The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of South Dakota, and within Douglas County, and especially in the city of Armour people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Armour. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Armour is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Knick Knack.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Armour being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff 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 Armour 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 Cartoons in the 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Armour and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Armour residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.
A lot of training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Armour - but we're not sure.
What Armour parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by 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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 cartoon created 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 Armour viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Armour and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline 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 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.
Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Armour movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda. Parents in Armour also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Armour could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Jim Dear.
