The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Winnebago County, and especially in the city of Pecatonica people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Pecatonica. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Pecatonica is known for cartoons such as Cars, Ratatouilli and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Pecatonica being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 Pecatonica 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Pecatonica and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 huge 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 huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Pecatonica residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation 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 Pecatonica - but we're not sure.
What Pecatonica parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey 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 Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus . It was an experimental animated film 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 Pecatonica viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The movie 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 Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Pecatonica and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, 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 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 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 Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Pecatonica fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Pecatonica also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Pecatonica could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Jim Dear.
