The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Maine, and within Penobscot County, and especially in the city of Lincoln people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lincoln.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Lincoln is known for cartoons such as Cars, Brave and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Lincoln being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Lincoln 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 20s

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 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Lincoln 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 first full-color animated film 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 huge box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Lincoln residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

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

What Lincoln parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on 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 friends among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released 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, Yen Sid and Zeus .  It was an experimental animated film designed 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 Lincoln viewers.

Dumbo premiered 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 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Lincoln and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.

Also in the 1940s, Disney  released 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.

Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Lincoln movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Lincoln also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Lincoln could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Jim Dear.