The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Minnesota, and within Grant County, and especially in the city of Saint Louis Park people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, California, 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 Saint Louis Park. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Saint Louis Park is known for cartoons such as Toy Story 3, Ratatouilli 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 lovable characters such as Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Bashful and its most recent release in Saint Louis Park being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 Saint Louis Park 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 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 cartoon Disney added a sound track. Subsequently the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular animated film series in Saint Louis Park and the United States. A second Disney series of sound animated films, 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 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 Fiddler Pig became a huge box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Saint Louis Park residents.
The 1st Walt Disney Cartoon Feature
In 1934, Walt Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the first animated feature 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 animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Saint Louis Park - but we're not sure.
What Saint Louis Park parent would have known Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. 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 Grumpy and Happy was the highest grossing film of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.
While working on Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey Mouse switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Walt Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Geppetto, 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 Chernabog, Yen Sid and Zeus . It was an experimental cartoon created 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 Saint Louis Park viewers.
Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, The Ringmaster and Mr. Stork proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Saint Louis Park and we met new friends including Pheasant, Friend Owl and Mrs. Rabbit.
Also in the 1940s, Walt 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 Donald 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 The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Doc and Dopey Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Monstro in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Saint Louis Park fans , also saw the release Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Saint Louis Park also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Saint Louis Park could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Jock and Boris.
