The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Oregon, and within Linn County, and especially in the city of Waterloo people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Waterloo.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Waterloo is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., Ratatouilli and Luxo Jr..

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Waterloo being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

The studio's catalog of cartoons 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 Waterloo 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens 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 first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Waterloo and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 Practical Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Waterloo residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

Tremendous training and development 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 Waterloo - but we're not sure.

What Waterloo parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of 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 friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box .  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 Waterloo viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.

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

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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Waterloo fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Waterloo also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Waterloo could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Tony.