The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Saginaw County, and especially in the city of Hemlock people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Hemlock.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Hemlock is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Hemlock being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff 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 Hemlock 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  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 animated film series in Hemlock and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 first 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 Fiddler Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Hemlock residents.

The First Disney Animated Film 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 first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

Tremendous development and training 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 Hemlock - but we're not sure.

What Hemlock parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy 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 animators  continued work on the Mickey 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 released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, 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, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Hemlock viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Hemlock and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, Disney  premiered 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 Duck 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. 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.  Hemlock fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Hemlock also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Hemlock could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Tony.