The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Iowa, and within Dubuque County, and especially in the city of Balltown people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Balltown.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Balltown is known for animated movies such as Cars, The Incredibles and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Balltown being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Balltown 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 Cartoons in the 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  History was made when  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 animated film series in Balltown 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 cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a huge 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 success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Balltown residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

A lot of development and training went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Balltown - but we're not sure.

What Balltown parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two 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 characters including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Balltown viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature 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, Honest John and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Balltown and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk 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 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 The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Balltown movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Balltown also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Balltown could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.