The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Michigan, and within Wexford County, and especially in the city of Harrietta people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Harrietta. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Harrietta is known for animated movies such as Up, The Incredibles and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Harrietta being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, 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 Harrietta 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 1920s
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. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Harrietta 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 first 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Harrietta residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Considerable training and development went into the production 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 Harrietta - but we're not sure.
What Harrietta parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers 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 Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award 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 produced 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 Harrietta viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork 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 Sleepy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Harrietta and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl 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.
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 dwarfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Harrietta movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Harrietta also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Harrietta could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Tony.
