The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Sigourney.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Sigourney is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, WALL-E and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Sigourney being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Sigourney 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Sigourney and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 1st 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 Fifer Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Sigourney residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

Considerable training and development 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 Sigourney - but we're not sure.

What Sigourney parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of 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 among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus .  It was an experimental cartoon 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 Sigourney viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Sigourney and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

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 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Sigourney fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda.  Parents in Sigourney also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Sigourney could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Tony.