The Backstory Which Started Disney Collector's Collecting Desires

Disney Animation

Throughout the state of Mossouri, and within Jackson County, and especially in the city of Belvidere people have enjoyed Disney animated movies with great enthusiasm.

Walt Disney Animation Studios, located in Burbank, California, formerly known as Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, is an animation studio which creates cartoon short films and television specials for The Walt Disney Company seen in Belvidere.   It took on its present name in 2006, when it was folded under The Walt Disney Studios alongside Pixar Animation Studios which in Belvidere is known for animated movies such as Up, WALL-E and Knick Knack.

As of 2013, the studio has created 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 Bashful and its most recent release in Belvidere being Frozen in 2013 including characters such as Elsa, Kristoff and The Duke of Weselton.

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 Belvidere 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 cartoons, Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho, which also included Minnie Mouse, was released in select theatres during the summer of 1928. For the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon Disney included a sound track.  In the end  the 3rd Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, became Disney's first cartoon with synchronized sound.

The Mickey Mouse series of sound cartoons quickly became the most popular animated film series in Belvidere 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 1st 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 Fiddler Pig became a big box office and pop culture success and the theme tune "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" becoming a popular chart hit for Belvidere residents.

The First Walt Disney Animated Film Feature

In 1934, Walt Disney started development on of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs characters with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Sleepy and Dopey.  Snow White became the first 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 established animators and recent college graduate artists.  Some may have even come from Belvidere - but we're not sure.

What Belvidere parent would have guessed that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be such a big success. 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 Doc and Dopey was the highest grossing movie of all time before the success of Gone with the Wind a couple of years later.

During the production of 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 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 The Blue Fairy. Pinocchio won Oscar 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 animated film 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 Belvidere viewers.

Dumbo was released in October 1941 with characters including Timothy Q. Mouse, Casey Junior and The Clown proved to be a monetary success. The film only cost half the cost of Snow White with its ensemble of with The Evil Queen and the dwarfs including Grumpy and Bashful and less than a 1/3 of the cost of Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Lampwick and The Blue Fairy  and 2/5 of the cost of Fantasia’s cast of Donald Duck, Daisy Duck and The Magic Brooms.

In August 1942, Bambi was released in Belvidere and we met new friends including Thumper, Friend Owl and Mrs. Possum.

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 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 re-releasing 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 Grumpy and Happy Pinocchio and his friends Geppetto, Honest John and The Blue Fairy in 1945 and Fantasia in 1946 which returned Mickey Mouse with Donald, 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 was a a movie success.  Belvidere fans , also saw the premier Alice in Wonderland and were introduced to Alice, The Cheshire Cat and The King of Hearts.  Parents in Belvidere also took their boys and girls to see Peter Pan and were delighted to meet Michael Darling, Mr. Smee and Tiger Lily. What dog-lover in Belvidere could forget the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp on screen and were delighted to meet Si and Am, Tramp and Boris.