The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Nevada, and within Washoe County, and especially in the city of Gerlach people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, 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 Gerlach. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Gerlach is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, Ratatouilli and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Gerlach 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 Gerlach 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse 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 Gerlach and the United States. 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 huge 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 Gerlach residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st 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 Gerlach - but we're not sure.
What Gerlach parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of 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 including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental animated film designed 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 Gerlach viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Gerlach and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, 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 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Gerlach movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts. Parents in Gerlach also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Gerlach could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Boris.
