The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Kent County, and especially in the city of Cutlerville people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, 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 Cutlerville. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Cutlerville is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, The Incredibles and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Cutlerville being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff 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 Cutlerville 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 Cartoons in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Cutlerville and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 1st full-color animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a huge 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Cutlerville residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
Considerable training and development went into the creation 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 Cutlerville - but we're not sure.
What Cutlerville parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc 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 artists continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse 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 Walt 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 Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms . 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 Cutlerville viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Cutlerville and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline 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 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 seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Cutlerville fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Cutlerville also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Cutlerville could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.
