The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Arkansas, and within Pope County, and especially in the city of Dover people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Dover. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Dover is known for animated movies such as Cars, The Incredibles and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Dover being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Dover 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Dover and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Practical 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 Dover residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous development and training 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 Dover - but we're not sure.
What Dover 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 produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing production 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 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 The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Dover viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Dover and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 Duck 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Dover movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Dover also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Dover could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Boris.
