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Walt Disney's Fantasia, the classic 1940 James Algar & Samuel Armstrong Walt Disney animated animation cartoon musical fantasy ("Walt Disney's Technicolor Feature Triumph") featuring Mickey Mouse and other cartoon characters created specifically for this feature movie, set to the music of classical composers including Leopold Stokowski, and Beethoven. Note that Fantasia had a very limited roadshow release which took place in several theaters with special audio equipment installed for the "Fantasound" system. This release started in late 1940 and continued into 1941, and these theaters often used home-made displays for the film. Throughout 1941, RKO negotiated with Disney to make a much shorter version of the movie in mono which could be shown in theaters without the need for special equipment. Disney finally agreed, and let RKO create a heavily edited version (he refused to edit it himself) which was released in early January of 1942. Regular posters were printed with a 1941 NSS number (it's not uncommon for films that are released near the start of a year to have a NSS from the previous year), and that is when the film had its first general release. So almost ALL of the known "first release" posters are from the 1942 continuous first release (with 1941 NSS numbers). The only pre-1942 advertising that we have seen are window cards, 8x10 stills and heralds from the theaters with the special "Fantasound" equipment.
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Important Added Info: Note that when this movie was re-released to theaters in 1947, Walt Disney went all out with this elaborate pressbook. It comes in a folder that contains a copy of a letter on a color Fantasia letterhead that theaters could order by the thousands and mail to their customers. It also has a 26-page "special campaign guide" with all sorts of advertising tips, newspaper stories, and ads, and a poster page. The folder also originally contained a souvenir program, but this example does not have one. We suspect that the souvenir program is the exact same one from the first release, because either they had tons leftover or they simply reprinted them. Those souvenir programs are offered regularly, and one could easily get one to replace the one that is not present in this very rare pressbook. Also note that pressbooks were prepared prior to a movie being released. Often, changes would be made in a movie advertising campaign (billing of actors, different images, etc.), and the theaters would print up special supplements that they would send out with the pressbooks that had already been printed. These supplements are very rare, far more rare than the pressbooks themselves! Some pressbooks would have no supplements, some would have one, and some would have several. Also note that we have provided an image of the front and back covers of this pressbook, and of course, the winner of this auction will receive the entire single pressbook we are auctioning (plus any supplements or heralds described above)! Also note that this pressbook is complete and uncut! Given that theater owners purchased pressbooks partly in order to create their newspaper advertising, and quite frequently cut them up for that purpose, it is rare to find a pressbook that IS complete and uncut!

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