A Trip Through the Walt Disney Studios

A Trip Through the Walt Disney Studios was a documentary made in response to requests from members of RKO Radio Pictures for a behind the scenes look at Walt Disney Studios. The film was never intended for public showing; it was only shown to executives at RKO. However, footage from this documentary was recycled into a shorter featurette, How Walt Disney Cartoons Are Made, which was released to public audiences. It was shot in the first week of July 1937.

The film opens with the Walt Disney Studios sign with Mickey Mouse on it. The camera then pans over to the studio building and parking lot. Before the tour, Walt Disney is at his desk with a snappy outfit with a tie and a boutonniere, with a baby photo of him on the left, and models of the dwarfs on the right and right next to him is lifelong secretary, Dolores Vought.

When you see the legendary animator Fred Moore draw Mickey Mouse, he is using a grease pencil instead of a normal lead pencil, because drawings with thin pencil lines wouldn't photograph well.

Some of the other Disney Studio stalwarts seen in the film include, but are not limited to, Norm Ferguson, Webb Smith, Jack Kinney, Hamilton Luske, James MacDonald, Les Clark, Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline and Oliver Wallace.

The film can be found on the DVD set Walt Disney Treasures: Behind the Scenes at the Walt Disney Studio. It was also present (along with How Walt Disney Cartoons are Made) on the 2001 DVD release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the film being portrayed in the documentary.