of the studio's income. Up to eighty-eight engagements were outlined across five years, but wartime demands for material limited the number of Fantasound prints to sixteen. All but one of the Fantasound setups were dismantled and given to the war effort. Upon acquiring the film's distribution rights in April 1941, RKO initially continued the roadshow booking policy but presented the film in mono, which was easier to exhibit. The combined average receipts from each roadshow was around $325,000, which placed Fantasia at an even greater loss than Pinocchio. 1942–1963 runs Disney allowed RKO to handle the general release of Fantasia, but fought their decision to have the film cut. He gave in as the studio needed as much income as possible to remedy its finances, but refused to cut it himself, "You can get anybody you want to edit it ... I can't do it." With no input from Disney, musical director Ed Plumb and Ben Sharpsteen reduced Fantasia to one hour and forty minutes at first, then to one hour and twenty minutes by removing most of Taylor's commentary and the Toccata and Fugue. Fantasia was re-released in January 1942 at more popular prices with a mono soundtrack, and was placed on the lower half of double bills with the Western film Valley of the Sun. RKO reissued Fantasia once more on September 1, 1946, with the animated sequences complete and the scenes of Taylor, Stokowski, and the orchestra restored but shortened. Its running time was restored to one hour and fifty-five minutes. This edit would be the standard form for subsequent re-releases, and was the basis for the 1990 restoration. By 1955, the original sound negatives began to deteriorate, though a four-track copy had survived in good condition. Using the remaining Fantasound system at the studio, a three-track stereo copy was transferred across noise-free telephone wires onto magnetic film at an RCA facility in Hollywood. This copy was used when Fantasia was reissued in stereo by Buena Vista Distribution in SuperScope, a derivative of the anamorphic widescreen CinemaScope format, on February 7, 1956. The projector featured an automatic control mechanism designed by Disney engineers that was coupled to a variable anamorphic lens, which allowed the picture to switch between its Academy standard aspect ratio of 1.33:1 to the wide ratio of 2.35:1 in twenty seconds without a break in the film. This was achieved by placing the cues