The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Washington, and within Snohomish County, and especially in the city of Granite Falls people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Granite Falls.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Granite Falls is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Granite Falls being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans 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 Granite Falls 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 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Granite Falls 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 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 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 Granite Falls residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Considerable development and training 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 Granite Falls - but we're not sure.

What Granite Falls parent would have imagined that 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 The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie 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 friends among them 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, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus .  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 Granite Falls viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Elephant Catty 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 dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Granite Falls and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.

Also in the 1940s, Disney  released 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 The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Granite Falls movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Granite Falls also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Granite Falls could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Boris.