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Trivia / Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

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  • Acting for Two: Pinto Colvig voices both Grumpy and Sleepy. The Mickey Mouse Theatre of the Air adaptation casts Billy Gilbert as Sneezy and Sleepy.
  • Adored by the Network: Ever since they got the rights to the film in June of 2017, Disney Junior takes every opportunity they can to air it.
  • Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
    • The Queen's most oft-quoted line is "Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" However, the line in the film is actually "Magic Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?"
    • The antidote for the Queen's poisoned apple isn't True Love's Kiss, but rather Love's First Kiss. In this case, the Mandela Effect is also at work, since most people recall the former type of kiss breaking the spell, even though the latter is clearly stated and written down in the Queen's spellbook. This is probably a case of confusion with Sleeping Beauty, which uses the terms "True Love's Kiss" and "Love's First Kiss" interchangeably for the kiss that will wake Aurora.
  • Breakthrough Hit: Walt Disney was already famed for the Classic Disney Shorts, but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs made him and the studio a name in the feature-length film business. As a matter of fact, it became the highest-grossing film of all time up to that point, a title that was taken by Gone with the Wind two years later.
  • The Cast Showoff: Billy Gilbert was well known for his stand-up act in which he'd work himself up into increasingly violent face twitches that finally resulted in a giant sneeze, and was immediately thought of by Walt Disney himself once it was decided to make one of the Dwarves constantly sneeze.
  • Creator Backlash: In recordings, Walt Disney said that many regarded Snow White as a Tough Act to Follow and disparaged his later films, to the point that Disney would resent Snow White for some time. He eventually came back around to loving his masterpiece.
  • Cut Song:
    • "Music In Your Soup" was to be sung by the dwarfs during dinner, and "You're Never Too Old to Be Young" was replaced by "The Silly Song". There were even more songs written for the film that never made it as far.
    • Sneezy originally had a verse during "The Silly Song". It was cut for time constraints.
    • In all, 25 songs were written for the film, out of which, eight were used.
  • Deleted Scene:
    • The movie was to start with scenes involving Snow White's mother, but they had to be cut to avoid the wrath of the censorship board of the Hays Office
    • Some of the scenes with the Dwarfs were also cut, mostly to tighten up the story. Best known of these was the "Music in Your Soup" song, which was eventually shown on the Disneyland program in pencil test form. There's also a missing scene where the Dwarves build a bed for Snow White, which turned up in a children's book.
    • Sneezy had a line in "The Silly Song" which was recorded but cut due to time constraints.
    • In a deleted scene, the dwarfs fight over whether Snow White stays or goes. Snow White decides to leave, declaring that she isn't afraid of the dark woods at night, shrewdly adding, "And the goblins". It was possibly deleted because it doesn't move the story along.
  • Doing It for the Art: One of the main reasons Disney created this film, in addition to the potential cash flow, was his hope that it would raise animation to a higher art form. The film took four years to make and was not only a massive effort that required the studio to expand to over 1,000 artists, but there was no guarantee of financial success—the studio almost went bankrupt just from trying to get the film made, and it was only finished because Disney managed to get a large bank loan from showing a rough cut of the film. The short cartoons basically became a training ground for the monstrous amount of work and effects techniques needed to get the film done—the animators even had to take a few hours of mandatory, unpaid art classes after work each day in order to keep their jobs. Whole segments of the film had to be reanimated because this rapid skill acquisition meant the animators were driving their own work obsolete. Disney was even doing color tests for scenes one year and four months into production. But it all paid off with what was (at the time) the highest-grossing film of all time and one of the most influential movies ever made.
  • Dueling Dubs: Snow White has been dubbed three times each in Finnish, French, German, Japanese, and Latin Spanish; and twice each in Albanian, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Putonghua, Swedish, and Thai. The second Dutch dub was revised in 1992.
  • Dueling Movies: Technically, the final theatrical reissue of Snow White in 1993 did duel with Filmation's unofficial sequel to the film, Happily Ever After. This was after Filmation was hit with a C&D by Disney to stop that film's creation, and Filmation had already closed its doors, leaving the distributor to deal with the movie's release. Disney crushed the sequel and what was left of Filmation that year.
  • DVD Commentary: The Platinum Edition DVD, and almost all of its subsequent home video editions, included one combining new comments from animation historian John Canemaker, with excerpts of interviews with Walt Disney.
  • Enforced Method Acting: Lucille La Verne voiced both the Queen and her alter ego (the Hag). She differentiated between the two voices by removing her dentures when voicing the latter.
