The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Arkansas, and within Craighead County, and especially in the city of Caraway people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Caraway. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Caraway is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., Ratatouilli and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Caraway 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 Caraway 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 Animation in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Caraway and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a big 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 big box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Caraway residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
A lot of development and training went into the production 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 Caraway - but we're not sure.
What Caraway parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental animated film designed to accompanying an orchestral arrangement. Fantasia also caused the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Caraway viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Caraway and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.
Also in the 1940s, Walt Disney premiered 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 Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Caraway fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse. Parents in Caraway also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Caraway could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Boris.
