The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Utah, and within Grand County, and especially in the city of Thompson Springs people have enjoyed Disney animated movies 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 cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Thompson Springs.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Thompson Springs is known for cartoons such as Up, Brave and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Thompson Springs being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Thompson Springs 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 Animation in the 20s

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 cartoon Disney included a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.

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

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

Considerable 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 Thompson Springs - but we're not sure.

What Thompson Springs parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince 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 animators  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's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, 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 Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental animated film 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 Thompson Springs viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli 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 Thompson Springs and we met new friends including Thumper, 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.

Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Thompson Springs fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Thompson Springs also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Thompson Springs could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Boris.