The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Anson County, and especially in the city of Ansonville people have enjoyed Disney animated movies 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 Ansonville. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Ansonville is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Ansonville being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Ansonville 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 Cartoons in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, 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 cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Ansonville and the United States. 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 cartoon 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Ansonville residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and color.
Tremendous 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 Ansonville - but we're not sure.
What Ansonville parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse 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 Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Ansonville viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Ansonville and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.
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.
Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Ansonville fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Ansonville also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Ansonville could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.
