The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Lake County, and especially in the city of Volo people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Volo. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Volo is known for animated movies such as Up, Finding Nemo and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Volo being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Volo 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 Cartoons in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Volo and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Practical Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Volo residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation 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 Volo - but we're not sure.
What Volo parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of 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 released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite . 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 Volo viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Volo and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Volo fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts. Parents in Volo also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Volo could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.
