The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Oklahoma, and within Ottawa County, and especially in the city of Miami people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Miami. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Miami is known for cartoons such as Up, Finding Nemo and Partly Cloudy.
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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Miami being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf 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 Miami 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Miami and the U.S.. 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 first full-color animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a major 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 Miami residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
A lot of training and development went into the production 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 Miami - but we're not sure.
What Miami parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned 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 characters among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . 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 Miami viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Miami and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.
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.
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 Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Miami movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts. Parents in Miami also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Miami could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Jim Dear.
