The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Texas, and within Guadalupe County people have enjoyed Disney animated movies 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 Guadalupe County.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Guadalupe County is known for animated movies such as Cars, Brave and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Guadalupe County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 Guadalupe 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 Cartoons in the 20s

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 cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Guadalupe County 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 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 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 Guadalupe County residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the 1^st animated feature in English and color.

A lot of development and training 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 Guadalupe County - but we're not sure.

What Guadalupe County parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy 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 Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them 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 Pinocchio, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental cartoon 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 Guadalupe County viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a 1/3 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, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Guadalupe County and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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.

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 seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Guadalupe County movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse.  Parents in Guadalupe County also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Guadalupe County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.