Elsa, having the power to manipulate ice and snow, ventures into the wild while Anna seeks her out to put an end to an eternal winter.

The latest movie of the selection here, "Turning Red" was a Pixar-Disney co-venture released in 2022, one hundred years after Walt Disney opened his first official animation studio. The movie, set in Toronto in the 1990s and following a young girl who transforms into a red panda in times of emotional duress, was almost entirely built out during the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing on Disney+ after a short stint in U.S. theatres.

As such, while the movie was critically lauded, it failed to recoup its losses-- a clear result of the pandemic's effect on the film industry.