The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Ogle County, and especially in the city of Forreston people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Forreston.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Forreston is known for animated movies such as Up, WALL-E and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Forreston 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 Forreston 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 Cartoons in the 1920s

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

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Forreston 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 cartoon 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 Fiddler 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 Forreston residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature 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 recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Forreston - but we're not sure.

What Forreston parent would have known 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 complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince 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 couple of years later.

During the production of Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them 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, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Forreston viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Forreston and we met new friends including Thumper, 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 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.

Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Forreston fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Forreston also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Forreston could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.