The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Alaska, and within Prince of Wales Hyder Census Area County, and especially in the city of Metlakatla people have enjoyed Disney cartoons 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 short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Metlakatla.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Metlakatla is known for cartoons such as Up, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Metlakatla being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Metlakatla 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 1920s

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 cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Metlakatla and the U.S..  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 Practical Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Metlakatla residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

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

What Metlakatla parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge 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 Grumpy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.

While working on Snow White, the designers  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 ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Metlakatla viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli 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 Metlakatla and we met new friends including Thumper, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.

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 re-releasing 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 Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Metlakatla fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Metlakatla also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Metlakatla could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.