The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of New Hampshire, and within Merrimack County, and especially in the city of Pittsfield people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Pittsfield.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Pittsfield is known for cartoons such as Up, Brave and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Pittsfield being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Pittsfield 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.

Vintage Disney Animation in the 1920s

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 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Pittsfield and the United States.  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 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Pittsfield residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began production 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 color.

Considerable development and training went into the creation 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 Pittsfield - but we're not sure.

What Pittsfield parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including 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 Pinocchio, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental animated film designed 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 Pittsfield viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Pittsfield and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, 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 Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. 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.  Pittsfield movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Pittsfield also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Pittsfield could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Aunt Sarah.