The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Connecticut, and within McLeod County, and especially in the city of Litchfield people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Litchfield. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Litchfield is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, The Incredibles and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Litchfield being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans 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 Litchfield 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, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced 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 Litchfield 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 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Litchfield residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Litchfield - but we're not sure.
What Litchfield parent would have imagined that 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 Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus . 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 Litchfield viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Litchfield and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Mrs. Possum.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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.
Walt Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Litchfield fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Litchfield also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Litchfield could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Boris.