  • Follow the Leader: What with being the highest-grossing film of all time upon release, it was only natural that Paramount Pictures would give Fleischer Studios the chance to make their own answer to Snow White, that being their animated adaptation of Gulliver's Travels. Even Walter Lantz, Paul Terry and Harman and Ising had plans to make their own features after the success of Snow White (none of which materialized, unfortunately). Snow White's success was also what convinced MGM to move forward with The Wizard of Oz, another fairy tale-esque/family musical, which unfortunately did not turn out well financially to start, but it also joined the Hollywood Masterpiece club in time.
  • I Am Not Spock: Adriana Caselotti embraced this later in life, filling her house with Snow White memorabilia sent to her by fans, singing songs from the movie to anyone who asked, and even having "I'm Wishing" as her answering machine message.
  • Keep Circulating the Tapes: The mobile game Seven Dwarfs: The Queen's Return was discontinued a year after its release on iOS and Android.
  • Kids' Meal Toy:
    • Burger King offered 4 toys for the UK to promote the film's first VHS release in 1994.
    • At McDonald's, it got two posters in 1987, and figurines in 1993. In 2001, it got plush clip-ons. The European promotion in 2001 featured action toys instead.
  • Late Export for You: The movie wasn't released in Japan until 1950, owing to World War II, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and attendant issues occurring in the interim.
  • Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: The 2001 Platinum Edition DVDnote , 2009 Diamond Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and 2016 Walt Disney Signature Collection Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD combo pack each heralded the start of a new collection of Disney's most iconic movies receiving a relatively large number of bonus features.
  • Milestone Celebration:
    • In July 1987, Disney celebrated the 50th anniversary by theatrically re-releasing the movie in 42 countries. Two months earlier, they also aired the TV special Golden Anniversary of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, hosted by Dick Van Dyke.
    • In October 2023, Disney unveiled a new 4K restoration in honor of the whole company's 100th anniversary. Disney+'s date for upgrading Snow White, October 16, 2023, falls exactly 100 years after Disney's founding.
  • Money, Dear Boy: A big reason why Disney made this feature was that the Short Film product they made only brought in a set amount of revenue from their distributor regardless of the amount of the audience interest. With features, however, Disney's company could haul in much more, if it proved a hit.
  • Orphaned Reference: There's a comb in the opening titles. This is a reference to the fairy tale, where the Queen tries to kill Snow White with a poisoned comb. This was going to be in the film at one point, but it was dropped.
  • Pigeonholed Voice Actor: Adriana Caselotti serves her sole feature film role as Snow White's uncredited voice actress, as part of her contract with Disney stated that she was never allowed to play another role again note  or make public appearances to preserve the illusion of Snow White as a real character. Fortunately, she absolutely loved the role and openly embraced the reputation the film gave her later in life, which earned her the honor of a Disney Legend. Her own house was designed after the Dwarfs' cottage and was filled with memorabilia from the film, and she even had an answering machine that responded to callers in-character!
  • Serendipity Writes the Plot:
    • The reason why the Prince had such little screentime was that the animators found him to be very difficult to animate.
    • They were having trouble with Snow White's model as well, particularly the eyes and her hair ribbon. This is why in "Someday My Prince Will Come", we see more of the dwarfs' reactions; they were easier to animate.
    • Dopey was originally supposed to speak as well, but they couldn't find a suitable voice actor so he became The Voiceless.
    • The funeral scene for Snow White was also tricky, as the dwarfs had to remain still while also emoting so they didn't become static images. The solution was the constant stream of tears running down their faces.
  • Shrug of God: The Evil Queen and the Prince were given the names Grimhilde and Florian in some publicity material and extended universe media, but asking the face characters or calling them by their names would result in them shrugging it off, instead preferring to be called by their common names. The name "Regina" gets a similar response from the Queen.
  • Stillborn Franchise:
    • At one time, DisneyToon Studios was exploring the idea of turning the Seven Dwarfs into a boy-friendly franchise much like Disney Fairies is for girls. An epic Lord of the Rings-inspired adventure that would explore how they came together as well as the origins of the Magic Mirror and Evil Queen was proposed, along with a Darker and Edgier video game prequel by Obsidian Entertainment about the Dwarfs' ancestors. This project ended up getting trimmed down in scope to a more comedic affair that would have revealed Dopey's muteness being the result of childhood trauma watching his mother die, but nobody had the nerve to present this idea to John Lasseter and he canceled a further meddled version immediately.
