The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Tennessee, and within Davidson County, and especially in the city of Bordeaux 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 cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Bordeaux.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Bordeaux is known for cartoons such as Up, Ratatouilli and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Bordeaux being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf 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 Bordeaux 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 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Bordeaux 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 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 success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Bordeaux residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Considerable training and development 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 Bordeaux - but we're not sure.

What Bordeaux parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli 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 Spring Sprite .  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 Bordeaux viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Bordeaux and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.

Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 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 the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Bordeaux movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Bordeaux also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Bordeaux could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.