The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of New Jersey, and within Mercer County people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Mercer County.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Mercer County is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, Brave and Lifted.

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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Mercer County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Mercer County 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 Cartoons in the 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Mercer County and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 cartoon 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 Fiddler Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Mercer County residents.

The 1^st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the 1^st cartoon in English and Technicolor.

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 Mercer County - but we're not sure.

What Mercer County parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy 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 designers  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends 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, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental cartoon created 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 Mercer County viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Mercer County and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Mrs. Possum.

Also in the 1940s, 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Mercer County fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Mercer County also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Mercer County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.