The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Kentucky, and within Jefferson County, and especially in the city of Parkside people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Parkside.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Parkside is known for animated movies such as Up, The Incredibles and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Parkside being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Parkside 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, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse 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 Parkside and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Parkside residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

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 Parkside - but we're not sure.

What Parkside parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

While working on Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental cartoon created 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 Parkside viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Parkside and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 Duck 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 Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Parkside movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Parkside also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Parkside could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Jim Dear.