The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Ionia County, and especially in the city of Lake Odessa people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, 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 Lake Odessa.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Lake Odessa is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Lake Odessa being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Lake Odessa 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.

Older 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 movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Lake Odessa and the U.S..  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 1st full-color cartoon 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 Practical 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 Lake Odessa residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

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

Considerable development and training 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 Lake Odessa - but we're not sure.

What Lake Odessa parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental cartoon 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 Lake Odessa viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick 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 premiered in Lake Odessa and we met new friends including Thumper, 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 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 Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Lake Odessa movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Lake Odessa also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Lake Odessa could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.