The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of New Hampshire, and within Grafton County, and especially in the city of Lebanon people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lebanon.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Lebanon is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, The Incredibles 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 Lebanon being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans 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 Lebanon 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 1920s

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 third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the third 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 animated film series in Lebanon and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 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 Practical Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Lebanon residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon 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 recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Lebanon - but we're not sure.

What Lebanon parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey 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 Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon. 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 Zeus .  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 Lebanon viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Lebanon and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

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 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 Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

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