The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Wisconsin, and within Jackson County, and especially in the city of Speck Oaks people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Speck Oaks. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Speck Oaks is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., WALL-E and Lifted.
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 Happy and its most recent release in Speck Oaks being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans 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 Speck Oaks 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, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse 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 series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Speck Oaks and the U.S.. 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 tremendous 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 hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Speck Oaks residents.
The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and color.
A lot of development and training went into the creation 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 Speck Oaks - but we're not sure.
What Speck Oaks parent would have known 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 Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of 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 characters including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite . 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 Speck Oaks viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow 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 seven drawfs including Sleepy 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 Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Speck Oaks and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 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 Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Speck Oaks fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Speck Oaks also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Speck Oaks could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.
