The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of New York, and within Monroe County, and especially in the city of Greece people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, 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 Greece. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Greece is known for cartoons such as Cars, The Incredibles and Knick Knack.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Greece being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Greece 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 20s
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 3rd Mickey 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 Greece and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 tremendous 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Greece residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
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 recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Greece - but we're not sure.
What Greece parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers 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 Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite . 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 Greece viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Greece and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Greece movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Greece also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Greece could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Tony.
