The History Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Habits
Disney Cartoons
Throughout the state of Delaware, and within New Castle County, and especially in the city of Edgemoor people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.
Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, CA, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates animated short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Edgemoor. It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios with Pixar Animation Studios which in Edgemoor is known for animated movies such as Cars 2, Ratatouilli and Day & Night.
As of 2013, the studio has released 53 feature films with the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937 with unforgettable characters such as The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Doc and Happy and its most recent release in Edgemoor being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Anna, Olaf and Grand Pabbie the Troll King.
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 Edgemoor 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 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 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track. In the end the third Mickey cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first animated film with matched sound.
The Mickey series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Edgemoor and the U.S.. A second Disney series of sound cartoons, 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 tremendous 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 song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Edgemoor residents.
The 1st Disney Animated Film Feature
In 1934, Disney began development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with Snow White and the seven drawfs including Grumpy and Bashful. Snow White became the 1st 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 Edgemoor - but we're not sure.
What Edgemoor parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big hit. It cost Walt Disney a total of $1.4 million to produce but Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Bashful was the highest grossing production of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a few years later.
While working on Snow White, the animators continued work on the Mickey and Silly Symphonies series. Mickey switched to Technicolor in 1935 and added several major supporting characters including Mickey Mouse’s dog Pluto and their friends Donald Duck and Goofy.
New Disney Productions
In 1940, the released Pinocchio with characters such as Pinocchio, Lampwick and Monstro. Pinocchio won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.
Disney released Fantasia in 1940 with characters including Mickey Mouse, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Spring Sprite . It was an experimental cartoon created 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 Edgemoor viewers.
Dumbo hit the screens in October 1941 with characters including Dumbo, The Ringmaster and Crow Chorus proved to be a monetary success. The movie only cost 1/2 the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with Snow White and the dwarfs including Doc and Dopey and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and Gideon and two fifths of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Yen Sid and Spring Sprite.
In August 1942, Bambi was released in Edgemoor and we met new friends including Bambi's Mother, Flower the Skunk and Great Prince of the Forest.
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 reissuing the previous features beginning with re-releases of Snow White in 1944 which brought back to the screen The Evil Queen and the seven drawfs including Sleepy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Stromboli and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which reunited Mickey with Donald Duck, Tyrannosaurus Rex and Jack-in-the-Box. This led to a tradition of reissuing the Walt Disney movies every seven years, which lasted into the 1990s.
Upon its premier in 1950, Cinderella was a a box office success. Edgemoor fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to The Mad Hatter, The Caterpillar and Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Parents in Edgemoor also took their childres to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Captain Hook and Jeffrey Silver. What dog-lover in Edgemoor could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Lady, Tramp and Tony.
