Trivia

Once Whoopi Goldberg was inaugurated as a Disney Legend, one of her first requests to the Walt Disney Company was for them to finally release this film to the public and to stop hiding from and being ashamed of their own past.

Owing to the significant and continued controversy surrounding public perception of the film's treatment of slavery (although it is set during post-Civil War Reconstruction in the 1870s, a period in which new systems of labor emerged to take the place of slavery) and the portrayal of its African-American characters, the Disney corporation has been reluctant to reissue the film in the United States, having last been seen legally there in theaters in 1986. The studio did make the film available on video in Europe and Asia, and bootleg copies are frequently derived from them.

After abandoning his studies of pharmacology for financial reasons, James Baskett supported himself as an actor, moving from his home town of Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York City, New York, and joining the company of Bill Robinson, better known as Mr. Bojangles. After achieving moderate success on the stage, Baskett and his family moved to Hollywood where he found work in a couple of films. In 1945, he auditioned for a bit part of voicing a talking butterfly in this film. "I thought that, maybe, they'd try me out to furnish the voice for one of Uncle Remus' animals," Baskett remarked. Upon review of his voice, Walt Disney wanted to meet Baskett personally, and had him tested for the role of Uncle Remus. Not only did Baskett get the part of the butterfly's voice, but also the voice of Br'er Fox and the live-action role of Uncle Remus as well. Additionally, Baskett filled in as the voice of Br'er Rabbit for Johnny Lee in the "Laughing Place" scene after Lee was called away to do promotion for the picture. Disney liked Baskett, and told his sister Ruth [Disney] that Baskett was "the best actor, I believe, to be discovered in years." This was one of the first Hollywood portrayals of a black actor as a non-comic character in a leading role in a film meant for general audiences. Even after the film's release, Disney maintained contact with Baskett, where the two became close friends, like brothers. Disney also campaigned for Baskett to be given an Academy Award for his performance, saying that he had worked "almost wholly without direction" and had devised the characterization of Remus himself. Thanks to Disney's efforts, Baskett won an Honorary Academy Award in 1948. Four months after the Academy Awards ceremony, James Baskett died from heart failure resulting from diabetes. After his death, James' widow, Margaret, wrote a letter to Disney and told him that he had been a "friend indeed and [we] certainly have been in need."

As the Disney company has never released the film on home video in the USA, the film will go into public domain in 2041 and Disney will lose copyright to the film if it does not get it released again, physically in theaters home video or even by streaming for rental and purchase.

On the final day of shooting, animation director Wilfred Jackson discovered that the scene in which Uncle Remus sings the film's signature song, "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah," had not been properly blocked. According to Jackson, "We all sat there in a circle with the dollars running out, and nobody came up with anything. Then Walt suggested that they shoot Baskett in close-up, cover the lights with cardboard save for a sliver of blue sky behind his head, and then remove the cardboard from the lights when he began singing so that he would seem to be entering a bright new world of animation. Like Walt's idea for Bambi on ice in Bambi (1942), it made for one of the most memorable scenes in the film."