- The origin of this film was when Disney began production of "The Sorceror's Apprentice" as a stand-alone short. The resulting film proved to be so costly to film that Disney decided to act on Leopold Stokowski's advice and create a feature anthology of shorts in order to recoup the original's cost.
- Disney digitally re-recorded the soundtrack for the 1982 re-release because the original Stokowski soundtrack from 1940 sounded dated and very limited in fidelity. But for the 1990 50th Anniversary (re-) re-release of Fantasia, Disney reverted to the original soundtrack from 1940, which they cleaned up as best as possible (although the limited fidelity could not be corrected) and this is the soundtrack the film has today.
- Fantasia is considered the first American film to be shown to large public audiences in stereophonic sound. The original prints for Fantasia featured soundtracks that were recorded in a process known as "Fantasound," a 4-track directional stereophonic system that was invented especially to record the soundtrack for this picture by RCA and the Walt Disney Studios technical team, led by William E. Garity. The Stokowski-conducted orchestra audio was recored unto eight seperate soundtracks (one for each section of the orchestra), which were then mixed down to the four-track system that was optically mated to the Technicolor film prints. Over 90 speakers were used for the playback of the "Fantasound" audio during the premiere of the film on 12 November 1940. A more typical Fantasound setup used three speakers behind the screen and 65 others placed around the other three walls of the theatre. However, Fantasound was rather expensive for the theatres participating in the roadshow release to install, especially with the needed materials being hard to obtain as the United States prepared for possible participation in World War II. Therefore, only 12 venues ever played the original "Fantasound" version of the film, and only 16 "Fantasound" equipped prints were ever created. When RKO took over the roadshow release in January 1941, the film was shipped with a more conventional monoraul track. The current DVD release of Fantasia is the most faithful to the original "Fantasound" mix.
- During production of Fantasia, the animators were given no instructions for coloring. Walt Disney instructed them to use any colors they wanted, a first.
- Originally, Pierne's "Cydalise" was to have been the musical choice for the Greek mythology setting, but Walt Disney decided it wasn't expressive enough for the story, so Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" was chosen instead.
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