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Disney Trivia Quiz
Disney's animated films stretch from early classics like Snow White, Cinderella, and The Lion King to modern blockbusters like Frozen, Moana, and Encanto. Together they have given generations a shared library of princesses, heroes, villains, talking sidekicks, and songs people can still sing by heart.
Q1. Which film was Walt Disney Animation Studios' first full-length animated feature?
Answer: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White (1937) was the first hand-drawn animated feature and the first made in the US. It cost $1.4 million, including $100,000 on story development alone, and grossed over $8 million on its first release, briefly making it the highest-grossing film ever until Gone with the Wind.
Q2. Which 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon was Disney's first with synchronized sound?
Answer: Steamboat Willie. Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho were actually the first two Mickey cartoons, previewed silently in summer 1928. The third, Steamboat Willie, got a soundtrack and premiered in New York that November. A scene from it still opens every Disney Animation film as the studio's production logo.
Q3. Which was the first Disney animated film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide?
Answer: Frozen. Frozen (2013), directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, crossed the billion-dollar mark first and also became the studio's first winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, a category that had existed since 2001. Zootopia passed $1 billion later, in 2016.
Q4. Which pop star wrote the songs for The Lion King with lyricist Tim Rice?
Answer: Elton John. Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the songs for the 1994 film, which earned $768 million worldwide, still a record for a traditionally animated film. Phil Collins is the trap answer: he wrote the Tarzan soundtrack in 1999, and Billy Joel voiced a character in Oliver & Company.
Q5. "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" became a chart hit after appearing in which 1933 Disney short?
Answer: Three Little Pigs. Three Little Pigs was a Silly Symphony and a big box-office hit. It came out of a new idea at the studio: Walt Disney had set up a separate story department with dedicated storyboard artists, believing that cartoons needed well-developed characters and an emotional story to grab audiences.
Q6. What did much of the film industry mockingly call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs while it was being made?
Answer: Disney's Folly. When Walt Disney announced a feature-length cartoon in 1934, most of the industry dismissed it as "Disney's Folly". He pressed on, expanded the studio with new artists and graduates, and the film's success paid for the larger studio in Burbank where the Walt Disney Company is still headquartered.
Q7. Which character did Disney lose to Universal in 1928, prompting the creation of Mickey Mouse?
Answer: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Universal owned Oswald, so when Disney refused a lower fee per short, producer Charles Mintz hired away most of the staff to make Oswald cartoons himself. Disney and animator Ub Iwerks secretly developed Mickey in response. Disney only got Oswald back in 2006.
Q8. Which 1932 Silly Symphony was the first film commercially released in full three-strip Technicolor?
Answer: Flowers and Trees. Disney signed a two-year exclusive deal with Technicolor for its new three-strip process, which reproduced a much fuller range of colour. Flowers and Trees was a hit, and every Silly Symphony after it was made in colour. The Skeleton Dance, from 1929, was the series' first entry.
Q9. Which was Disney's first widescreen animated feature, shot in CinemaScope?
Answer: Lady and the Tramp. Lady and the Tramp (1955) was also the first Disney feature released by the company's own distributor, Buena Vista. It did better at the box office than any Disney cartoon since Snow White, earning an estimated $6.5 million in North American rentals that year.
Q10. After years of wartime anthology films, which 1950 release did the studio's future reportedly depend on?
Answer: Cinderella. Cinderella cost nearly $3 million at a time when the studio was struggling. Its success funded a decade of features and restarted Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp, which had been shelved during the war. Alice, released in 1951, then disappointed critics and audiences.
Q11. Which was the first animated film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture?
Answer: Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast (1991) received six nominations, including Best Picture, and won for its song and score. It had started production in London before being moved to Burbank and reworked as a musical. Lyricist Howard Ashman died before it was finished.
Q12. Which songwriting team wrote the music for The Little Mermaid (1989)?
Answer: Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The Broadway writers' score won two Oscars and set the musical template for the Disney Renaissance. Every other pairing also worked for Disney: Rice and John on The Lion King, Menken and Schwartz on Pocahontas, and the Lopezes on Frozen.
Q13. Which was the studio's first fully computer-animated feature?
Answer: Chicken Little. Chicken Little (2005) earned $315 million but got poor reviews. Dinosaur (2000) is the trap answer: it put CGI creatures on filmed live-action backgrounds and came from a separate unit, The Secret Lab. Meet the Robinsons (2007) was the studio's second all-CGI film.
Q14. Which 1961 film popularized xerography, which transferred animators' drawings straight onto cels instead of tracing them?
Answer: One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Xerography gave Disney films a scratchier line that kept the animators' construction lines visible, a look that lasted into the 1980s. It also saved money after the expensive Sleeping Beauty (1959) led to the studio's first annual loss in a decade and big layoffs.
Q15. Which was the last film project approved by Walt Disney himself?
Answer: The Aristocats. Walt Disney died in December 1966, ten months before The Jungle Book came out, but The Aristocats (1970) was the last project he signed off on. Under director Wolfgang Reitherman, the villains of this period became more comic than frightening.
