The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Texas, and within Fort Bend County, and especially in the city of Pecan Grove people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Pecan Grove.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Pecan Grove is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Pecan Grove being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans 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 Pecan Grove 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, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Pecan Grove and the United States.  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 first full-color cartoon 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 success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Pecan Grove residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and Technicolor.

A lot of training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Pecan Grove - but we're not sure.

What Pecan Grove 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 The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.

While working on 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 friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Pecan Grove viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior 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 Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Pecan Grove and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline 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.

Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease 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, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Pecan Grove movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Pecan Grove also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Pecan Grove could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Tony.