The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Kenton Vale.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Kenton Vale is known for animated movies such as Monsters Inc., Brave and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Kenton Vale being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans 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 Kenton Vale 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 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, 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 added a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Kenton Vale and the U.S..  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 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 Fiddler Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Kenton Vale residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

A lot of training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Kenton Vale - but we're not sure.

What Kenton Vale parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce 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 the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse 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 released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, 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 Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental animated film designed 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 Kenton Vale viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White 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 Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Kenton Vale and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.

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 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Kenton Vale movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Kenton Vale also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Kenton Vale could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Jim Dear.