Disney's Fantasia premiered with pioneering stereo sound

On November 13, 1940, Walt Disney’s Fantasia opened as a lavish roadshow at the Broadway Theatre in New York, the first commercial film designed around a multichannel sound system. The technology, dubbed Fantasound, was developed by Disney engineers led by William Garity with RCA, and it let Leopold Stokowski’s orchestra surge across the auditorium rather than emanate from one point behind the screen.

The installation was enormous. Speakers were arrayed across the front of the house and out into the seats, fed by music recorded on multiple optical tracks, an approach that pioneered overdubbing and the click track.

It was also impractical. The gear was so costly and bulky that Fantasia premiered in only about 14 theaters, and wartime priorities soon shelved the system entirely.

Disney had essentially invented surround sound three decades before Hollywood adopted it.

The film recouped its costs only years later, but its audio ambitions outlived the box office.