The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of West Virginia, and within Randolph County, and especially in the city of Valley Bend 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 animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Valley Bend. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Valley Bend is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Valley Bend being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Bend 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Valley Bend and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Practical Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Valley Bend residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
Considerable 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 Valley Bend - but we're not sure.
What Valley Bend parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two 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 characters among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick 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, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Bend viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Valley Bend and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.
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.
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 seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Valley Bend movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Valley Bend also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Valley Bend could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.
