The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of West Virginia, and within Monroe County people have enjoyed Disney animation 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 cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Monroe County.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Monroe County is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, WALL-E and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has released 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 Monroe County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Monroe County 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 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Monroe County 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 first 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 Practical Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Monroe County residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Tremendous development and training went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Monroe County - but we're not sure.

What Monroe County parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of 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 among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite .  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 Monroe County viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Monroe County and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl 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 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 seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Monroe County fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Monroe County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Monroe County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Tony.