The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Wisconsin, and within Sheboygan County, and especially in the city of Oostburg people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Oostburg. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Oostburg is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, WALL-E and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Oostburg being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 Oostburg 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Oostburg and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Fifer Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Oostburg residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon 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 Oostburg - but we're not sure.
What Oostburg parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 Jiminy Cricket, 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 Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental animated film created 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 Oostburg viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs 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 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Oostburg and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, 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 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 The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Oostburg movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Oostburg also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Oostburg could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Boris.
