The very first time I had ever heard anyone use the term to the “Disney Mountain Range,” referring to Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and Splash Mountain, was when Shawn Slater was giving a special tour he had created for cast members at the Magic Kingdom at the Walt Disney World Resort.
Slater and his lovely wife Laurel are wonderfully knowledgeable and passionate about Disney, and I was fortunate to be a guest on several of their informative presentations. While he no longer blogs, he has left up his old posts about locations in the Disney theme parks and they are well worth reading.
Years later, in 2007, Imagineer Jason Surrell wrote an enjoyable book titled The Disney Mountains: Imagineering At Its Peak that covered “mountains” in the Disney theme parks worldwide, and was filled with concept art and interesting facts.
More than 15 years ago, it was rumored (from an article in the Orlando Business Journal) that Walt Disney World would be getting a new roller coaster called Fire Mountain, perhaps in Adventureland. One version was that the ride vehicle’s bottom would separate from the rider when the volcano erupted, leaving guests dangling in a harness for the rest of the ride.
Another description at the time stated that the attraction would start out with riders standing up and then it would lean back completely horizontal, turn 180 degrees, and would fly guests over a pit of bubbling lava at the center of a volcano.
During the same time period, it was also rumored that Walt Disney World would be getting a Villains Mountain attraction at the Magic Kingdom (on the former location of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction) where guests would have been taken through Bald Mountain. Inside, evil Disney villains were meeting to take over the Magic Kingdom and arguing over who was the best villain to be put in charge. Once the presence of the guests was detected, there would be a hair-raising escape culminating in a plunge down the outside of the mountain.
During the planning, it was never decided whether the attraction should be a roller coaster or a log flume ride. When discussions arose about having a separate Disney villain theme park (Dark Kingdom) or a section of the Magic Kingdom devoted specifically to Disney villains (Shadowlands), the development of the attraction was put on hiatus until those discussions were resolved.
I have always regretted that the two magical mountains, Bald Mountain and Mount Olympus, showcased in the Disney animated feature, Fantasia (1940) were never brought to three-dimensional life in any of the Disney theme parks.
Let me adjust my artist’s beret for a moment and dust off my art background so we can take a look at just these two mountains by themselves and their illustrative impact to their individual segments in the final film.
Majestic mountains thrust themselves upwards from the flat plains surrounding their base. Their craggy, barren peaks pierce the heavens like fingers reaching for the stars.
At the highest levels, it is a different world often devoid of vegetation in the rarified air as well as often unfriendly and dangerous to common people who seek to discover its secrets.
Towering like silent monarchs over the day-to-day activities at their foundation, mountains are mysterious and magical. For countless ages, people have gazed skyward at the tops at those upper regions in the firmament and conjured visions of gods and monsters.
Two of the most famous mystical mountains appear in segments in the Disney animated classic, Fantasia.
Mighty Mount Olympus set in a serene and colorful forest is in stark contrast to the dark and terrifying Bald Mountain with its sharp, angular face hovering menacingly over a nearby sleeping town.
“Night on Bald Mountain” recounts the tale of an immense dark demon who awakens on Walpurgis Night to summon a bevy of supernatural spirits from the local graveyard. This living horror also invokes harpies, witches, strange beasts and other unholy beings to join the fearful ceremony.
All these horrible creatures gather on Bald Mountain to pay homage to the huge winged devil who toys and tortures them in the fiery gorges and the rough hewn rock strata of the forbidden mountain. His evil reign of terror is only ended by the sounds of church bells and the singing of a holy choir that accompany the dawn.
“Night on Bald Mountain” is a musical composition by Modest Mussorgsky that is most familiar for its re-orchestration by Rimsky Korsakov in 1886. Leopold Stokowski did his own arrangement of the piece utilizing elements from both of the previous composers for the film Fantasia. All versions were meant to depict a witches’ sabbath held at a foreboding mountain peak.
