The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Berrien County, and especially in the city of Three Oaks people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered 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 Three Oaks. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Three Oaks is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, Brave and Day & Night.
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 Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Three Oaks being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Three Oaks 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 Cartoons 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 cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Three Oaks and the United States. 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 animated film 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 huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Three Oaks residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.
A lot of training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Three Oaks - but we're not sure.
What Three Oaks parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Three Oaks viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow 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 Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Three Oaks and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl 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.
Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Three Oaks 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 Three Oaks also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Three Oaks could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Jim Dear.
