The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Lake County, and especially in the city of Bannockburn people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Bannockburn. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Bannockburn is known for animated movies such as Cars, Ratatouilli and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Bannockburn being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, 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 Bannockburn 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 animated films, 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 cartoon Disney produced a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Bannockburn and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 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 success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Bannockburn residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
A lot of 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 Bannockburn - but we're not sure.
What Bannockburn parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.
During the production of Snow White, the artists 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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, 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, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Bannockburn viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown 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 Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Bannockburn and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.
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.
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 Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Bannockburn fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Bannockburn also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Bannockburn could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Boris.
