The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Maryland, and within Montgomery County, and especially in the city of Kemp Mill people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, 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 Kemp Mill.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Kemp Mill is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, The Incredibles and Lifted.

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 Dopey and its most recent release in Kemp Mill being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Kemp Mill 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 cartoons, 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 added a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Kemp Mill and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 big 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Kemp Mill residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

A lot of development and training 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 Kemp Mill - but we're not sure.

What Kemp Mill parent would have known 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 produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

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

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick 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 Chernabog, Yen Sid 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 Kemp Mill viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Kemp Mill and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline 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.

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 Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Kemp Mill fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Kemp Mill also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Kemp Mill could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Tony.