The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Shelby County, and especially in the city of Tower Hill people have enjoyed Disney cartoons 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 cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Tower Hill.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Tower Hill is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, Brave and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Tower Hill being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

The studio's catalog of animated features 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 Tower Hill 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 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 Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Tower Hill 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 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 Fifer 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 Tower Hill residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

Considerable training and development 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 Tower Hill - but we're not sure.

What Tower Hill parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends 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 Pinocchio, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Tower Hill viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Tower Hill and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, 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 dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Tower Hill fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Tower Hill also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Tower Hill could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Boris.