The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Wisconsin, and within Portage County, and especially in the city of Mill Creek Community people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, 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 Mill Creek Community. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Mill Creek Community is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Mill Creek Community being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 Mill Creek Community 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.
Vintage Disney Cartoons 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 added a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Mill Creek Community and the United States. 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 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Mill Creek Community residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
A lot of development and training 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 Mill Creek Community - but we're not sure.
What Mill Creek Community parent would have known 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 Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends 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 Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film 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 Mill Creek Community viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Mill Creek Community and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 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.
Walt 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 dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Mill Creek Community fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Mill Creek Community also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Mill Creek Community 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.
