The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Genesee County, and especially in the city of Lake Fenton people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lake Fenton. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Lake Fenton is known for cartoons such as Cars, WALL-E and Partly Cloudy.
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 Happy and its most recent release in Lake Fenton being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Lake Fenton 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Lake Fenton and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 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 Fifer Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Lake Fenton residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st 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 Lake Fenton - but we're not sure.
What Lake Fenton parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers 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 Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick and Gideon. 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 Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film 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 Lake Fenton viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Lake Fenton and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl 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 Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Lake Fenton movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Lake Fenton also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Lake Fenton could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Jim Dear.
