The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Iowa, and within Wayne County, and especially in the city of Millerton people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Millerton. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Millerton is known for animated movies such as Cars, WALL-E and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Millerton being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
The studio's catalog of animated features 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 Millerton 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 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 cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Millerton and the United States. 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 1st full-color cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a tremendous 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 tremendous box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Millerton residents.
The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and color.
Considerable 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 Millerton - but we're not sure.
What Millerton parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White 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 few years later.
While working on Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John 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 Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus . 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 Millerton viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster 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 Sleepy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Millerton and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Great Prince of the Forest.
Also in the 1940s, 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 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.
Walt Disney also began reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Millerton movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Millerton also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Millerton could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Jim Dear.
