Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode will be on The Seven Dwarfs. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is a classic fairy tale brought to life by Disney in its 1937 animated film. This animated film has particular significance in cinematic history, as it was the first full-length cel-animated feature film.

With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Seven_Dwarfs_Disney.jpg

Wikipedia Summary

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a 1937 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. Based on the 1812 German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, it is the first full-length traditionally animated feature film and the first Disney animated feature film. The production was supervised by David Hand, and the film's sequences were directed by Perce Pearce, William Cottrell, Larry Morey, Wilfred Jackson, and Ben Sharpsteen.

Snow White premiered at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California on December 21, 1937. Despite initial doubts from the film industry, it was a critical and commercial success and, with international earnings of more than $8 million during its initial release (compared to its $1.5 million budget), it briefly held the record of highest-grossing sound film at the time. The popularity of the film has led to its being re-released theatrically many times, until its home video release in the 1990s. Adjusted for inflation, it is one of the top-ten performers at the North American box office and the highest-grossing animated film. Worldwide, its inflation-adjusted earnings top the animation list.[3]

Snow White was nominated for Best Musical Score at the Academy Awards in 1938, and the next year, producer Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar for the film. This award was unique, consisting of one normal-sized, plus seven miniature Oscar statuettes. They were presented to Disney by Shirley Temple.[4]

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry.[5] The American Film Institute ranked it among the 100 greatest American films, and also named the film as the greatest American animated film of all time in 2008. Disney's take on the fairy tale has had a significant cultural effect, resulting in popular theme park attractions, a video game, a Broadway musical, and an upcoming live-action film.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Snow_white_1937_trailer_screenshot_(2).jpg

Mnemonic

The Seven Dwarfs Mnemonic – BiG DDiSSH

(Picture the seven dwarfs all on a big dish with Snow White looking down on them wondering whether or not to eat them)

1. Bashful

2. Grumpy

3. Doc

4. Dopey

5. Sleepy

6. Sneezy

7. Happy

Five Fun Facts

1. Walt Disney himself, acted out all the roles in the story to help the animators.

2. In excess of two million sketches were completed for the film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by 750 artists. This was culled to approximately 250,000 pictures for the movie.

3. Live animals were kept on set by Walt Disney, as live references for the animators.

4. Snow White has been honoured on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a star.

5. Lucille La Verne was the voice of both the queen and the witch. She supposedly achieved her gravelly voice by removing her false teeth.

6. Bonus Fact: Many years after the original movie, a play was made of “Snow White” however, this time there were only six dwarfs … … no one was Happy!