The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Oklahoma, and within Garfield County, and especially in the city of Hillsdale people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Hillsdale. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Hillsdale is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Luxo Jr..
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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Hillsdale being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Hillsdale 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, was released in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Hillsdale 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 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Hillsdale residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.
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 Hillsdale - but we're not sure.
What Hillsdale parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost 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 Sleepy and Happy was the highest grossing movie of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind two years later.
While working on Snow White, the designers continued work on the Mickey Mouse 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 Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John 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, Daisy Duck and Jack-in-the-Box . It was an experimental animated film 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 Hillsdale viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, 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 Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Monstro and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Hillsdale and we met new friends including Pheasant, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 The Prince and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Hillsdale fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Hillsdale also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Hillsdale could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Jim Dear.
