The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of North Dakota, and within Cass County, and especially in the city of Briarwood people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Briarwood. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Briarwood is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has created 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 Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Briarwood being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, 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 Briarwood 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 Cartoons in the 20s
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 Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Briarwood and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Briarwood residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful. 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 animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Briarwood - but we're not sure.
What Briarwood parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few 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 Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Briarwood viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Briarwood and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, 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 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 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 Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Briarwood movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Briarwood also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Briarwood could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Jim Dear.
