The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Crawford County, and especially in the city of Annapolis people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, 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 Annapolis. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Annapolis is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, Ratatouilli and Day & Night.
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 Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Annapolis being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Annapolis 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Annapolis and the United States. 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 1st 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 Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Annapolis residents.
The 1st 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 Dopey. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.
A lot of development and training went into the production 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 Annapolis - but we're not sure.
What Annapolis parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists 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 premiered 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 The Magic Brooms . 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 Annapolis viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The movie 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 third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Annapolis and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt Disney released 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 the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Yen Sid 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 was a a movie success. Annapolis movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda. Parents in Annapolis also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Annapolis could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.
