The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Alabama, and within Lauderdale County, and especially in the city of Killen people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, 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 Killen.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Killen is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Killen being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf 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 Killen 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 Cartoons in the 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Killen 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 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Killen residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy.  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 recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Killen - but we're not sure.

What Killen parent would have guessed that 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 The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of 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 switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus .  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 Killen viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Killen and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline 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 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.

Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Killen fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Killen also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Killen could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Jim Dear.