227 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The lads grab their heart-boxes and make for the creepy woods as they cover Walt Disney’s 1937 landmark animated film: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Topics include the origins of Walter Elias Disney, the make-it-up-as-you-go-along production, and the enduring legacy of the film that built the Disney empire.
Media Referenced in this Episode:
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Dir. Walt Disney. 1937.
“Before Snow White” by J.B. Kaufman. Film History, Jun., 1993, Vol. 5, No. 2, Animation (Jun., 1993), pp. 158-175
“The Great Animation Strike” by Kristin Hunt. JSTOR Daily. January 2nd, 2020.
Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas. Simon & Schuster. 1976.
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler. Alfred A. Knopf. 2006.
“‘With a smile and a song …’: Walt Disney and the Birth of the American Fairy Tale” by Tracey Mollet. Marvels & Tales, Vol. 27, No. 1 (2013), pp. 109-124. Wayne State University Press
TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com
Interstitial: “Hermann Huntsmann’s Heart-Box Hut” // Written by A.J. Ditty // feat. A.J. Ditty “Hermann Huntsmann/The Animals” and Eleanor Philips “Snow White”
Comments (29)
Studio Ghibli movies absolutely still have that level of mechanical and folk detail to them.
This was a really great episode. I love the focus on the film in its historical and cultural moment, that's super interesting stuff! The sections about Walt's background made me think about that "One Man's Dream" show they play at the parks. It's a very cleaned up and "inspirational" version of Walt's life story, but even there it made me sad, because he just comes off as someone always chasing after something and not being able to quite find it. A fascinating man.
Didn’t realize I wanted a Disney series from y’all, but I’m hooked.
Whit Disney
Completely unrelated to this but I just watched Team America World Police for the first time and my god do I want to die... was this really considered funny? Like, so many memes come from this is assumed it was at least passable but I was so wrong.....
Please, please, please, do an episode about "Into the Unknown: The Making of Frozen 2". It is what "The Sweatbox" thinks it is but with the addition of Kristen Bell high on mushrooms and the songwriters trying to kill the lead writer through a computer monitor with their minds.
Hey, Random Episode idea in the spirit of your Magic School Bus. Could you take a look at Reading Rainbow? I discovered they are all on youtube for free, and I feel more parents should know this. If I had kids i would definitely have them watching Reading Rainbow over Coco melon. Also the Hill of Fire episode is a favorite.
Walter Hartwell Whitaker
The iconic 1920s male crooner voice is NOT dead! Give Max Raabe a try: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reVB-Z2Vk64
As an Ulm-er, I'm somewhat flabbergasted by how often I heard the name of my little home town on this podcast. <3
Holy shit, I haven’t thought about the Pinocchio clocks in forever. Those things hit different as a kid. The foley for them was amazing too.
One thing that screams at me in comparison with the 2025 version in regards to heigh ho is that in 2025 they have to make it a broad way roll call number because the hyper realistic animation doesn't lend itself well to the character designs at all so they have to expressly say what their thing is instead of let the character designs tell you, and they also lose out on that simple folk because they are just bouncing up and down the place being busy doing way too much. It also overemphasised the mine as a important source of magic where as in the orginal its not really magical at all its just a place where they go to work. The whole overcorrecting to address the "problems" doesn't ever work because it doesn't really try to understand why those things that they are trying to fix were that way in the first place
The 4k Cinderella has the silver dress back. They rescanned the original negative.
Oohhhh nice
It'd be a little funny if the next episode is Snow WHIT and the X Somethings and you only change the episode art by putting cartoon Whit's face on on Sleepy.
That horse corner has me with tears in my eyes from laughing. Something just so damn funny about "nothing happens, it's a horse" in that music just killed me.
Hey, what the hell, Fantasia is great.
The first time I went to Disney World as a little kid for my birthday, a hurricane blew in. So we were in the park and the rain, and most people had gone back to the hotels, but my family hung out, and there were no lines anywhere, so I got to go on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride 3 times in a row. It was great.
Goddd when I was about 5 years old my parents took me and my sister to Disneyland for the first time. And the VERY FIRST RIDE we went on was the Snow White ride. Because my parents had no idea it was a Scary Ride. Me and my sister were SOBBING afterwards, and my parents were like "oh fuck, we've fucked up at the first hurdle." The next day I would get lost on Tom Sawyer island, and be inconsolable when my parents later found me. There was a lot of crying on that trip!
Okay so according to my parents, I'd just turned 4 years old, and they took us on the Snow White ride cause "there was no line!" (I wonder why)
One of my favorite pictures from the Disney era is of the animators striking in 1941, and they're all shirtless wearing black hoods, they're carrying a guillotine, and the guy at the front is carrying a sign that says "Happy Birthday Gunther and Walt". So yeah, the whole "I'm their friend" thing wasn't shared by his employees.
Did AJ make a conscious choice to do the Huntsman as Dr. Strangelove or did that just kind of happen
I went to see what The Adventures of Prince Achmed looked like and I was immediately blown away with how beautiful it was.
Fantasia for fancy movie time
"You tried to fuck with me? You tried to fuck with Snow White???" Absolute banger.
Herman Huntsman is somehow both drunk and winded, perfect
I like that he sounds a bit like Grover SesameStreet
Coming to a People's Enthusiast Narrative Repository near you: The Struggle in the Commissar's Heart [100,000 words; enemies-to-lovers; major character depersoning]
After mandatory Disneyland fun time for a whole year when my dad bought annual passes as a surprise, I will never step in that place again