The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Massachusettes, and within Barnstable County, and especially in the city of Provincetown people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, 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 Provincetown.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Provincetown is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, WALL-E and Luxo Jr..

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 Provincetown being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, 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 Provincetown 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Provincetown and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Provincetown residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon 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 animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Provincetown - but we're not sure.

What Provincetown parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including 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 Pinocchio, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid 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 Provincetown viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Provincetown and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.

Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 re-releasing 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 Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Provincetown movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse.  Parents in Provincetown also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Provincetown could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Tony.