Actualités

Since its release 60 years ago this week (on June 22, 1955), "Lady and the Tramp" has been not just one of the most beloved Disney animated features ever made, but also one of the great romances in screen history.

Still, as often as you've seen it, there's still plenty you may not know about how the canine classic came to be, So grab a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and chow down on 19 of "Lady"'s behind-the-scenes dish.

1. It took nearly 20 years to get the film made. The main character originated in sketches made by Disney animator Joe Grant in 1937, based on his own spaniel, whose name was Lady. Grant envisioned a short cartoon about a dog who's puzzled by the arrival of his masters' newborn baby.

2. By 1940, Walt Disney had imagined expanding the short into a feature and adding a dog-hating housesitter, two mischievous Siamese cats (then named Nip and Tuck), and a suitor for Lady,...

Like many children of the early 1980s, many of my afternoons were spent watching Smurfs, those little blue creatures which sprung from the mind of Peyo. I can still hear that "La la la la la la (repeat)" verse in my head to this day. I can't help it. Smurfs were an indelible part of my childhood, and, thanks to the magic of CGI and the wizards at Sony Pictures Animation, The Smurfs are coming to life once again, with a new 3D adventure hitting theaters on July 29. A few weeks ago, I headed down to the Sony Pictures Animation studios to catch an early glimpse of some footage from The Smurfs, and talk to some of the folks who brought this new CGI/live-action hybrid to life.

We kicked off this smurfy day with a footage presentation, which included the first five minutes or so of the movie. They...

Films such as Snow White and Pinocchio marked Disney’s golden age. But Mark argues that the animation that came in the decades after was just as good…

Animators, on the whole, are generally in awe of much of the work that Disney animators created during their classic thirties and forties period. Their adulation mostly stems from the attention to detail that was applied to these productions, the time available to work and rework the drawings, and the revolutionary knowledge they acquired in creating those iconic works.

But deep down, they also know that, as amazing as the likes of Dumbo and Pinocchio were and still are, producing films of that visual density using just pencil, ink, acetate and acrylic paint wasn't very practical then, and it certainly isn't now.

It's been said by a number of movie experts that, if Walt had any idea how much time, effort and...