The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and within Philadelphia County, and especially in the city of Bridesburg 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 cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Bridesburg. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Bridesburg is known for cartoons such as Cars, The Incredibles and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Bridesburg being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff 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 Bridesburg 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Bridesburg and the U.S.. 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 first full-color cartoon 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 hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Bridesburg residents.
The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous training and development 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 Bridesburg - but we're not sure.
What Bridesburg 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 produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie 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 Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Bridesburg viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Bridesburg and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Bridesburg fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda. Parents in Bridesburg also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Bridesburg could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Jim Dear.
