The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Mississippi, and within Amite County, and especially in the city of Liberty people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Liberty.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Liberty is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, The Incredibles and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Liberty being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf 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 Liberty 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  In the end  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Liberty and the U.S..  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 1st full-color cartoon 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 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 Liberty residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Tremendous development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Liberty - but we're not sure.

What Liberty parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey 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 Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus .  It was an experimental animated film created 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 Liberty viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Liberty and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, Walt 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.

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 Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Liberty fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Liberty also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Liberty could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Tony.