The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Washington, and within King County, and especially in the city of Wedgwood people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Wedgwood. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Wedgwood is known for animated movies such as Up, The Incredibles and Lifted.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Wedgwood being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff 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 Wedgwood 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 select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Wedgwood and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Wedgwood residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the first 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 animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Wedgwood - but we're not sure.
What Wedgwood parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy 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 animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse 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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Wedgwood viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Wedgwood and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline 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 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 Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Wedgwood movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda. Parents in Wedgwood also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Wedgwood could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Boris.