The word “bald” comes from a literal translation of the original Russian word that was used to indicate that the mountain was barren of trees. Some performances have referred to the piece as “Night on Bare Mountain” instead, which is an alternative translation.
Mussorgsky was inspired by Slavonic mythology of a horned demon named Chernobog. The adjective “cherny” means “black” or “dark” and the word “bog” roughly translates as “god.”
So, Chernobog was a dark god who dwelt on a terrifyingly high mountain and who might actually be merely concealed during the daylight as part of that deadly mountain itself.
When animation historian John Culhane asked animator Bill Tytla, who animated the villainous character, what was going through his mind when he created this classic sequence, Tytla replied, “I imagined I was a mountain, you see, and made of stone. But, I could think and feel and move….and I did.”
Tytla’s forceful sketches made audiences believe that the malignant monster was a natural extension of the rocky mountaintop with the same unyielding elemental strength to devastate anything in its way.
The enormous, heavily veined black wings of Chernobog are easily mistaken for the highest point of Bald Mountain when they are wrapped securely around the evil fire-eyed monster as they are at both the beginning and end of the sequence. The crafty Chernobog is always there, but has merely blended back into the outline of the hilly design.
Bald Mountain was inspired by a real life counterpart, Mount Triglav, meaning “three-headed.” Mount Triglav is the highest mountain in Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia) and the highest peak of the Julian Alps.
The name does not come from the topography of its summit, but from the fact that the ancient people of the region felt the massive rock outcropping was the connection between the three elements of the sky, the earth and the underworld. That belief made it a perfect location for supernatural ceremonies.
“Walt wanted this mountain sequence to give audiences the chills…being drawn into an atmosphere of unease and terror and evil,” revealed film historian Leonard Maltin.
However, the primary design for the entire sequence including both the characters as well as the backgrounds were the work of well known artist Kay Nielsen.
Chernabog's evil reign of terror on Bald Mountain is only ended by the sounds of church bells and the singing of a holy choir that accompany the dawn.
“The sequence retains the integrity of Kay Nielsen’s work from his sensuous line; the lush coloring he had; and bits of Aubrey Beardsley, Art Nouveau, and Japanese and Chinese woodcuts. It is retained particularly in the designs of the backgrounds like the mountain,” said animation historian John Canemaker.
Kay Nielsen was a Danish illustrator who was as popular and successful in the early 20th century as artists like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac. His masterpiece is usually considered to be his 25 watercolor paintings for the book East of the Sun and West of the Moon composed of 15 Nordic tales.
By 1939, he was working at the Disney Studios, providing concept artwork for “Night on Bald Mountain” and the “Ave Maria” sequences. He also supplied some designs for a Fantasia sequel and for a proposed The Little Mermaid animated feature that were never produced during his lifetime.
Animation historian John Culhane reinforced, “Nielsen provides a real sense of place to the whole thing.”
Unlike the jagged, angular stone of Bald Mountain, fabled Mount Olympus in the “Pastoral Symphony” sequence is a tranquil icon with its neatly trimmed lush landscaping and tall flowing waterfalls skipping down the different levels.
The “Pastoral Symphony” presents a story accompanied by Ludwig Van Beethoven’s “Sixth Symphony” first performed in 1808. Originally, Beethoven’s composition was meant to capture the feeling of simple peasants celebrating in the local countryside on a pleasant afternoon.
The Disney artists had designed Greek mythological characters to accompany another piece of music, Pierne’s composition “Cydalise.” However, while Walt loved the character designs and story ideas, he came to feel that this musical composition was no longer appropriate for the larger story he wanted to tell.
In a story meeting, Walt said, “The material is so good that we should find music to fit the things we have in mind here.” Three months later, the Beethoven selection was approved to be used for the fanciful tale of the denizens who lived near Mount Olympus.
In an August 1939 story meeting, Walt stated, “The pastoral idea is there, except we are doing it with mythological characters. We are doing it with a fantastic setting—Mount Olympus. This makes the whole thing impossible to stage. We don't want to follow anything that might have been done on the stage. We want to pick something in our medium. We don't get too serious, because I don't feel anything really serious. I feel it is in a light vein.”
