The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Lincoln County people have enjoyed Disney cartoons 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 feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lincoln County.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Lincoln County is known for cartoons such as Up, Brave and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Lincoln County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Lincoln County 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 cartoons, 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 Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Lincoln County and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 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 Fiddler 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 Lincoln County residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the 1^st 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 Lincoln County - but we're not sure.

What Lincoln County parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy 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 designers  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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite .  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 Lincoln County viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The film 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 Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Lincoln County and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.

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.

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 Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Lincoln County fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda.  Parents in Lincoln County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Lincoln County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Tony.