The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Iowa, and within Page County people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Page County.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Page County is known for cartoons such as Up, Finding Nemo and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has created 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 Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Page County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, 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 Page County 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 Animation in the 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Page County and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 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 Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Page County residents.

The 1^st Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey.  Snow White became the 1^st animated feature in English and color.

Considerable 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 Page County - but we're not sure.

What Page County parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt 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 Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Page County viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Page County and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Page County movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Page County also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Page County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Boris.