The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Wisconsin, and within Price County, and especially in the city of Prentice 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 feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Prentice. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Prentice is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 2, Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life.
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 Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Prentice being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Hans and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 Prentice 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 Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Prentice and the United States. 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 first 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 Fiddler 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 Prentice residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st 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 established animators and artists from other fields. Some may have even come from Prentice - but we're not sure.
What Prentice parent would have imagined 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 complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing movie 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 Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won ”Gold Statue” for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck 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 Prentice viewers.
Dumbo premiered in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Casey Junior and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The feature only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Bashful and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Prentice and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline and Mrs. Possum.
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 re-releasing 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 Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite. This led to a tradition of re-releasing the Walt Disney features every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success. Prentice movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and Mathilda. Parents in Prentice also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Prentice could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Tony.
