Disney animation is some of the most beloved in the world and it has been for decades. It also used to be quite labor intensive to illustrate each cell for a feature. Characters would have to be hand drawn in each individual cell, each one just a tiny bit different to give the appearance of actual motion.
The animators would study the natural body motion of real people and integrate that motion into the drawings. To do this they would often use a stick figure at first to make certain that the motion was correct. The stick figures would then be drawn over with their corresponding characters to give us Cinderella dancing at the ball or the band playing in Robin Hood.
Over time the Disney animation teams developed a catalog of these stick animations and they began to reuse them as a means of speeding up production and keeping costs low. Overall these scenes make up a small percentage of the actual films but if you look closely you will be able to see that they are the same.
Some of the most notable examples are Cinderella’s dancing and Belle dancing at the wedding ball in Beauty and the Beast being from the same animation, and Little John and Lady Book. Others include the band from Robin Hood and the band from the Aristicats, Snow White dancing with the dwarves and Maid Marion dancing with the Merry Men, and many others.
This technique helped Disney animation become as famous as it is and created many wonderful memories for people the world over.