The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Lee County, and especially in the city of Amboy people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Amboy.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Amboy is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Amboy being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Amboy 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, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey 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 Amboy and the United States.  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 1st full-color animated film 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 Practical Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Amboy residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

Considerable 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 Amboy - but we're not sure.

What Amboy parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  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 released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite .  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 Amboy viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Amboy and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk 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 Goofy 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 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 seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Amboy fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda.  Parents in Amboy also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Amboy could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.