The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Florida, and within Palm Beach County, and especially in the city of Glen Ridge people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Glen Ridge. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Glen Ridge is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Glen Ridge being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 Glen Ridge 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 20s
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 added a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Glen Ridge and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 animated film 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 Fiddler Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Glen Ridge residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
Considerable development and training went into the production 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 Glen Ridge - but we're not sure.
What Glen Ridge parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey 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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms . 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 Glen Ridge viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli 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 premiered in Glen Ridge and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Glen Ridge movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in Glen Ridge also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Glen Ridge could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.
