The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and within Luzerne County, and especially in the city of West Wyoming people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, whose home is in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in West Wyoming.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in West Wyoming is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, WALL-E and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has created 53 feature films beginning with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in West Wyoming being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.

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 West Wyoming 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 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 third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in West Wyoming and the United States.  A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 big 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 tremendous box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for West Wyoming residents.

The First Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Tremendous development and training 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 West Wyoming - but we're not sure.

What West Wyoming parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge success. It cost Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing production of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few 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 friends 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 Jiminy Cricket, Honest John and Gideon. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus .  It was an experimental animated film 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 West Wyoming viewers.

Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown 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 seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in West Wyoming and we met new friends including Pheasant, 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.

Disney also began re-releasing 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 Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck 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 premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  West Wyoming fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum.  Parents in West Wyoming also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in West Wyoming could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Jim Dear.