The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of New York, and within Saint Lawrence County, and especially in the city of Hammond people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Hammond. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Hammond is known for cartoons such as Up, The Incredibles and Knick Knack.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Hammond being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Hammond 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 limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Hammond and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 1st full-color animated film 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 tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Hammond residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and color.
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 Hammond - but we're not sure.
What Hammond parent would have guessed 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 produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Hammond viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Hammond and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Mrs. Possum.
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.
Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Hammond fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Hammond also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Hammond could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Tony.
