The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Cook County, and especially in the city of Flossmoor people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Flossmoor. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Flossmoor is known for animated movies such as Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Flossmoor 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 Flossmoor 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 20s
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 third Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Flossmoor and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 first full-color animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a major 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Flossmoor residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
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 artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Flossmoor - but we're not sure.
What Flossmoor parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned 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 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 Pinocchio, Stromboli 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 cartoon 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 Flossmoor viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Flossmoor and we met new friends including Thumper, 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Flossmoor fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Flossmoor also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Flossmoor could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Boris.
