The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Animation
Throughout the state of California, and within Kings County, and especially in the city of Lemoore people have enjoyed Disney animation with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, headquartered in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Lemoore. It took on its current name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Lemoore is known for animated movies such as Up, Ratatouilli and Partly Cloudy.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with classic characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Dopey and its most recent release in Lemoore being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as The Snow Queen, Olaf 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 Lemoore 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, premiered in limited engagements during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. History was made when the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's 1st cartoon with matched sound.
The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Lemoore 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 cartoon 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 Practical Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Lemoore residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st animated feature in English and color.
Tremendous training and development went into the creation 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 Lemoore - but we're not sure.
What Lemoore parent would have imagined that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a huge hit. It cost Disney a then-expensive sum of $1.4 million to create but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Dopey 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 animators continued work on the Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting friends including Mickey's dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the premiered 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 Chernabog, Tyrannosaurus Rex 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 Lemoore viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, Jim Crow and The Clown proved to be a financial income success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Dopey and less than a third of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus.
In August 1942, Bambi was premiered in Lemoore 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 Goofy 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 seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey with Donald, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Zeus. 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 was a a box office success. Lemoore movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The March Hare, The Caterpillar and The Dormouse. Parents in Lemoore also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Wendy Darling, George Darling and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Lemoore could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Trusty and Boris.
