The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

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

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Terrell County.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Terrell County is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, Brave and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Terrell County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Terrell 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Terrell County and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, debuted 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 big 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Terrell 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 Doc and Happy.  Snow White became the 1^st 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 established animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Terrell County - but we're not sure.

What Terrell County parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box .  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 Terrell County viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork 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 Sleepy and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick 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 Terrell County and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline 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 Duck 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 Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. 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 movie success.  Terrell County movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Mathilda.  Parents in Terrell County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Terrell County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Jim Dear.