The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Bay County, and especially in the city of Pinconning people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Pinconning. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Pinconning is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Pinconning being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Pinconning 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 select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Pinconning and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 tremendous 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 major box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Pinconning 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 dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.
Considerable training and development 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 Pinconning - but we're not sure.
What Pinconning parent would have imagined that 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 production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 cartoon 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 Pinconning viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Pinconning and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Pinconning movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse. Parents in Pinconning also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Pinconning could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.
