The History 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 Valhalla people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Valhalla.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Valhalla is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Valhalla 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 Valhalla 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, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse 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 Valhalla 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 huge success so all the Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. The 1933 Three Little Pigs with character of The Big Bad Wolf and Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Valhalla residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first 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 Valhalla - but we're not sure.

What Valhalla parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

During the production of Snow White, the animators  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 Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box .  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 Valhalla viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a 1/3 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, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Valhalla and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk 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 Donald Duck 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 seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Valhalla movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Valhalla also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Valhalla could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Jim Dear.