    • A Snow White II was planned in 2002. It was about the evil Queen's sister Noriss learning from her magical crystal ball that the only way to make Snow White and her family leave the castle would be to kidnap her friends the dwarfs. She goes to the mine asking the little men to help her find her way home, then pulls out 7 bags to kidnap each one of them. Only Dopey escapes from her claws by hiding behind rocks. Snow White, the Prince, and their 13-year-old daughter Rose would've had to come to the rescue of the dwarfs with the help of Dopey.
    • Snow White Returns which was a proposed sequel short. It would have incorporated deleted material from the film such as the famous Soup-Eating Scene and a sequence of the Dwarfs building a bed for Snow White. The unmade short is detailed on the Diamond Edition release of Snow White.
  • Throw It In!: When first animating the Dwarfs (save for Grumpy, who follows a little later) going outside to the washtub after Snow White tells them to wash up, Frank Thomas decided to give Dopey a small skip, or hitch step to his gait. Walt Disney liked it so much that he had several of Dopey's already-finished scenes reanimated to have their own hitch steps, much to the chagrin of the other animators, who blamed Thomas for all the extra work they had to do.
  • Uncredited Role: None of the actors are listed in the film's credits.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • There were originally intended to be scenes with the Prince imprisoned by the Queen in a dungeon and making a daring escape, which was dropped because the animators were not yet experienced enough to handle the extra work of making a believable human character, what with Snow White and the Queen already taxing their skills. Some of these ideas were eventually used in Sleeping Beauty.
    • All three of the Queen's assassination attempts (poison comb, bodice suffocation and the poison apple) were originally going to be included, but eventually they streamlined it to just the apple instead. The bodice was cut first, and the comb appears in the title card at the beginning. Because of this, a lot of people who grew up with the Disney version of Snow White think the Grimm's Fairy Tale version just had the apple attempt as the Queen's next plan to take out Snow White after the huntsman chickened out and tried to pass off a pig heart as Snow White's.
    • There was concept art showing that the queen would have shattered the magic mirror upon realizing that Snow White was still alive. And according to the book "Mouse Under Glass", after the mirror gets shattered, it would have reassembled itself and told the queen off, scaring the heck out of her.
    • A proposed fate for the queen was shown in an Italian comic where she returned to the castle in hag form to ask the mirror who was the fairest in the land now. However, the Huntsman had already rallied a party to burn down the castle in order to put an end to her infernal majesty's reign. After receiving her answer from the mirror, she was burned alive with the mirror just watching her suffer.
    • Originally, the Running Gag of Sleepy being bothered by a fly was to culminate in Sleepy trapping the fly in Snow White's now-empty glass coffin. This explains why Sleepy wasn't among the dwarfs kissed by Snow White in the end.
    • Alternate names and personalities were considered for the dwarfs, among them Wheezy, Awful, and Jumpy. More information can be found here.
    • In the original draft, the original character of the queen was supposed to be overweight and flamboyant. The prince was also supposed to be much more goofy and unattractive. Walt decided to change the queen to give her more of a serious personality and the prince followed soon after.
    • Voice Actors:
      • Dopey was originally going to have a voice (Mel Blanc was considered), but he was made into the group's Silent Bob when an actor to provide the voice wasn't able to be found.
      • Deanna Durbin auditioned for the voice of Snow White but was not chosen because Walt Disney felt her voice was too mature.
      • Sterling Holloway (best known as the Stork, Adult Flower, the Cheshire Cat, Kaa, and the original Winnie the Pooh) was considered for the role of Sleepy.
    • Proposed Sequels/Spin-Offs:
      • Dopey almost made an appearance in Fantasia as the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
      • A featurette continuation, Snow White Returns was planned, in which Snow White pays the Dwarfs a visit. It would have salvaged animation from the two cut sequences where the Dwarfs eat soup and make a bed for Snow White.
      • Atari was to release a video game based on the film for the Atari 2600, but it was later canned likely due to the The Great Video Game Crash of 1983. A homebrew release complete with box art was later sold at the 2002 Classic Gaming Expo, albeit without Disney's blessing.
      • Obsidian Entertainment was developing an action role-playing game set before the events of the film entitled Dwarfs, and was to be released for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The game was shelved a year after it was announced.

  • Thanks to this film's influence, this is one of only two Disney animated films to make Roger Ebert's Great Movies list. The other one is the next film, Pinocchio.
  • There were a couple of fan-drawings found in an old cellar in Norway, during the German occupation in the late 30s... signed by the talented amateur artist "Adolf H."...

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