The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered 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 Eastchester.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Eastchester is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, The Incredibles and Luxo Jr..

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Eastchester being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Eastchester 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, 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 Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Eastchester and the U.S..  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 1st 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 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 Eastchester 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 Grumpy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

Considerable training and development went into the production 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 Eastchester - but we're not sure.

What Eastchester parent would have imagined 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 Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few 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 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 Pinocchio, 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 Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Eastchester viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow 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 The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Eastchester and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.

Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 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.

Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Eastchester fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Eastchester also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Eastchester could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Tony.