The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Sherman.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Sherman is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has created 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 Sherman being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Sherman 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 Cartoons in the 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Sherman 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 first 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 major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Sherman residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

Tremendous training and development went into the production 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 Sherman - but we're not sure.

What Sherman parent would have guessed 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 create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick 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, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box .  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 Sherman viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Sherman and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.

Also in the 1940s, 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 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.

Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Sherman fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Sherman also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Sherman could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.