The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of California, and within Ventura County people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Ventura County.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Ventura County is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, The Incredibles and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Ventura County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Ventura County 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, 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.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Ventura County 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 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 hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Ventura County residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

Considerable development and training went into the production 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 Ventura County - but we're not sure.

What Ventura County 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 complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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 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, 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 Ventura County viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Ventura County 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 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.

Walt 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 Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Ventura County fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Ventura County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Ventura County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Tony.