The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Cook County, and especially in the city of Maywood people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Maywood. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Maywood is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 2, The Incredibles and Luxo Jr..
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Maywood being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Maywood 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 third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Maywood 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 Fiddler Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Maywood residents.
The First Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
A lot of training and development went into the production 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 Maywood - but we're not sure.
What Maywood parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse 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 Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental animated film produced 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 Maywood viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Maywood and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.
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.
Disney also began re-releasing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Maywood movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Maywood also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Maywood could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Tony.
