The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Iowa, and within Johnson County, and especially in the city of Swisher people have enjoyed Disney cartoons 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 short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Swisher. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Swisher is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, Brave and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Swisher being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Swisher 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 movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Swisher and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 1st full-color animated film 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 Practical Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Swisher residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Swisher - but we're not sure.
What Swisher parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends 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, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex 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 Swisher viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster 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 The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Swisher and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.
Also in the 1940s, 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.
Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Swisher fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Swisher also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Swisher could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Tony.
