The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Iowa, and within Mitchell County, and especially in the city of Orchard people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, 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 Orchard. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Orchard is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, The Incredibles and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Orchard being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 Orchard 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Orchard 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Orchard residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.
A lot of training and development went into the creation 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 Orchard - but we're not sure.
What Orchard parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. 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 movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental animated film created 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 Orchard viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Orchard and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline 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.
Walt Disney also began reissuing 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 Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Orchard movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse. Parents in Orchard also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Orchard could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Jim Dear.
