The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Lincoln County, and especially in the city of Denver people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Denver.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Denver is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, The Incredibles and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Denver being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Denver 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Denver 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 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 Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Denver residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

Tremendous development and training 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 Denver - but we're not sure.

What Denver parent would have imagined that 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 dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey 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, Lampwick 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 Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite .  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 Denver viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.

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

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.

Disney also began reissuing 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 Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Denver movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse.  Parents in Denver also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Denver could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Aunt Sarah.