The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of South Dakota, and within Spink County, and especially in the city of Brentford people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Brentford. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Brentford is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, Brave and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Brentford being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Brentford 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Brentford 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 first full-color animated film 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 Fifer Pig became a major box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Brentford residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
Considerable 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 Brentford - but we're not sure.
What Brentford parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of Snow White, the artists 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 Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental cartoon created 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 Brentford viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Brentford and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Brentford fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Brentford also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Brentford could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Jim Dear.
