The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Tuscola County, and especially in the city of Kingston people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Kingston. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Kingston is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Kingston being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Kingston 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 cartoons, 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 included a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Kingston and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Practical Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Kingston residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the first animated feature 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 animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Kingston - but we're not sure.
What Kingston parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick 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, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite . 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 Kingston viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Kingston and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.
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.
Walt 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 dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Kingston fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts. Parents in Kingston also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Kingston could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Boris.
