The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Illinois, and within Sangamon County, and especially in the city of Riverton people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Riverton.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Riverton is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Riverton being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.

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 Riverton 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 movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.

The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Riverton and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, released 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 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Riverton residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy.  Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.

Tremendous training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Riverton - but we're not sure.

What Riverton parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

During the production of Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Walt Disney Productions

In 1940, the released 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 Chernabog, 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 Riverton viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Riverton and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, 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 the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Riverton fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in Riverton also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Riverton could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Jim Dear.