Disney facts

1. When creating the character Aladdin, the animators studied the movements of MC Hammer’s pants to accurately model the movements of Aladdin’s pants.

2. The song “Part of Your World” was almost excluded from the final version of The Little Mermaid. During a pre-screening of the movie to figure out how successful it would be, the kids didn’t seem to be very interested in the movie. One kid dropped his popcorn and was more intent on picking it up than watching the movie. Because of this, the director came to the conclusion that the song would take away from the movie and was ready to edit it out when Howard Ashman, the lyricist, stepped in. He wanted to keep the song in when the movie was released, and the director consented. Fortunately for him (and Disney fans everywhere), the song became one of the most known and beloved classic songs of it’s time.

3. The “Dumbo the Flying Elephant” ride was originally intended to have pink elephants, referencing the elephants seen during the hallucination scene in the movie. Also, when the ride opened, their were originally 10 elephants and today there are 16.

4. The not-so-secret apartment above the firehouse in Disneyland is actually Walt’s childhood bedroom, removed from his house in Missouri and flown to Anaheim.

5. The character Ralph and his game “Fix-it Felix Jr.” draw inspiration from Donkey Kong. Both games are about a handy-man character climbing up and around a building structure toward the villain on top. Both villains, Donkey Kong and Ralph, are large angry characters with wide hands that toss down objects at the hero. 

6.  Paige O’Hara sobbed real tears while recording Belle’s mourning of the Beast. Her performance was so intense that the director asked her if she was OK, upon which O’Hara immediately dropped out of character and said “Acting!”