The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of New Jersey, and within Middlesex County, and especially in the city of West Carteret people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in West Carteret. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in West Carteret is known for cartoons such as Cars, WALL-E and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in West Carteret being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf 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 West Carteret 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 Animation in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, 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 cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in West Carteret and the United States. 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 animated film 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for West Carteret residents.
The 1st Walt 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 Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Considerable training and development went into the creation 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 West Carteret - but we're not sure.
What West Carteret parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy 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 artists continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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 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 Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus . 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 West Carteret viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in West Carteret and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk 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 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 Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. West Carteret fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda. Parents in West Carteret also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in West Carteret could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Boris.
