The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of New Jersey, and within Warren County, and especially in the city of Bridgeville people have enjoyed Disney animation 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 animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Bridgeville.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Bridgeville is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Bridgeville being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Bridgeville 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Bridgeville 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 first 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 Practical Pig became a big box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Bridgeville residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

A lot of 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 Bridgeville - but we're not sure.

What Bridgeville 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 The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms .  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 Bridgeville viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third 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, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Bridgeville and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.

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.

Disney also began reissuing 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 Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Bridgeville movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse.  Parents in Bridgeville also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Bridgeville could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Jim Dear.