The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Kentucky, and within Jefferson County, and especially in the city of Boston people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, 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 Boston. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Boston is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Brave and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Boston 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 Boston 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 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Boston and the U.S.. 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 major 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Boston residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous development and training 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 Boston - but we're not sure.
What Boston parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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 Pinocchio, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Boston viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Boston and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline 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 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 Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Boston movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts. Parents in Boston also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Boston could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.
