Disney Animated Movie Trivia!

Time for my (and your?) movie trivia fix. Here we go…

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  • In  (1959), Aurora’s body shape was modeled after Audrey Hepburn and in (1989), Ariel’s body shape was modeled after Alyssa Milano.

  • In 1977’s we meet Orville, an albatross who provides transportation and literally acts like he’s a plane. In the sequel, (1990) we meet his brother, Wilbur. This, of course, is significant as the fathers of aviation are the Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur.

  • (1998) is the only Disney animated film to utter the word “crossdresser,” and it almost received a PG rating for it

  • Remember how Nemo made an appearance as one of Boo’s toys in (2001), five years before his movie would even be released? Well, that kind of thing was also done over 50 years prior in Disney animated movies. In (1940) during the “When You Wish Upon a Star” number a spotlight goes on Jiminy Cricket and you can see two books to the left of the screen. They are marked “Peter Pan” and “Alice in Wonderland.”

  • Kaitlyn Dias was cast as the voice for Riley in (2015) when she was 11 years old. Unfortunately, her voice started to deepen as she started going through puberty when production began. She had to try and adjust her voice to fit her character.

  • In (1973), Friar Tuck is a badger. He was originally going to be a pig, but the switch was made so that the movie wouldn’t offend any religious sensibilities.

  • In the scene where Hercules and Phil first meet in (1997), Phil jokingly says, “Two words: I am retired.” However, it’s only partly a joke. Because the Greek translation of “I am retired” in Greek is “ Eímai syntaxioúchos ”… two words.

  • Whenever you hear dog barks in (1961), you are hearing Clarence Nash, the man you grew up hearing voice Donald Duck.

  • Lin-Manuel Miranda was a music composer for 2016’s , and has said that (1989) inspired him to become a movie songwriter.

  • Disney has all kinds of villains, but they often fall into the categories of either funny or evil. Of all the evil ones, Frollo from (1996) is often considered the vilest. That is why one of my favourite pieces of Disney trivia is that, according to the audio commentary on the movie’s DVD, Frollo’s horse’s name is Snowball.

  • Miley Cyrus voiced Penny in (2008), but Chloë Grace Moretz was not only considered, she voiced the entire film before being replaced by Cyrus. Kinda sucks…

  • I’ve watched the movie, but I apparently missed the slew of references that were inserted in 2000’s The movie makes allusions to (1940), (60’s TV series), (1978), and (1941).

  • If you like the “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” scene in 1994’s , you can thank Elton John, but not just because he wrote the song. He was given a private screening before the movie was released and was disappointed that the love song wasn’t included in the movie. So he lobbied for it to be included, and only a few weeks before its release! It was a good decision, too. It’s not only a great scene, but he ended up winning the Best Original Song Academy Award for it.

  • Ariel represents a lot of firsts. She was the first redhead Disney princess, the first to show a bare midriff, the first to show cleavage, and the first to have biological siblings.

Congratulations This is your week.

Best Actress:

Auli’i Cravalho as Moana in

Best Actor: Buddy Hackett as Scuttle in

Best Quote: “Oh, it’s awesome, Jellyman. The little dudes are just eggs, we leave ’em on a beach to hatch, and then, coo-coo-cachoo, they find their way back to the big ol’ blue.” — Andrew Stanton (who wrote the movie’s screenplay) as Crush in

It was interesting that the voting was pretty much Mermaid vs Moana. My favourite of the three is definitely . And as I’ve shared before, this movie along with and are at the top of my favourite animated movies list. As for non-Disney animated, and are at the top.