The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Colorado, and within Douglas County, and especially in the city of Heritage Hills people have enjoyed Disney animation 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 feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Heritage Hills. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Heritage Hills is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Heritage Hills 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 Heritage Hills 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 Cartoons in the 20s
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 added a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Heritage Hills and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 major 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Heritage Hills residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Considerable training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Heritage Hills - but we're not sure.
What Heritage Hills parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators 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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental animated film 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 Heritage Hills viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third 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, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Heritage Hills and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl 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 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.
Walt Disney also began re-releasing 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 Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Heritage Hills movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Heritage Hills also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Heritage Hills could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Jim Dear.
