`FANTASIA' MARKS ANNIVERSARY WITH VIDEO

What many critics consider as Walt Disney Studio's greatest animated creation, "Fantasia," went on sale this week at Cape Girardeau music and video stores.

This year marks the golden anniversary of the premiere of "Fantasia." The full-length cartoon premiered on Nov. 30, 1940, at the Broadway Theater in New York City. That was the same theater, previously known as the Colony, where Mickey Mouse made his cartoon debut in "Steamboat Willie" 12 years earlier.

The November home video release coincides with an earlier theatrical release of the film classic. When it was first released, 51 years ago, the full-length feature was considered a breakthrough in animation.

Although the official release date of the 120-minute cassette is Friday, stores have been selling the video tape since Tuesday as authorized by the Disney company, a spokesman for a local retail music store said Wednesday.

An informal survey of local stores already selling the video showed the price for the video cassette ranged from $15.99 to $22.95. It has a suggested retail price of $24.99.

Spokespersons at those stores that did not have the video on sale Wednesday said they would have them by Friday. Spokespersons at local video-rental stores said they have received copies of the video, and will begin renting them immediately.

Even before its release, "Fantasia" broke previous retail sales records, according to Disney spokesman Steve Feldstein.

As of mid-October, the Disney company had pre-booked 9 million units of the standard version ($24.99), and a record 250,000 Deluxe Editions, costing $99.99 each. In addition, the laser disc release of "Fantasia" has broken all previous sales records with orders for 135,000 standard versions ($39.99) and 65,000 Deluxe Editions ($99.99), for a total of 200,000 units.

The Deluxe video edition features the "Fantasia" cassette plus an additional videocassette program entitled "The Making of a Masterpiece" that includes footage of Walt Disney speaking about the film. The edition also contains a 16-page commemorative book, and a double-compact-disc original soundtrack of the movie.

"Combining all orders and formats, `Fantasia' represents the highest gross retail value ever on pre-book," said Feldstein. "The pre-book record also reflects an unprecedented amount of consumer pre-orders at the retail level, confirming that this film has already become one of the most desired video collectibles ever, even before hitting the street."

Retailers said one reason for the widespread interest in "Fantasia" is because it's the first time the feature-length movie has ever been released to the home video market.

Another reason is that Disney officials have said this will be the only time the original "Fantasia" will be released on home video. The 50-day release period (Nov. 1 through Jan. 13) is even shorter than previous Disney classics on video, including "The Little Mermaid," "Peter Pan," "Bambi," and "Cinderella."

Once retail inventories of the film are gone, it will not be available to re-order from Walt Disney Home Video, nor will it be released again, a Disney official said. That's because production of "Fantasia Continued," a sequel to the 1940 release, is under way at the Disney studios in Burbank, Calif. It is scheduled to be released for theatrical showing in 1996 or 1997.

The unusual interest in "Fantasia" may account for the theft last week of 48,000 copies of the videocassette from a videotape distributor in Wayne, Mich., a suburb of Detroit.

The FBI said the tapes, valued at $1.7 million, were on a trailer bound for Cincinnati. A $50,000 reward has been offered.

The original "Fantasia" took three years to complete and used the talents of 1,000 artists and technicians at the Disney studios. Ironically, the movie that started out as a 10-minute animated "special" to give new life to the career of Mickey Mouse evolved into an expensive "concert feature" with a final price tag of $2.28 million.

Feldstein said the concept for "Fantasia" goes back as far as 1929, when Walt Disney created his series of "Silly Symphony" cartoons to experiment with the role music could play in animation.

A chance meeting in 1937 at a Beverly Hills restaurant between Walt Disney and famed conductor Leopold Stokowski of the Philadelphia Orchestra was the catalyst that led to the creation of "Fantasia."

It was Stokowski who gave the feature film its name, which is a musical term for a composition in a fanciful or irregular form or style.

The film was distinct among other Disney productions in that it did not have dialogue or a plot line. It is eight vignettes - stories told visually with just a bit of narration - set to pieces of well-known classical music.

The most famous is the one in which Mickey Mouse portray's a sorcerer's apprentice who makes brooms come to life and fetch pails of water, flooding the castle in which he is practicing his amateur magic. The music for the piece is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Paul Dukas. Other familiar pieces of classical music in "Fantasia" include Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor," Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite," Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony," and Moussorgsky's "Bewitching Night on Bald Mountain."

Feldstein said the goal of Disney "was to create music you could see and pictures you could hear."

From a technological standpoint, "Fantasia" was also a first. It was the first motion picture to use an early version of stereophonic sound.

Feldstein said the complex, $1.5 million restoration of "Fantasia" for its theatrical re-release, and first-ever home video release, was completed over a two-year period, utilizing the latest technology and the talents and experience of the leading experts in the field.

Following the original 1940 release of "Fantasia," Walt Disney remarked, "I can never build another `Fantasia.' I can improve. I can elaborate. That's all."