The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and within Montgomery County, and especially in the city of North Wales people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in North Wales. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in North Wales is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in North Wales being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans and The Duke of Weselton.
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 North Wales 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 Animation 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 cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in North Wales and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 1st full-color cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a huge 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 hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for North Wales residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Considerable 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 North Wales - but we're not sure.
What North Wales parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of 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, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex 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 North Wales viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in North Wales and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.
Also in the 1940s, 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 Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. North Wales fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in North Wales also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in North Wales could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Jim Dear.