Q16. Which young Disney animator was fired in 1983 for pushing the studio towards computer animation?
Answer: John Lasseter. Lasseter went on to lead Pixar creatively and direct Toy Story. When Disney bought Pixar in 2006 he returned as chief creative officer of Disney's own animation studio. Burton and Bird were also let go in the 1980s, while Bluth left by choice in 1979 to start a rival studio.
Q17. Which $44 million 1985 film is described as the studio's "rock bottom"?
Answer: The Black Cauldron. Adapted from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain novels, it was the studio's most expensive animated film at the time but took only $21 million. New CEO Michael Eisner seriously considered closing feature animation until Roy E. Disney offered to run it and turn it around.
Q18. The Emperor's New Groove began as a musical epic under which title?
Answer: Kingdom of the Sun. Halfway through production it was cut down to a smaller comedy and released in 2000. The other options are real Disney working titles too: Sweating Bullets became Home on the Range, American Dog became Bolt, and The Snow Queen became Frozen.
Q19. Which 2012 short won Disney its first Oscar for an animated short in 44 years?
Answer: Paperman. Paperman ran in cinemas before Wreck-It Ralph. Director John Kahrs used in-house software called Meander to blend hand-drawn and computer animation in the same character. Feast won the same award two years later, playing before Big Hero 6.
Q20. Which film was the first produced mainly at Disney's satellite studio in Florida?
Answer: Mulan. The Florida unit opened in 1989 inside the Disney-MGM Studios park, where visitors could watch animators at work. Mulan (1998) earned $305 million. Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear were made there later, before Disney closed the studio in January 2004.
Disney quiz answers and explanations
Every question from the quiz above with its correct answer, the story behind it, and where the fact comes from.
-
Which film was Walt Disney Animation Studios' first full-length animated feature?
Answer: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White (1937) was the first hand-drawn animated feature and the first made in the US. It cost $1.4 million, including $100,000 on story development alone, and grossed over $8 million on its first release, briefly making it the highest-grossing film ever until Gone with the Wind.
-
Which 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon was Disney's first with synchronized sound?
Answer: Steamboat Willie. Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho were actually the first two Mickey cartoons, previewed silently in summer 1928. The third, Steamboat Willie, got a soundtrack and premiered in New York that November. A scene from it still opens every Disney Animation film as the studio's production logo.
-
Which was the first Disney animated film to earn more than $1 billion worldwide?
Answer: Frozen. Frozen (2013), directed by Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, crossed the billion-dollar mark first and also became the studio's first winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, a category that had existed since 2001. Zootopia passed $1 billion later, in 2016.
-
Which pop star wrote the songs for The Lion King with lyricist Tim Rice?
Answer: Elton John. Elton John and Tim Rice wrote the songs for the 1994 film, which earned $768 million worldwide, still a record for a traditionally animated film. Phil Collins is the trap answer: he wrote the Tarzan soundtrack in 1999, and Billy Joel voiced a character in Oliver & Company.
-
"Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" became a chart hit after appearing in which 1933 Disney short?
Answer: Three Little Pigs. Three Little Pigs was a Silly Symphony and a big box-office hit. It came out of a new idea at the studio: Walt Disney had set up a separate story department with dedicated storyboard artists, believing that cartoons needed well-developed characters and an emotional story to grab audiences.
-
What did much of the film industry mockingly call Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs while it was being made?
Answer: Disney's Folly. When Walt Disney announced a feature-length cartoon in 1934, most of the industry dismissed it as "Disney's Folly". He pressed on, expanded the studio with new artists and graduates, and the film's success paid for the larger studio in Burbank where the Walt Disney Company is still headquartered.
-
Which character did Disney lose to Universal in 1928, prompting the creation of Mickey Mouse?
Answer: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Universal owned Oswald, so when Disney refused a lower fee per short, producer Charles Mintz hired away most of the staff to make Oswald cartoons himself. Disney and animator Ub Iwerks secretly developed Mickey in response. Disney only got Oswald back in 2006.
-
Which 1932 Silly Symphony was the first film commercially released in full three-strip Technicolor?
Answer: Flowers and Trees. Disney signed a two-year exclusive deal with Technicolor for its new three-strip process, which reproduced a much fuller range of colour. Flowers and Trees was a hit, and every Silly Symphony after it was made in colour. The Skeleton Dance, from 1929, was the series' first entry.
-
Which was Disney's first widescreen animated feature, shot in CinemaScope?
Answer: Lady and the Tramp. Lady and the Tramp (1955) was also the first Disney feature released by the company's own distributor, Buena Vista. It did better at the box office than any Disney cartoon since Snow White, earning an estimated $6.5 million in North American rentals that year.
-
After years of wartime anthology films, which 1950 release did the studio's future reportedly depend on?
Answer: Cinderella. Cinderella cost nearly $3 million at a time when the studio was struggling. Its success funded a decade of features and restarted Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp, which had been shelved during the war. Alice, released in 1951, then disappointed critics and audiences.
-
Which was the first animated film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture?
