The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Alaska, and within Kenai Peninsula Borough County, and especially in the city of Port Graham people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Port Graham. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Port Graham is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Port Graham being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.
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 Port Graham 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.
Older Cartoons in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Port Graham and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, released 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 1st full-color cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a huge success so all the Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. The 1933 Three Little Pigs with character of The Big Bad Wolf and Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Port Graham residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Port Graham - but we're not sure.
What Port Graham parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Port Graham viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Port Graham and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 Goofy 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.
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 Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Port Graham fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Port Graham also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Port Graham could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Aunt Sarah.
