The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of Wyoming, and within Fremont County, and especially in the city of Crowheart people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered 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 Crowheart.   It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Crowheart is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, Finding Nemo and Lifted.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Crowheart being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, 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 Crowheart 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 20s

The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, 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 Mouse cartoon Disney added a sound track.  History was made when  the third Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Crowheart 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 1st 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 Practical Pig became a big box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Crowheart residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful.  Snow White became the first cartoon in English and color.

Considerable development and training went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of animators and artists from other fields.  Some may have even come from Crowheart - but we're not sure.

What Crowheart parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney  a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

While working on Snow White, the designers  continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series.  Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters among them Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Jiminy Cricket, Stromboli and Monstro. 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 animated film produced 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 Crowheart viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork 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 Doc and Bashful and less than a 1/3 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, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite.

In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Crowheart and we met new friends including Thumper, Faline and Mrs. Possum.

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 dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney features every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a box office success.  Crowheart movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Queen of Hearts and The Dormouse.  Parents in Crowheart also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy  Darling, George Darling and The Crocodile. What dog-lover in Crowheart could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Jock and Tony.