Gold Statues and Poison Apples

This year's Academy Awards were a golden event for Disney. In case you missed them, the Oscars were packed full of fun and entertaining song and dance numbers, jokes from first time host Seth McFarlane, and even some acceptance speeches cut off by the classic "Jaws" theme. This year, Disney won the Best Animated Feature Film award with Pixar's "Brave," and Best Animated Short Film with "Paperman."

Now let's rewind a couple decades...

In 1932, Walt Disney won his first Oscar for the Silly Symphonies cartoon, "Flowers and Trees." Throughout Walt's career as an animator and director, he won 21 more competitive Oscars. Currently, Walt holds the record for receiving the most amount of Academy Awards competitively (22) and non-competitively (26). In 1938, Walt Disney was awarded a special Academy Award for his achievement of his first animated feature film, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs." This statue was presented to Walt by Shirley Temple and had seven smaller "dwarf" statues attached to the regular Oscar statue, shown below.

Disney's legacy and quality film making continues today with Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios. Pixar has won 11 Academy Awards, including the very first Best Animated Feature Film category's award for "Monster's Inc." in 2001. Walt Disney Animation Studios has produced Oscar nominated films, "Sleeping Beauty," "The Lion King," The Princess and the Frog," and "Wreck-it-Ralph." In 1992, Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, making it the first ever animated film to be nominated in this category. "Beauty and the Beast" held that honor until 2009 when Pixar's "Up" was nominated for Best Picture as well.

Walt Disney's 26 Academy Award statues are on display at the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, California. There, you can see a special exhibit called "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: The Creation of a Classic" and learn how Walt's first animated feature was made into the successful film remains to be today. {Just don't take any apples from strangers while your there}.

Check out the link.here to visit the Walt Disney Family Museum's page on their Snow White exhibit.

Thanks for reading and have a magical day!

An 8-Bit Day in London Town

Earlier this year, Disney transformed London's Brick Lane into "8 Bit Lane," inspired by Disney's latest animated classic, "Wreck-It-Ralph." 8 Bit Lane, the world's first pixelated street, ran from January 11-13 last month at Truman Brewery on London's Brick Lane. Disney had artists build 8-bit sculptures and then scattered those sculptures all around for people to see and talk about.

This guerrilla marketing technique by Disney didn't allow for much interaction between people and the exhibit, but it definitely got people to talk. Disney hung a large banner (seen above) with a picture of Wreck-It-Ralph himself, along with the #8BITLANE hashtag to encourage people to talk about the 8-bit street on social media sites such as Twitter.  Disney definitely created a buzz about the movie in the U.K. where the release date was February 8, a month after the street campaign launched. 

I think this street campaign was a great idea for Disney. The sculptures ranged from things like a dog, birds, and even clouds, creating a truly 8-bit street for people to walk through. Take a look at the video below to see the street exhibit for yourself!