The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Virginia, and within Henry County, and especially in the city of Bassett people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Bassett. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Bassett is known for cartoons such as Cars, Ratatouilli and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Bassett being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.
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 Bassett 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 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 added a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Bassett and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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" also became popular for Bassett residents.
The First Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st 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 Bassett - but we're not sure.
What Bassett parent would have guessed that 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 Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy 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 Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New 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 Spring Sprite . It was an experimental animated film produced 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 Bassett viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey 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 Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Bassett and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Bassett fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts. Parents in Bassett also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Bassett could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Tony.
