The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of California, and within Los Angeles County, and especially in the city of La Puente people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in La Puente.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in La Puente is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, Brave and Partly Cloudy.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in La Puente being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 La Puente 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 animated films, 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 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in La Puente and the United States.  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 major 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 success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for La Puente residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

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

A lot of training and development 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 La Puente - but we're not sure.

What La Puente parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on Snow White, the artists  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey'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, Honest John and Gideon. 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 Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental animated film designed to accompanying an orchestral arrangement.  Fantasia also caused the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of La Puente viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork 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, Lampwick and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in La Puente and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Possum.

Also in the 1940s, Walt Disney  released 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 Goofy 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  La Puente movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts.  Parents in La Puente also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in La Puente could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Tony.