Mount Olympus is a real mountain with 52 individual peaks. It is the highest mountain in Greece, located between Thessaly and Macedonia. The highest peak that rises 9,577 feet in the air is named Mytikas that translates to the “throne of Zeus.”
According to Greek Mythology, Mount Olympus was the home of the 12 principal gods of the Hellenistic world led by the all-powerful Zeus. It was very natural for the ancient people of this region to imagine that these powerful Olympians all lived together high above the clouds that surrounded the uppermost spires of the unexplored mountain.
The majority of the action in the “Pastoral Symphony” takes place in the brightly colored Elysian Fields at the foot of Mount Olympus. The dignified mountain is an ever present mute guardian of this serene countryside.
Mighty Mount Olympus set in a serene and colorful forest is in stark contrast to the dark and terrifying Bald Mountain with its sharp, angular face hovering menacingly over a nearby sleeping town.
At the beginning of the sequence, Mount Olympus fills the screen with its smooth, rounded curves. Its unusual royal purple coloring contrasts starkly with the reddish-orange sky in the background.
While decades of audiences have accepted that color choice as the obvious perfect selection for that iconic mountain in the early morning light, it was actually the result of a happy accident.
According to Disney legend, frustrated in his search for a new and different color for a layout from Hugh Hennessy for the Greek mythological world, background painter Ray Huffine sulked in his room during his lunch hour. He had tried vainly everything he had on his artist’s palette but nothing could quite capture the instant allure of Mt. Olympus that would only be seen briefly at the beginning of the sequence.
He opened his home-packed lunch from his wife and discovered among other things, a small jar of Mrs. Huffine’s best boysenberry jam. Surprised and inspired, he opened the jar and laid a very light boysenberry wash over the background.
He was delighted at the results of obtaining an out of the ordinary but perfect purplish hue. Years later, the memory of that discovery still brought a smile to his face as he realized that audiences never suspected that the marvel of Mount Olympus was enhanced by his wife’s boysenberry jam.
While happy centaurs, unicorns, satyrs and peagsuses (or is it “peagusi”?) frolic gleefully in the valley below enjoying their revels, an amused Zeus pulls aside the clouds surrounding his home high atop Mount Olympus to observe the festivities.
For reasons unknown, perhaps simple boredom or just maliciousness to remind people of his power, this Greek god feels it would be good fun to pull a prank of sending a rainstorm to ruin this afternoon party. Not content with just dampening everyone’s spirits, Zeus has the blacksmith of the gods, Vulcan, forge giant thunderbolts in his workshop in the Mount Olympus clouds.
Even hurling these electrical spears quickly bores Zeus who snuggles down in the fluffy clouds of Mount Olympus. The Greek god kicks off his sandals and pulls a billowy cumulonimbus over him as if it were a cozy blanket as he drifts off to sleep.
However, Mount Olympus is the home for many other deities as well. Before Morpheus, the god of sleep, brings the blessing of rest to the mythological creatures down below, as well, audiences glimpsed appearances by other residents of Mount Olympus.
Apollo, the god of the sun, rides his fiery chariot pulled by three great horses, and waves goodbye to the merrymakers as the day ends. Diana, goddess of the moon, shoots a comet from her famous bow across the skies and scatters stars throughout the night.
It is a delightful, gentle ending to this sequence.
Even today, men struggle against nearly impossible odds to scale the highest mountains to capture some of that same mythological magic that awed their ancestors who believed such places were the homes of gods and demons.
In Fantasia, two fanciful mountains of legend were brought to life in brilliant colors and intricate designs by the talented Disney artists for the first time in a classic animated feature so that everyone could enjoy that same experience.
For all you aspiring Imagineers reading this column, I am sure you have several ideas how these magical mountains might inspire some interesting attractions for the Disney Parks.
