The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Oregon, and within Washington County, and especially in the city of Whitford 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 animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Whitford. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Whitford is known for animated movies such as Toy Story, Ratatouilli and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with lovable characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Whitford being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and The King and Queen of Arendelle.
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 Whitford 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney produced a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Whitford and the United States. 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 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 big box office and pop culture hit and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Whitford residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey. Snow White became the first animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation 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 Whitford - but we're not sure.
What Whitford parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few 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 among them Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Whitford viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Casey Junior and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Whitford and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline 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 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Whitford 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 Whitford also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Whitford could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.
