The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Mossouri, and within Bollinger County, and especially in the city of Marble Hill people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered 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 Marble Hill.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Marble Hill is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Marble Hill being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Kristoff 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 Marble Hill 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.

Older Animation in the 1920s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, 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 added a sound track.  In the end  the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Marble Hill and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound cartoons, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 major 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 Marble Hill residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first 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 established animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Marble Hill - but we're not sure.

What Marble Hill parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney  a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on Snow White, the animators  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey 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 released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box .  It was an experimental cartoon 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 Marble Hill viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White 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 The Blue Fairy  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Marble Hill and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.

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 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 The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Marble Hill movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Marble Hill also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Mary Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Marble Hill could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.