The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Florida, and within Polk County, and especially in the city of Mulberry people have enjoyed Disney animated movies 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 animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Mulberry. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Mulberry is known for cartoons such as Cars, Ratatouilli and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has created 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 Dopey and its most recent release in Mulberry being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf 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 Mulberry 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 20s
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 Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Mulberry and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 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 Fiddler Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Mulberry residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
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 Mulberry - but we're not sure.
What Mulberry 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 Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental animated film produced 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 Mulberry viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Mulberry and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Mulberry movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse. Parents in Mulberry also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Mulberry could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Jim Dear.
