The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Utah, and within Uintah County, and especially in the city of Randlett people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, 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 Randlett.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Randlett is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., Ratatouilli and Partly Cloudy.

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 Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Randlett being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Randlett 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 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Randlett and the United States.  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 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 Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Randlett residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

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 artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Randlett - but we're not sure.

What Randlett parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind two years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them 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 Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental animated film designed to accompanying an orchestral arrangement.  Fantasia also caused the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Randlett viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White 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 The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Randlett and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.

Also in the 1940s, 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 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Randlett fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Randlett also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Randlett could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Jim Dear.