The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Langley.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Langley is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, WALL-E and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Langley being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Langley 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 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 produced a sound track.  In the end  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Langley and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 cartoon 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 Fiddler 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 Langley residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

Considerable training and development went into the production 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 Langley - but we're not sure.

What Langley 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 complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful 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 among them 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 Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental cartoon 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 Langley viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Langley and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl 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.

Walt Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Langley fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Mathilda.  Parents in Langley also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Langley could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Jim Dear.