The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lanesville.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Lanesville is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Lanesville being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Lanesville 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 select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Lanesville and the United States.  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 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 Practical Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Lanesville residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

A lot of 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 Lanesville - but we're not sure.

What Lanesville parent would have known 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 Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

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

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John 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 Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Lanesville viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Lanesville and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk 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 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Lanesville movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Lanesville also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Lanesville could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.