The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Sturgis.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Sturgis is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Lifted.

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 The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Sturgis being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Sturgis 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 Animation in the 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Sturgis and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Sturgis residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

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

Tremendous training and development went into the production 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 Sturgis - but we're not sure.

What Sturgis parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen 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.

While working on Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey Mouse 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, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. 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 Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Sturgis viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork 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 Sleepy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Sturgis and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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.

Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Sturgis fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Mathilda.  Parents in Sturgis also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Sturgis could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Jim Dear.