The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of New York, and within Westchester County, and especially in the city of Crugers people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is 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 Crugers. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Crugers is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, WALL-E and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Crugers 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 Crugers 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 Animation in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Crugers and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 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 Practical Pig became a big box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Crugers residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
A lot of development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Crugers - but we're not sure.
What Crugers parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus . 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 Crugers viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third 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 Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Crugers and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Crugers fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Crugers also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Crugers could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Boris.
