The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of New Jersey, and within Somerset County, and especially in the city of Voorhees people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is 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 Voorhees. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Voorhees is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and A Bug's Life.
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 Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Voorhees being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff 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 Voorhees 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 20s
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 third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the 3rd 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 cartoon series in Voorhees and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 big 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 Voorhees residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st cartoon 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 established animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Voorhees - but we're not sure.
What Voorhees parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of 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 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 Pinocchio, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Voorhees viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 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, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Voorhees and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 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 The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Voorhees movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Voorhees also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Voorhees could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.
