The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Berrien County, and especially in the city of Baroda people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Baroda.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Baroda is known for animated movies such as Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Baroda being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Baroda 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 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 added a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Baroda 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 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 Fiddler Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Baroda residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

Tremendous development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Baroda - but we're not sure.

What Baroda parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey Mouse 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 Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid 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 Baroda viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Baroda and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

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 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Baroda movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Baroda also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Baroda could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.