The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of North Carolina, and within Onslow County, and especially in the city of Sneads Ferry people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located 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 Sneads Ferry. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Sneads Ferry is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., Ratatouilli and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has produced 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 Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Sneads Ferry 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 Sneads Ferry 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 Cartoons in the 1920s
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 third Mickey cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Sneads Ferry 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 1st full-color animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a tremendous success so all the Silly Symphonies were subsequently produced in Technicolor. The 1933 Three Little Pigs with character of The Big Bad Wolf and Practical Pig became a huge box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Sneads Ferry residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Tremendous 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 Sneads Ferry - but we're not sure.
What Sneads Ferry 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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing film of all time before the success of 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 Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them 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 Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus . It was an experimental animated film designed 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 Sneads Ferry viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and Mr. Stork proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Sneads Ferry and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.
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 re-releasing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Sneads Ferry movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and The King of Hearts. Parents in Sneads Ferry also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Mary Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Sneads Ferry could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Tony.
