The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Clay County, and especially in the city of Clay City people have enjoyed Disney animation 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 Clay City. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Clay City is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, The Incredibles and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Clay City being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff 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 Clay City 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, 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 Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Clay City and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 first full-color cartoon 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Clay City residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Considerable development and training went into the production 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 Clay City - but we're not sure.
What Clay City parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by 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 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 Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film produced 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 Clay City viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Clay City and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 Goofy 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 Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Clay City fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Clay City also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Clay City could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.
