The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Massachusettes, and within Middlesex County, and especially in the city of Somerville people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, 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 Somerville. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Somerville is known for cartoons such as Up, WALL-E and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Somerville being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Somerville 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 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey Mouse 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 cartoon series in Somerville and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 first full-color cartoon 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Somerville residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon 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 Technicolor.
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 artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Somerville - but we're not sure.
What Somerville parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of 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 Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus . 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 Somerville viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown 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 dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a 1/3 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, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Somerville and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 Donald 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Somerville movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse. Parents in Somerville also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Somerville could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Tony.
