The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of Utah, and within Tooele County, and especially in the city of Rush Valley people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates cartoon feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Rush Valley. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Rush Valley is known for animated movies such as Toy Story 3, Brave 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 notable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey and its most recent release in Rush Valley being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Hans 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 Rush Valley 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 Cartoons in the 20s
The first two Mickey Mouse animated films, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in movie screens during the summer of 1928. For the third Mickey cartoon Disney added a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st animated film with synchronized sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Rush Valley and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound animated films, the Silly Symphonies, premiered 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 cartoon was released. Flowers and Trees was a big 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 hit and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Rush Valley 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 Grumpy and Dopey. Snow White became the 1st animated feature 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 animators and recent college graduate artists. Some may have even come from Rush Valley - but we're not sure.
What Rush Valley parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. It cost Disney a total of $1.4 million to complete but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind two 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 characters among them 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 Pinocchio, Honest John and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Chernabog, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms . It was an experimental cartoon 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 Rush Valley viewers.
Dumbo debuted in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Happy and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and Monstro and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Chernabog, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Rush Valley and we met new friends including Pheasant, Flower the Skunk 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 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.
Walt Disney also began reissuing 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 Grumpy and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its release in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Rush Valley movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Cheshire Cat and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Rush Valley also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Rush Valley could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Darling, Trusty and Tony.
