The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of West Virginia, and within Ohio County, and especially in the city of Valley Grove people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Valley Grove. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Valley Grove is known for animated movies such as Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Valley Grove being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Valley Grove 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 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 produced a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Valley Grove and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, released 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 cartoon 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 Fiddler Pig became a major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Valley Grove residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Valley Grove - but we're not sure.
What Valley Grove parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms . 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 Valley Grove viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster 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 The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Valley Grove and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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.
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 seven drawfs including Sleepy 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 Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Valley Grove movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in Valley Grove also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Valley Grove could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Tony.
