25 Disney Facts That Are So Surprising And Interesting That You’ll Want To Share Them With Everyone

1. In 1930, a Mickey Mouse writing tablet became the first Disney character merchandise. Walt Disney agreed to license the character to a company in New York (for $300) because he needed the money at the time.

D23.com / Via Twitter: @DisneyD23 The writing tablet license made the studio realize they could increase their revenue through merchandise.

2. The first cartoon Disney made in color was the Silly Symphony short Flowers and Trees . The cartoon was also the first to be made in Technicolor (making it the first full-color cartoon). It was so innovative for the time, too, that it would earn Walt Disney his first Oscar — an Academy Award for Animated Short Subjects.

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3. The term "Disney Vault" is actually a lot older than you might think. It was used to refer to movies that were taken out of "the vault" and re-released into theaters after their original run (this was way before home videos existed).

4. The first movie it re-released was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1944, during WWII. The studio was sort of forced to do so as they were cash-strapped at the time and were producing propaganda films for the government that weren't really made for profit.

5. During World War II, 90% of what Walt Disney Studios produced was for the Allies' war effort (i.e. propaganda films, training films, print campaigns, etc.).

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6. While Walt Disney always talked about how the carousel at Griffith Park inspired him to build Disneyland, it was actually several things that inspired him. One of them was Beverly Park Kiddieland , which he often visited with his daughters.

7. Walt actually told David about his plans to build Disneyland in 1950. He then hired David as a consultant .

8. In 1954, as a way to help pay for the construction of Disneyland, Walt developed a Disneyland TV show (that would end up airing on ABC).

9. Also, in 1954, Alice in Wonderland became the first animated Disney movie to air on TV .

10. Walt Disney hated how Alice in Wonderland turned out and refused to re-release the movie during his lifetime. However, in 1971, five years after Walt's death, the movie became a head film , and it had a huge cult following among college students , who would rent the 16-mm film and set up viewing parties. The movie's renewed popularity convinced Disney to re-release the film in 1974, where they really leaned into the psychedelic side of it (as you can see in the re-release poster below) and even used Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" in the radio ads for it.

11. According to Jeffery Sherman, son of Robert Sherman (of the famous Sherman Brothers), he inspired the Mary Poppins song "A Spoonful of Sugar" after he told his dad that he had gotten his polio vaccine on a sugar cube.

Twitter: @jsher88888

12. Disney wanted to get the Beatles to cameo as the vultures in The Jungle Book , but they turned them down. Reportedly, John Lennon was the one who did not like the idea and refused to be a part of it.

13. After Sleeping Beauty bombed at the box office , Disney decided not to make another fairy-tale princess movie for 30 years. Yup, there was a 30-year gap — 1989's The Little Mermaid would be the next fairy-tale movie.

14. The huge success of 101 Dalmatians , which was released two years after Sleeping Beauty's box office bust, saved Disney's animation department.

15. Howard Ashman, who, along with Alan Menken, is credited with saving Disney Animation and starting the Disney Renaissance, first worked with Disney on lyrics for a song in Oliver & Company. While working on the song, Ashman was offered several Disney projects to create music for. Of all the projects, he chose The Little Mermaid . He then brought onboard his longtime collaborator, Menken, to help him with the music, and the rest is cinematic history.

16. Early in the development of The Little Mermaid , both Joan Collins and Bea Arthur were approached to voice Ursula .

17. In 1988, during the production of The Little Mermaid , Howard Ashman and Alan Menken wrote a treatment for Aladdin. Disney turned it down, and the two would go on to work on Beauty and the Beast . However, after the success of The Little Mermaid , Disney decided to revive the idea of an Aladdin animated movie.

18. Howard Ashman died from complications from AIDS in 1991, nine months before the release of Beauty and the Beast . Because of his illness, he only worked on Aladdin briefly before his death. Disney brought in lyricist Tim Rice (best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Weber) to work with Alan Menken to complete the film. Rice was then asked to work on The Lion King. However, Menken was unavailable to work on it with him, so Rice suggested Elton John , and the rest is cinematic history.

19. Timon and Pumbaa were originally the ones who were supposed to sing "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" in The Lion King . Ernie Sabella and Nathan Lane (the voices of the characters) even recorded the whole song. However, when Elton John found out about it he killed the idea, saying, "I don't want a big, stinky warthog singing my love song!"

20. While A Goofy Movie is considered a classic today, in 1995 the film was only moderately successful in theaters and didn't become a hit until it was released on video.

@GoofyMovieDir / Via Twitter: @GoofyMovieDir By most accounts, it seemed like Disney thought the movie would be forgotten quickly.

21. As part of her contract, Glenn Close got to keep all her Cruella de Vil costumes from 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians . However, according to Close, when Disney "found out how expensive they were, they were unhappy that it was in my contract." Disney then offered to create replica outfits for her to take instead of the originals, but she said no.

Buena Vista Pictures / ©Buena Vista Pictures/courtesy Everet / Everett Collection, Walt Disney Co. / ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection

22. I think everyone agrees that Emma Thompson as the Baroness in Cruella was perfecting casting. However, Disney's first choice for the role was Nicole Kidman .

/ ©Disney+/Courtesy Everett Collection, Lawrence Busacca / Getty Images for Michael Kors

Also, the original live-action Cruella de Vil, Glenn Close, is an executive producer on Cruella .

23. Tangled is the most expensive animated movie ever made — costing $260 million to make. The high budget had to do with many factors: One was that the movie had been in development since 1996 and had gone through many, many rewrites, then there was the cost of new animation software Disney had to develop for it, and then, of course, it was a labor-intensive movie that took a really long time to animate.

24. According to Lin-Manuel Miranda , he pitched "We Don't Talk About Bruno" as a song to "hold all the characters in the movie." Before working on Encanto , Miranda had worked on Moana , where he saw firsthand in the development process that characters are cut if they aren't important to the main character (saying Moana originally had eight brothers when he started to work on it). By having a "song as a way to check in with the family members who weren’t going to get a solo" he knew they would be able to keep all the characters, which was important since the "magic of the story" was that it revolved around a large family.

25. And lastly, the Disney Vault stopped being a marketing tool after Disney launched Disney+ and essentially made its entire library available for streaming.