The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Alaska, and within Fairbanks North Star Borough County, and especially in the city of Ester people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Ester.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Ester is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, WALL-E and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Ester being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

The studio's catalog of animated features are among Disney's most notable assets and the stars of its animated shorts—Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto—have gone on to become recognizable figures in Ester popular culture.

Walt Disney Animation Studios continues to produce animated features using both hand-drawn and computer generated imagery techniques. Their 54th feature, Big Hero 6, is currently in production and set for release on November 7, 2014.

Vintage Disney Animation in the 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Ester and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered in 1929 with The Skeleton Dance. Each Silly Symphony was a one-shot cartoon centered around music or a particular theme.

Silly Symphonies

In 1932 the Silly Symphony Flowers and Trees, the first full-color cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a major success so all the Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. The 1933 Three Little Pigs with character of The Big Bad Wolf and Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Ester residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Considerable development and training went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Ester - but we're not sure.

What Ester parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental animated film created to accompanying an orchestral arrangement.  Fantasia also brought about the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Ester viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Ester and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, Walt Disney  released shorts which included Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). The studio also produced two features, Song of the South (1946) and So Dear to My Heart (1948), which were a combination of animated and live-action footage. Shorts production continued during this period as well, with Donald and Pluto cartoons being the main output accompanied by cartoons starring Mickey Mouse, Figaro and in the 1950s, Chip 'n Dale and Humphrey the Bear.

Walt Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Ester movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda.  Parents in Ester also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Ester could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Aunt Sarah.