The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Ohio, and within Erie County, and especially in the city of Milan people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Milan.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Milan is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Brave and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Milan being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff 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 Milan 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 movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Milan 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 big 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 big box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Milan residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

A lot of development and training 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 Milan - but we're not sure.

What Milan parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters 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 an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Milan viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary 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 Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Milan and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Mrs. Possum.

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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Milan fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda.  Parents in Milan also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Milan could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Boris.