The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Pennsylvania, and within Tioga County, and especially in the city of Elkland people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Feature Animation, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Elkland. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Elkland is known for cartoons such as Up, The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.
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 Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and its most recent release in Elkland being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf 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 Elkland 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 Animation in the 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Elkland and the United States. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 animated film was released. Flowers and Trees was a major 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 hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Elkland residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st cartoon in English and Technicolor.
Considerable development and training went into the creation 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 Elkland - but we're not sure.
What Elkland parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a few years later.
During the production of Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Yen Sid and Zeus . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Elkland viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Gideon and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Elkland and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.
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 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 re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney movies every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a movie success. Elkland fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse. Parents in Elkland also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Elkland could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Tramp and Tony.
