The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of New Mexico, and within San Miguel County, and especially in the city of Rowe people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Rowe. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Rowe is known for animated movies such as Cars, The Incredibles and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Rowe being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff 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 Rowe 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Rowe and the U.S.. 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 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Rowe residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Rowe - but we're not sure.
What Rowe parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators 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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, 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 Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental animated film produced to accompanying an orchestral arrangement. Fantasia also brought about the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Rowe viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Rowe and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 Goofy 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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Rowe movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts. Parents in Rowe also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Rowe could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Tony.
