The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Connecticut, and within Hennepin County, and especially in the city of Spring Grove people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Spring Grove. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Spring Grove is known for cartoons such as Cars, WALL-E and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Spring Grove 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 Spring Grove 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, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Spring Grove and the U.S.. 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 animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a big 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 huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Spring Grove residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
A lot of 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 Spring Grove - but we're not sure.
What Spring Grove parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse 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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 created 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 Spring Grove viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus 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 seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Spring Grove and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.
Also in the 1940s, 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 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, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Spring Grove movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in Spring Grove also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Spring Grove could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Jim Dear.
