The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in West Amana.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in West Amana is known for animated movies such as Up, The Incredibles and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in West Amana being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 West Amana 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 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, 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 added a sound track.  In the end  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in West Amana 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 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 Fifer Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for West Amana residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc 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 West Amana - but we're not sure.

What West Amana parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey 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 animators  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, 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 Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus .  It was an experimental animated film created 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 West Amana viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third 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 The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in West Amana and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk 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 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.

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 Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  West Amana fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in West Amana also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in West Amana could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.