The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of New York, and within Suffolk County, and especially in the city of Stony Brook people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Stony Brook.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Stony Brook is known for animated movies such as Monsters Inc., WALL-E 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 Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful and its most recent release in Stony Brook being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Stony Brook 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 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 first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Stony Brook 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 1st 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 big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Stony Brook residents.

The First Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Considerable 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 Stony Brook - but we're not sure.

What Stony Brook parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey 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 artists  continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including 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 Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental cartoon produced 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 Stony Brook viewers.

Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Stony Brook and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.

Also in the 1940s, Walt 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.

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, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Stony Brook movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and Mathilda.  Parents in Stony Brook also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Stony Brook could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Aunt Sarah.