'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' Model Sheets.

Here are some more classic model sheets, this time from Disney's first full length animated feature film,  'Snow White and the Seven dwarfs'. While production began in 1934, these sheets were created in 1936/'37. The first show the main characters, the Dwarfs and Snow White while the remaining are various designs for all the forest animals. Designer on the film was concept artist Albert Hurter, who had to give approval for all characters and backgrounds, although the designs for the animals below show they were okayed by Harry Bailey.

The design for the dwarf's eyes says 'Return to Dave', which I'm guessing was David Hand, supervising director on 'Snow White' (along with William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Ben Sharpsteen, Larry Morey and Perce Pearce, who all directed individual scenes). Ollie Johnston, although never officially credited, worked as an assistant animator on this film. As always, click to enlarge.

By the way, before we go to some of the animals, the two supplementary charts, which showed the relative sizes of all seven Dwarfs (top of post), mentions that the characters were traced from the regular model sheets. Below I've posted the original of that chart, showings all characters were actually part of one drawing:

Carl Barks in Photoplay Magazine April 1938.

Before Carl Barks became an artist for Western/Dell publishing and started to write and draw comics in 1942, he worked for the story department at Disney animation. As a Story Editor, and later Story Director, he worked on no less than 36 Donald Duck cartoon shorts that Disney released between 1937 and 1944. But, unlike others, he never worked on a feature, like 'Snow White'.

Mike Barrier's acclaimed book on Barks shows two photo's of him with Harry Reeves and the other guys, goofing around while presenting the storyboards for 'Good Scouts', the Donald short that released in July 1938, just a few months after 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs'. According to Mike's book, the photo's were used for an article on 'Snow White' in 1938, which is of course very strange, as Barks never worked on Disney's first animated feature (though he did create some gags for 'Bambi'). So I tracked it down and here it is, you can read the full article below. It's called 'How they made Snow White' and was written by Kirtley Baskette, published in the April issue of Photoplay magazine. Make sure to click any image to enlarge them!

These scans are pretty high res, so it should be easy to read. However, you could be having some trouble as the sentences on the final pages seem to drop off in the side columns. I have therefore added some extra pages from a different copy at the bottom, that I got from Devyn Samara. They aren't as High res and have some glare because they were photographed instead of scanned, but you can at least follow along better if you are having trouble reading it.

Below: the first piece of the article with the 'Good Scouts' photo as a header! I think the editors must have been impressed with the all the action going on surrounding the storyboard drawings. Barks is of course on the left, Harry Reeves in the middle.

As mentioned, the article continued on page 68, and then again on page 70:

The cover to the magazine starred actress Carole Lombard who happily married Clark Gable in 1939 but died tragically in 1942. After attending a rally for war bonds she favored a plane trip home instead of the

planned train ride. It crashed near the Potosi Mountains in Las Vegas, killing 22 aboard, including 15 army men, Lombard, her mother and her agent.

Above: A full page add for 'Snow White' that I found in the February issue of Photoplay. Below are the pages from Devyn's copy, that aren't cropped at the sides. Click to enlarge them:

A Disney VHS Collection Update

Here's a new Disney VHS collection update for you...



When I got my current YouTube channel back in February of 2010, I immediately filmed myself demonstrating the collection all over again like I did on my old account. Then I filmed a much more in-depth series in December, but during that time, I didn't really get any new VHS tapes or Beta tapes for the collection. I only got the super rare 1986 Walt Disney Classics box set and two more other Classics editions after that. I did an update for the box set, of course, but for the other two VHS tapes, they just appeared in a video where I showed the entire collection...

So this is my first real Disney VHS update that's done like a Blu-ray or DVD update would be done. Suffice to say, I'm glad I went to that yard sale. I also scooped up a non-Disney animated classic too, so enjoy. More updates should come later on this month if I find anything.

A little more about the tapes themselves:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1994 VHS - For many years, Disney refused to release this film on home video since it was one of their highest grossing titles of all time (adjusted, it's the highest grossing animated film of all time) and it continued to do extremely well when theatrically re-released. They had the same attitude towards Fantasia as well, but they finally released that film on video in 1991 and it became the best-selling home video of all time until One Hundred and One Dalmatians hit home video months later. So with that, Disney re-released theatrically one last time and had this begin the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, replacing The Classics.
- Originally released on October 25, 1994

Fantasia 1991 VHS - One of the only Disney films actually packed in the black clamshell case (not counting the first four releases in the Classics line, and the Limited Gold Editions). The version of the film on this video release was the 1990 50th Anniversary print which added end credits to the film. The cut itself is the same as the 1946 "general release" version, running 120 minutes. This would also be the first release of Disney animated classic that came as a part of a deluxe box set.
- Originally released on November 1, 1991

Old Yeller 2002 VHS - Made a big mistake in the video, accidentally saying it came out in 2004. Not much to say about this one, considering that Old Yeller was one of those titles that didn't go back in the Vault.
- Originally released on May 7, 2002

The Rescuers 1999 VHS - Of course, we all know the controversy surrounding this video release. Oddly enough, the VHS uses the 1989 theatrical re-release version of the film on here. It doesn't open with the Buena Vista logo, but instead the 1985 Walt Disney Pictures logo. The Buena Vista logo appears at the end, much like it did for the 1991 theatrical re-release of One Hundred and One Dalmatians and very early printings of the 1992 VHS (without the previews that follow).
- Originally released on January 5, 1999, clean version released March 23rd

The Little Mermaid 1998 VHS - The version of the film used on this video release is that of the 1997 theatrical re-release, with some minor alterations to the end credits plus the priest's knee altered since that also caused a lot of controversy.
- Originally released on March 31, 1998

The Secret of NIMH 1994 VHS - Not much to comment on here, as the film had been released on home video twice before this was released. In fact, there were plans to theatrically re-release it sometime in the late 1980s. If that happened, maybe the film would've gotten more popularity.