So, let's start here. What are some icons or iconic elements of classic Disney animation?

Well, of course, there's the image of Mickey Mouse that's an identifying icon of Disney animation,

and beyond that there's a general roundness, or for lack of a better word, cuteness of most Disney characters,

that makes them visually appealing and engaging on the screen.

Think of Dumbo or young Bambi, even the forest creatures in Snow White.

And beyond this, there are other iconic attributes of early Disney animation.

Its level of detail, the inclusion of poses and gestures whose emotional meaning is easy to read on screen,

and the use of squash and stretch to smooth out motion.

But if we were to spin back the wheel of time to inhabit the world of the 1930s and maybe 1940s,

I think we would find one more iconic element of Disney animation

that we tend not to consider today but was central to the studio's identity decades ago.

And it's this, the use of highly saturated, deeply toned colors on the screen.

For many animation studios, this type of color, similar to what

readers would find back then in the Sunday newspaper comics, was always one goal of bringing animated

stories to the screen. There were many companies that experimented with color before Disney animation

filled the screen with its rich

deep tones. This type of color process wasn't even something that Disney itself invented.

It was a process that Disney acquired through a limited exclusive use contract, but even after

the period of exclusivity ended, Disney still worked to identify itself

with a certain presentation of color. The relationship between Disney and color was so strong

that in 1961, when RCA, a company that held patents on color TVs, needed a full color TV show to drive the sales

of new color sets.

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