The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Illinois, and within McDonough County, and especially in the city of Prairie City people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Prairie City.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Prairie City is known for cartoons such as Cars 2, Brave and A Bug's Life.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Prairie City being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Hans 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 Prairie City 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 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Prairie City and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a huge 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 Prairie City residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.

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 Prairie City - but we're not sure.

What Prairie City parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse 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 premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite .  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 Prairie City viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc 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, Yen Sid and Zeus.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Prairie City and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.

Also in the 1940s, 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.

Walt Disney also began reissuing 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 Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success.  Prairie City movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse.  Parents in Prairie City also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Prairie City could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Tony.