Fantasia Animation Cell Slip and Slide!

In the golden days of Disney animation, original cartoon cels were
given out to studio visitors, fans, and made available for free to
employees. While the studio kept a representative selection for
itself, and virtually all the drawings, notice would go out that cels
from, say, the latest Donald Duck cartoon would be available in Room
such and such on a given day, and people would help themselves.

One of the times I (Peter Adamakos) visited with Frank Thomas, in my
view the greatest of all the animators, he told me a story that you
may not want to read about if you are one of the many collectors of
original animation artwork. We were in the kitchen of his home and he
looked out the window and pointed out the small hill out back. One day
he came home with an armload of original cels, hundreds and hundreds
of them and as usual, gave them to his son, who always appreciated
getting them, though he appreciated them in a very different way than
most did. Not too long later, looking through this window he saw his
son and his friends spread out all the cels on that hill, and as usual
had a great time sliding down this slick little hill in their best
imitation of skiing (or was it surfing?)

Frank said that the cels he had brought home that day were of Mickey
Mouse as The Sorcerer's Apprentice in FANTASIA. He remembered feeling
relieved when they were done, the cels destroyed and put in the trash.
He said he was afraid that Walt Disney would pop over and see what had
been going on. Walt, he said, wouldn't have minded their being used in
this way, but knew he would have winced over it being done with Mickey
cels. Disney's “loyalty” to his creation was well known and much
demonstrated over the years.

Frank chuckled at how the kids destroyed about a quarter of a million
dollars' worth of cels by 1980s s prices in less than an hour.