The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Maryland, and within Allegany County, and especially in the city of Dawson people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Dawson.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Dawson is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.

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 The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Dawson being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Dawson 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Dawson and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 1st 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 Fifer 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 Dawson residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

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

What Dawson parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big 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 Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

During the production of Snow White, the artists  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 Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus .  It was an experimental cartoon created 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 Dawson viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and The Clown 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 seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Dawson and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.

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.

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 Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Dawson fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Mathilda.  Parents in Dawson also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Dawson could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Aunt Sarah.