The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Colorado, and within Mesa County, and especially in the city of Grand Junction people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Grand Junction.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Grand Junction is known for cartoons such as Cars, Ratatouilli and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Grand Junction being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 Grand Junction 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 1920s

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 Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Grand Junction and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, released 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 Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Grand Junction residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt 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 animated feature in English and Technicolor.

A lot of training and development went into the production 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 Grand Junction - but we're not sure.

What Grand Junction 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 Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid 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 Grand Junction viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Grand Junction and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.

Also in the 1940s, 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 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 The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Grand Junction movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Grand Junction also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Grand Junction could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Jim Dear.