The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of South Dakota, and within Moody County, and especially in the city of Egan 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 feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Egan. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Egan is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being 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 Egan being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Egan 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end 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 Egan 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 animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a tremendous 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 huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Egan residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
A lot of development and training went into the creation 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 Egan - but we're not sure.
What Egan parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
While working on Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse 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 Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, 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 Egan viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey 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 Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Egan and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
Also in the 1940s, 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.
Disney also began reissuing 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 Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Egan fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda. Parents in Egan also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Egan could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Tony.
