The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Nebraska, and within Webster County, and especially in the city of Guide Rock 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 Guide Rock. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Guide Rock is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Guide Rock being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Guide Rock 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 select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Guide Rock and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 1st 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 Practical Pig became a major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Guide Rock residents.
The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
A lot of development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Guide Rock - but we're not sure.
What Guide Rock parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on 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 among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box . 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 Guide Rock viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Guide Rock 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 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 re-releasing 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 Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Guide Rock fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda. Parents in Guide Rock also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Guide Rock could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Aunt Sarah.
