The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and within Bradford County, and especially in the city of South Waverly people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, 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 South Waverly. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in South Waverly is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has released 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 Dopey and its most recent release in South Waverly being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 South Waverly 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 cartoons, 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 cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in South Waverly 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 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for South Waverly residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and color.
Tremendous development and training went into the production 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 South Waverly - but we're not sure.
What South Waverly parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them 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, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus . It was an experimental animated film 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 South Waverly viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in South Waverly and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 Duck 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. South Waverly fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in South Waverly also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in South Waverly could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Jim Dear.
