The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Kentucky, and within Kenton County, and especially in the city of Fort Wright people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Fort Wright. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Fort Wright is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Fort Wright being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, 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 Fort Wright 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Fort Wright 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 animated film 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Fort Wright residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous development and training 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 Fort Wright - but we're not sure.
What Fort Wright parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 cartoon created to accompanying an orchestral arrangement. Fantasia also brought about the development of the Fantasound system which was used to create the film's stereoscopic soundtrack to the delight of Fort Wright viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Fort Wright and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 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.
Walt 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 Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success. Fort Wright fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Fort Wright also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Fort Wright could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Boris.
