The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Cook County, and especially in the city of Merrionette Park people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Merrionette Park. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Merrionette Park is known for animated movies such as Up, Brave 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 classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Merrionette Park being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 Merrionette Park 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, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Merrionette Park 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 cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a tremendous 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 song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Merrionette Park residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous training and development 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 Merrionette Park - but we're not sure.
What Merrionette Park parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed 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 Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . 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 Merrionette Park viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Merrionette Park and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline 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 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 Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Merrionette Park fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Merrionette Park also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Merrionette Park could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Tony.
