The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Ohio, and within Athens County, and especially in the city of The Plains people have enjoyed Disney animated movies 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 The Plains. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in The Plains is known for cartoons such as Toy Story, Ratatouilli and Knick Knack.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in The Plains being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 The Plains 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 20s
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 produced a sound track. In the end the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in The Plains and the U.S.. 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 cartoon 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 Fifer 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 The Plains residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and Technicolor.
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 recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from The Plains - but we're not sure.
What The Plains parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
During the production of Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including 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 Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film created 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 The Plains viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in The Plains and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
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.
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 Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. The Plains movie-goers , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Queen of Hearts and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in The Plains also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, Captain Hook and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in The Plains could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Jim Dear.
