The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Texas, and within Hale County people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, 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 Hale County.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Hale County is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, Ratatouilli and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Hale County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

The studio's catalog of cartoons 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 Hale 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.

Vintage Disney Cartoons in the 1920s

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 third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey 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 Hale County 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 first full-color animated film 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 song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Hale County residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy.  Snow White became the 1^st 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 artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Hale County - but we're not sure.

What Hale County parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt 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 Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse 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 Disney Productions

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

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental animated film produced 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 Hale County viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Hale County and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, 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.

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 Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. 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 box office success.  Hale County fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Hale County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Hale County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.