The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Oregon, and within Multnomah County, and especially in the city of Lents people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lents.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Lents is known for animated movies such as Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Lents being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans 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 Lents 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 20s

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 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey 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 Lents and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Practical Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Lents residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

A lot of development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Lents - but we're not sure.

What Lents 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 create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse 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 Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award 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 Lents viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Lents and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk 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 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 the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Lents movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Lents also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Lents could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Tony.