The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Nebraska, and within Saline County, and especially in the city of Wilber people have enjoyed Disney animation 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 Wilber. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Wilber is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., WALL-E and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Wilber being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Wilber 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 select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Wilber 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 1st full-color animated film 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 Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Wilber residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. 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 Wilber - but we're not sure.
What Wilber parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. 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 Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of 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 among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John 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 Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Wilber viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Wilber and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, 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 Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Wilber fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Wilber also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Wilber could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Jim Dear.
