The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Pamlico County, and especially in the city of Stonewall 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 Stonewall. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Stonewall is known for cartoons such as Cars, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Stonewall being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The Duke of Weselton.
The studio's catalog of animated features 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 Stonewall 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, 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 cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Stonewall 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 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Stonewall residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
A lot of training and development went into the creation 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 Stonewall - but we're not sure.
What Stonewall parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them Mickey Mouse’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 Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Stonewall viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Stonewall 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 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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Stonewall movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and The Dormouse. Parents in Stonewall also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Stonewall could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Boris.
