The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Sparland.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Sparland is known for cartoons such as Cars, The Incredibles and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Sparland being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Sparland 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Sparland 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 1st 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 Fifer Pig became a big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Sparland residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

A lot of development and training went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Sparland - but we're not sure.

What Sparland 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 create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of 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 Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Sparland viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Sparland and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk 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.

Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid 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 release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Sparland fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Sparland also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Sparland could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Tony.