The first film released with the multichannel stereo system called Fantasound was Fantasia. Walt Disney’s 1940 animated feature was designed as an immersive marriage of classical music, animation, and experimental cinema sound.
Fantasound was developed by Disney engineers and RCA, with important work by engineers William E. Garity and John N. A. Hawkins. Instead of playing sound through a single speaker behind the screen, the system used separate channels for left, center, and right speakers, plus additional speakers around the auditorium. This created an early form of surround sound.
The soundtrack was recorded using multiple tracks and featured music conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Fantasia opened as a roadshow presentation at New York’s Broadway Theatre on November 13, 1940. Only a small number of theaters received Fantasound because installation was expensive and technically demanding.
A common mix-up is naming “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” the famous Mickey Mouse segment, rather than the feature film itself. Fantasia contained that segment along with seven other animated interpretations of classical music.