The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Minnesota, and within Lake of the Woods County, and especially in the city of Le Sueur people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Le Sueur.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Le Sueur is known for animated movies such as Up, Ratatouilli and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Le Sueur being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Le Sueur 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 limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Le Sueur and the United States.  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 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 hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Le Sueur residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

A lot of training and development went into the production 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 Le Sueur - but we're not sure.

What Le Sueur parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck 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 Le Sueur viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a 1/3 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 Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Le Sueur and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline 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 seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Le Sueur movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Le Sueur also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Le Sueur could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Tony.