The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of New York, and within Livingston County, and especially in the city of Websters Crossing people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Websters Crossing.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Websters Crossing is known for cartoons such as Up, Finding Nemo and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Websters Crossing being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Websters Crossing 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 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 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Websters Crossing and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Websters Crossing residents.

The First Disney Animated Film 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 first animated feature in English and color.

Tremendous training and development went into the production 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 Websters Crossing - but we're not sure.

What Websters Crossing parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. 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 seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing production 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 friends including 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 Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 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 Websters Crossing viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen 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 Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Websters Crossing and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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.

Walt Disney also began reissuing 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 Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Websters Crossing movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Websters Crossing also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Websters Crossing could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Jim Dear.