The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Kentucky, and within Fayette County, and especially in the city of Chilesburg people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered 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 Chilesburg.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Chilesburg is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Lifted.

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 Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Chilesburg 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 Chilesburg 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Chilesburg 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Chilesburg residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

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

What Chilesburg parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey 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, Honest John 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, Daisy Duck and Zeus .  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 Chilesburg viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Chilesburg 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 the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Chilesburg fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse.  Parents in Chilesburg also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Chilesburg could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Tony.