The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of South Dakota, and within Pennington County, and especially in the city of Keystone people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Keystone. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Keystone is known for animated movies such as Up, WALL-E and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Keystone being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Keystone 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 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 third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Keystone and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Keystone residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature 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 established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Keystone - but we're not sure.
What Keystone parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse 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 Pinocchio, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box . 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 Keystone viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 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 Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Keystone and we met new friends including Pheasant, 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 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 Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Keystone movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Keystone 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 Keystone could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.
