The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Arkansas, and within Phillips County, and especially in the city of Lexa people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is 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 Lexa.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Lexa is known for cartoons such as Cars, Brave and Day & Night.

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

The studio's catalog of cartoons 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 Lexa 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, was released in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Lexa and the United States.  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 1st full-color animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a tremendous 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 song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Lexa residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

Tremendous development and training went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Lexa - but we're not sure.

What Lexa parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the designers  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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, 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 Lexa 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 movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Lexa and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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 reissuing 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 Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Lexa fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Lexa also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Lexa could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Aunt Sarah.