The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Maryland, and within Talbot County, and especially in the city of Tilghman Island people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Tilghman Island. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Tilghman Island is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., Brave and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Tilghman Island being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans and The Duke of Weselton.
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 Tilghman Island 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 movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. In the end the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Tilghman Island and the U.S.. 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 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 Fifer Pig became a tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Tilghman Island residents.
The First Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Happy. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation 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 Tilghman Island - but we're not sure.
What Tilghman Island parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge 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 dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing movie 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 and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” 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 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 Tilghman Island viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, 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 Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Tilghman Island and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.
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 Donald 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 Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse 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 was a a movie success. Tilghman Island movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Tilghman Island also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Tilghman Island could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Boris.
