The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Florida, and within Lafayette County, and especially in the city of Mayo people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Mayo. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Mayo is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, Brave and Knick Knack.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Mayo being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf 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 Mayo 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 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 third Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Mayo and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 animated film 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Mayo residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and color.
Tremendous development and training 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 Mayo - but we're not sure.
What Mayo parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy 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 and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . 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 Mayo viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Mayo and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl 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 Goofy 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Mayo movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Mayo also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Mayo could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Tony.
