The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Ohio, and within Darke County, and especially in the city of Union City people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Union City. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Union City is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, Brave and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being 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 Union City being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff 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 Union City 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 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 Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Union City and the United States. 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 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 huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Union City residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous development and training went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Union City - but we're not sure.
What Union City parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two 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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 cartoon 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 Union City viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Union City and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Union City fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Union City also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Union City could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Jim Dear.
