The Disney logo for the 100th anniversary is displayed on stage during CinemaCon 2023 Disney studios presentation at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 26, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)

LONDON - From Mickey Mouse sketches to Cinderella's glass slipper, a new exhibition opening in London on Friday celebrates 100 years of the magical world of Disney.

The Walt Disney Archives has selected an array of art, props and costumes featured in classic animations such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and The Jungle Book as well as more recent live-action productions like Cruella and Beauty and the Beast.

More than 250 items are on display at Disney 100: The Exhibition, which begins with an introduction to animator and producer Walt Disney and his character, Oswald The Lucky Rabbit, said to be a prototype for Mickey Mouse.

This photo released by London's ExCel on its official website shows the exhibtion "Disney 100: The Exhibition" at London's ExCel featuring Olaf from Disney's animated feature film Frozen.

Throughout the exhibition's 10 galleries, visitors can look at props including the carousel horse used by Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins to production models of characters Lumiere and Cogsworth from the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.

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Also featured are sketches and interactive stations, and items from Marvel, Pixar and the Star Wars films, now part of the Disney conglomerate.

This photo released by London's ExCel on its official website shows production models at the exhibtion "Disney 100: The Exhibition" at London's ExCel.

"Most people's first experience of being in a movie theatre is usually a Disney movie and that connects us all in, in a huge, huge way," animator and director Eric Goldberg told Reuters at a press preview of the exhibition on Thursday.

"These characters can remain true and universal for decades," said Goldberg, who has worked on various Disney characters starting with the Genie in the 1992 animated feature Aladdin.

This photo released on the official website of "Disney 100: The Exhibition" shows models of Disney characters on display at London's ExCel.

Bret Iwan, who has voiced the character of Mickey Mouse since 2009, sees no threat of being replaced by artificial intelligence. "Mickey requires such a warmth that I haven't really taken the time to be bothered by it," he said.

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The exhibition at London's ExCel, of which another version will open in Chicago next month, runs as The Walt Disney Company marks 100 years since its founding, considered to be when Walt and his brother Roy Disney signed a contract with New York cartoon distributor Margaret Winkler on Oct 16, 1923.