The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Gaston County, and especially in the city of South Belmont people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is 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 South Belmont. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in South Belmont is known for animated movies such as Up, WALL-E and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in South Belmont being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 South Belmont 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 limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in South Belmont and the United States. 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 tremendous 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for South Belmont residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st animated feature 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 South Belmont - but we're not sure.
What South Belmont parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy 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 animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, 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 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 South Belmont viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in South Belmont and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline 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 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 Dopey 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 Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. South Belmont movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in South Belmont also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in South Belmont could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.