Answer: Beauty and the Beast. Beauty and the Beast (1991) received six nominations, including Best Picture, and won for its song and score. It had started production in London before being moved to Burbank and reworked as a musical. Lyricist Howard Ashman died before it was finished.
-
Which songwriting team wrote the music for The Little Mermaid (1989)?
Answer: Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The Broadway writers' score won two Oscars and set the musical template for the Disney Renaissance. Every other pairing also worked for Disney: Rice and John on The Lion King, Menken and Schwartz on Pocahontas, and the Lopezes on Frozen.
-
Which was the studio's first fully computer-animated feature?
Answer: Chicken Little. Chicken Little (2005) earned $315 million but got poor reviews. Dinosaur (2000) is the trap answer: it put CGI creatures on filmed live-action backgrounds and came from a separate unit, The Secret Lab. Meet the Robinsons (2007) was the studio's second all-CGI film.
-
Which 1961 film popularized xerography, which transferred animators' drawings straight onto cels instead of tracing them?
Answer: One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Xerography gave Disney films a scratchier line that kept the animators' construction lines visible, a look that lasted into the 1980s. It also saved money after the expensive Sleeping Beauty (1959) led to the studio's first annual loss in a decade and big layoffs.
-
Which was the last film project approved by Walt Disney himself?
Answer: The Aristocats. Walt Disney died in December 1966, ten months before The Jungle Book came out, but The Aristocats (1970) was the last project he signed off on. Under director Wolfgang Reitherman, the villains of this period became more comic than frightening.
-
Which young Disney animator was fired in 1983 for pushing the studio towards computer animation?
Answer: John Lasseter. Lasseter went on to lead Pixar creatively and direct Toy Story. When Disney bought Pixar in 2006 he returned as chief creative officer of Disney's own animation studio. Burton and Bird were also let go in the 1980s, while Bluth left by choice in 1979 to start a rival studio.
-
Which $44 million 1985 film is described as the studio's "rock bottom"?
Answer: The Black Cauldron. Adapted from Lloyd Alexander's Prydain novels, it was the studio's most expensive animated film at the time but took only $21 million. New CEO Michael Eisner seriously considered closing feature animation until Roy E. Disney offered to run it and turn it around.
-
The Emperor's New Groove began as a musical epic under which title?
Answer: Kingdom of the Sun. Halfway through production it was cut down to a smaller comedy and released in 2000. The other options are real Disney working titles too: Sweating Bullets became Home on the Range, American Dog became Bolt, and The Snow Queen became Frozen.
-
Which 2012 short won Disney its first Oscar for an animated short in 44 years?
Answer: Paperman. Paperman ran in cinemas before Wreck-It Ralph. Director John Kahrs used in-house software called Meander to blend hand-drawn and computer animation in the same character. Feast won the same award two years later, playing before Big Hero 6.
-
Which film was the first produced mainly at Disney's satellite studio in Florida?
Answer: Mulan. The Florida unit opened in 1989 inside the Disney-MGM Studios park, where visitors could watch animators at work. Mulan (1998) earned $305 million. Lilo & Stitch and Brother Bear were made there later, before Disney closed the studio in January 2004.
Disney by the numbers
- Founded
- 16 October 1923
- Original name
- Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio
- Feature films
- 64 (to Zootopia 2, 2025)
- First feature
- Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
- Snow White budget
- $1.4 million
- Pixar bought
- 2006, for $7.4 billion
- Latest hand-drawn feature
- Winnie the Pooh (2011)
- Headquarters
- Burbank, California
About the Disney quiz
Most Disney quizzes ask you to match princesses to films. The studio's own history is the better test. It began with a cartoon rabbit it lost to a rival, bet everything on a feature film the industry laughed at, nearly closed in the 1980s and then reinvented itself twice, once with Broadway-style musicals and once with computer animation. Fans who know every song may still not know how close many of those films came to never being made.
Questions cover the animated catalogue — classic films and modern hits, the princesses and their stories, famous villains, comic sidekicks, and the music everyone knows.
What this Disney quiz covers
This quiz is about Walt Disney Animation Studios, the hundred-year-old studio behind Snow White, The Lion King and Frozen, and it focuses on how the films got made as much as on what is in them. You will meet the cartoon Disney lost before Mickey existed, the film the industry called a folly, the near-collapse of the 1980s, the working titles that never made it to the poster, and the people hired, fired and rehired along the way. Each answer in the key below explains the story behind it and names its source.
How to play
Tap an answer to see the right one straight away, with the story behind it, and check your score at the end. Play Again resets the quiz.
Disney quiz — frequently asked questions
Does this include Pixar films?
No. Pixar is a separate studio, so its films are not quizzed. It still turns up in the story, because a former Disney animator went on to lead it and Disney bought it in 2006.
Do I need to have seen every Disney film?
No. The easy questions cover the films almost everyone knows. The later ones are about the studio itself, such as its business decisions, working titles and staff, so a curious fan can often reason them out.
How far back does it go?
Right back to the 1920s and the silent shorts that came before Mickey Mouse, and forward to the computer-animated era of Frozen and Zootopia.