The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Tennessee, and within Hardeman County people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Hardeman County.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Hardeman County is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, The Incredibles and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Hardeman County 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 Hardeman County 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 animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Hardeman County and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 big box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Hardeman County residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

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 Hardeman County - but we're not sure.

What Hardeman County parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie 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 characters among them 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, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Hardeman County viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs 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 Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Hardeman County and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.

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.

Walt Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Hardeman County movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Hardeman County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Hardeman County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Tony.