The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Tennessee, and within Hamilton County, and especially in the city of Collegedale people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Collegedale. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Collegedale is known for cartoons such as Monsters Inc., The Incredibles and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Happy and its most recent release in Collegedale being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans 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 Collegedale 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 1920s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Collegedale 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 huge 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 major box office and pop culture hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Collegedale residents.
The 1st Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the first cartoon in English and Technicolor.
A lot of 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 Collegedale - but we're not sure.
What Collegedale parent would have known 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 seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing film of all time before being surpassed by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the artists continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey 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 Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon. Pinocchio won Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus . 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 Collegedale viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a financial income success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Daisy Duck and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Collegedale and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Friend Owl and Great Prince of the Forest.
Also in the 1940s, 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 the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald, Daisy Duck and Zeus. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Collegedale movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The King of Hearts. Parents in Collegedale also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Collegedale could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Trusty and Aunt Sarah.
