The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of New Hampshire, and within Merrimack County, and especially in the city of Concord people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Concord. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Concord is known for cartoons such as Up, Brave and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has created 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 Happy and its most recent release in Concord 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 Concord 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, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Concord 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 1st full-color animated film 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 tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Concord residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
A lot of 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 Concord - but we're not sure.
What Concord parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two years later.
During the production of 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 friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, 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 Concord viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 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, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Concord and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl 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 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 The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Concord movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda. Parents in Concord also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Concord could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Tony.
