The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Lee County, and especially in the city of Broadway people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Broadway. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Broadway is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Dopey and its most recent release in Broadway being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Broadway 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 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 select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Broadway 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 first full-color cartoon 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Broadway residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the first animated feature 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 recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Broadway - but we're not sure.
What Broadway parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing production 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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, 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, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film created 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 Broadway viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Broadway and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 Donald 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. 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 movie success. Broadway movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse. Parents in Broadway also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Broadway could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Tony.
