The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Arizona, and within Cochise County, and especially in the city of San Simon people have enjoyed Disney animation 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 San Simon. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in San Simon is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, Brave and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in San Simon being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 San Simon 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in San Simon 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 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 huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for San Simon residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy. 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 recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from San Simon - but we're not sure.
What San Simon parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned 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 Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film designed 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 San Simon viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in San Simon and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline and Mrs. Possum.
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 reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. San Simon movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in San Simon also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in San Simon could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Tony.
