The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Connecticut, and within McLeod County, and especially in the city of Cedar Mills 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 animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Cedar Mills. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Cedar Mills is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Ratatouilli and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Cedar Mills being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans 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 Cedar Mills 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when 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 Cedar Mills and the United States. 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 1st full-color cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a tremendous 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 hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Cedar Mills residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development 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 Cedar Mills - but we're not sure.
What Cedar Mills parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
While working on Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Cedar Mills viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy 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 Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Cedar Mills and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 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 the rerelease 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, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Cedar Mills movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Cedar Mills also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Cedar Mills could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.