The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits

Disney Cartoons

Throughout the state of California, and within Santa Clara County people have enjoyed Disney cartoons with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Walt Disney Productions, is an animation studio which creates animated feature films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Santa Clara County.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Santa Clara County is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, Brave and Day & Night.

As of 2013, the studio has produced 53 feature films starting with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with notable  characters such as The Prince and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Happy and its most recent release in Santa Clara County being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Olaf and The King and Queen of Arendelle.

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 Santa Clara County 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 Cartoons in the 1920s

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 third Mickey cartoon Disney produced a sound track.  History was made when  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound animated films quickly became the most popular cartoon series in Santa Clara County and the U.S..  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 cartoon 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 Fifer Pig became a major box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" also became popular for Santa Clara County residents.

The First Walt Disney Cartoon Feature

In 1934, Disney started production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey.  Snow White became the 1^st cartoon in English and Technicolor.

Considerable training and development went into the production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  The studio expanded with the addition of established animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Santa Clara County - but we're not sure.

What Santa Clara County 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 Sleepy and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before being de-throned by Gone with the Wind a few years later.

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

New Disney Productions

In 1940, the premiered Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Honest John and The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and Spring Sprite .  It was an experimental cartoon designed 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 Santa Clara County viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Elephant Matriarch, Jim Crow and Elephant Catty proved to be a financial income success. The feature only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Prince and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and Gideon  and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Santa Clara County and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Faline and Mrs. Rabbit.

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 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 reissuing the previous features beginning with the rerelease of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Prince and the seven drawfs including Doc and Bashful Pinocchio and his friends Jiminy Cricket, Lampwick and Gideon in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey Mouse with Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney films every 7 years, which lasted into the 1990s.

Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella proved to be a movie success.  Santa Clara County movie-goers , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Mathilda.  Parents in Santa Clara County also took their kids to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet John Darling, Captain Hook and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Santa Clara County could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Jock and Tony.