The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of New Hampshire, and within Rockingham County, and especially in the city of Raymond people have enjoyed Disney animated movies 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 Raymond.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Raymond is known for cartoons such as Cars, Finding Nemo and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and its most recent release in Raymond being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Raymond 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  Subsequently  the 3rd 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 Raymond and the U.S..  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 animated film 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Raymond residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey.  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 artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Raymond - but we're not sure.

What Raymond parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie 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 Mouse 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 premiered 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 Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box .  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 Raymond viewers.

Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Elephant Catty proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Raymond and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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 Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success.  Raymond fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Raymond also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Raymond could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Aunt Sarah.