The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Tennessee, and within Sumner County, and especially in the city of Blue Ridge people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, 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 Blue Ridge.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Blue Ridge is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Blue Ridge being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf 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 Blue Ridge 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 third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

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

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the first animated feature 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 artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Blue Ridge - but we're not sure.

What Blue Ridge parent would have known 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 produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

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

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Blue Ridge viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Blue Ridge and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.

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 Donald 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 dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Blue Ridge fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda.  Parents in Blue Ridge also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Blue Ridge could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Boris.