The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, 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 New Hope.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in New Hope is known for animated movies such as Up, Brave and Luxo Jr..

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in New Hope being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

The studio's catalog of cartoons 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 New Hope 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 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 third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in New Hope and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a major success so all the Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. The 1933 Three Little Pigs with character of The Big Bad Wolf and Fifer Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for New Hope residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

A lot of 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 New Hope - but we're not sure.

What New Hope 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 complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

While working on Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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 Geppetto, 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 Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental animated film created 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 New Hope viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.

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

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 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  New Hope fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in New Hope also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in New Hope could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.