The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Oakland County, and especially in the city of Oak Park people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Oak Park. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Oak Park is known for animated movies such as Up, WALL-E and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Oak Park being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Oak Park 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Oak Park and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 first 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 Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Oak Park 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 Dopey. 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 animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Oak Park - but we're not sure.
What Oak Park parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie 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 Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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 Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film produced to accompanying an orchestral arrangement. Fantasia also brought about the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Oak Park viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Oak Park and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.
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.
Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Oak Park movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in Oak Park also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Oak Park could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Boris.
