The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Buncombe County, and especially in the city of Boswell people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Boswell. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Boswell is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, The Incredibles and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Boswell being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Boswell 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, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Boswell and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 first 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 Practical Pig became a big box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Boswell residents.
The First Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
A lot of training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Boswell - but we're not sure.
What Boswell parent would have imagined 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 produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey'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, Lampwick and Gideon. 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 Zeus . It was an experimental animated film designed 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 Boswell viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus 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 Sleepy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Boswell and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.
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 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 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 dwarfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Boswell fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Boswell 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 Boswell could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Jim Dear.
