Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's Tuesday and I have a new episode of Superman & Lois on tonight, so I'm looking forward to that. Right now though I'm here to talk about the Walt Disney Classics, which is a series of VHS releases that Disney put out from 1984 until 1994 and was responsible for kicking off the practice of releasing the filmography of Walt Disney Feature Animation (now known as the Walt Disney Animation Studios) on home video, which continues to this day. However, unlike the post I did over on The Review Basement in November 2020, this post is going to be the first of four in my personal history with the series. So let's get into it and talk about the Walt Disney Classics!
If you were born between 1980 and 1990 and watched Disney movies on home video then you most likely saw this logo. If you had kids who were born between 1980 and 1990 and watched Disney movies with them, you most likely saw this logo. Oddly enough this particular logo only came into being in 1988. A different logo was used from 1984 until 1987, but as I didn't own any of the tapes in this collection from before 1989 when I was a kid, I won't be talking about that first logo in this post. Growing up, I spent alot of time at home or in the hospital and movies were how I kept busy when I couldn't be at school or just wasn't able to play with my younger siblings. The biggest movie collection my siblings and I had was Disney. 11 of those tapes belonged to the Walt Disney Classics line. So, let's talk about those tapes.
The earliest Classics release I had when I was a kid was Bambi. I didn't have it at home though. My grandparents bought it because Bambi was one of my grandfather's favourite movies. It just happened that they had a grandson (me) who watched movies, and a granddaughter (my sister) on the way. Bambi was released on home video on September 28th, 1989 and the opening includes a trailer for The Little Mermaid, which was coming out in theatres in less than two months. Because I had it at Nana's and Grandpa's house, I didn't actually watch Bambi all that much. Maybe even only one time if I had to guess. It definitely wasn't a tape I rewatched thousands of times like some of the other releases in this collection.
The first entry in the Walt Disney Classics that was bought specifically for me was Peter Pan. I actually watched this movie quite a bit when I was a kid. I don't remember who bought it for me, probably either Nana or Grandma, most likely Nana, though I my parents had to have bought us one of the Classics tapes. This is the first Disney feature that I owned. I'd had the Winnie the Pooh shorts, and a couple of the Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes, but this was the first of the feature films that I owned and was at my house, not just at Nana's. The opening includes a trailer for The Little Mermaid, which had been released on home video four months earlier, and a sneak peek at The Rescuers Down Under which was coming out in theatres two months after this tape was released. Peter Pan is one of those action films that has mostly good songs, with one that REALLY doesn't hold up today. It's still one of my favourite Disney movies to this day, despite that unfortunate scene in the movie. It was released on September 21st, 1990.
Up next is of course the first one I really remember watching all the time when I was a kid. That would be The Jungle Book. This is still my absolute favourite Disney movie of all time. It's not the greatest movie of all time, but it's my favourite. The Jungle Book was released on home video on May 3rd, 1991 and the opening includes a Making of sneak peek preview of Beauty and the Beast which was going to be released in theatres that Thanksgiving weekend, and a trailer for the home video release of The Rescuers Down Under, which was going to be released a few months later. I finally got this tape back in my collection a few weeks ago, but I'll talk more about that in a couple of weeks when I talk about my current Walt Disney Classics collection.
Speaking of The Rescuers Down Under, that's the next tape coming up on my list of Walt Disney Classics tapes that I owned when I was a kid. It was released on September 20th, 1991, and I think I actually might've gotten this tape at the same time as The Jungle Book as I got most of these tapes for my birthday or Christmas and I'm pretty sure I got both tapes for either my birthday or Christmas in 1991. I didn't like this movie as much when I was a kid, but I grew to love it when I watched the tape as a teenager in the early 2000s. The only preview at the beginning of the tape is one for the home video release of The Jungle Book.
The next tape on this list is Fantasia. Nana and Grandpa had this tape at their house, and I remember watching it only once when I was at their place one afternoon. I have a copy of this tape in my collection now, but I haven't watched it yet, so I don't remember what the opening of the tape is. As I recall, the tape didn't have any previews on it at all, and I don't think the Walt Disney Classics logo is on this tape either. It's not on the cover or the spine at all. Instead the tape says "Walt Disney's Masterpiece" which is funny, because the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection would replace the Walt Disney Classics in 1994. But this tape came out in 1991, a little less than three years before the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection started, so I don't know if Eisner and Katzenberg intended for the Masterpiece Collection to replace the Classics line sooner than it did or not. Also it's interesting to note that 1991 has the highest number of Classics release of any year, as there are three new releases that year, and four re-releases of the earliest releases from 1984, 1985 and 1986.
Next up is 101 Dalmatians, which was released on April 10th, 1992. I wish I could remember when exactly I got this tape, but I don't because that was 30 years ago and my grandparents bought tapes for us quite often and even the ones we got for Christmas and birthdays tended to blend together in my memory. Especially the ones we didn't watch as often as others. For example, I know the 1991 VHS of The Jungle Book so well because I practically watched it every day for a year when I first got it. Whereas I don't remember this tape so well because I didn't watch it as often. I do remember this being the first Classics tape that promoted the then upcoming theatrical release of Aladdin. It did so with a short sneak peek preview that was less involved than the ones for The Rescuers Down Under on the Peter Pan tape, and for Beauty and the Beast on the The Jungle Book tape.
Up next is The Great Mouse Detective, which was released on July 17th, 1992. Again, there's a preview for Aladdin, which was still an upcoming theatrical release at the time. This was the last Classics tape that we had at Nana's and Grandpa's when I was growing up. As a result, I didn't watch as much as I would've liked to, but I borrowed it as a teenager and watched it a few times. Especially after I got a TV/VCR combo set from my uncle for my 16th birthday in 2002. I quite like this movie though it's been a while since I've watched it. I am planning a complete watchthrough of all the Classics tapes that I have in my collection so far so this one will come in that rotation at some point.
Tape #8 in my collection was The Rescuers. I remember getting this tape much later than the other ones in my collection that came out the year this one came out in (1992). Again, I don't remember if it was a birthday present, a Christmas present or a random present from someone. I just remember watching the movie several times over the span of about fifteen years or so. I actually saw a soundless clip of the movie before I ever owned this VHS tape. CHEO had a Fisher Price Movie Viewer in the play room. The Movie Viewer looked like an old style film camera in which you placed big yellow cartridges into the back of it. Those cartridges contained a single scene of a movie or TV episode. One of the cartridges I watched was the scene where "Tomorrow is Another Day" is playing over shots of Orville the Albatross flying over New York City, carrying Bernard and Bianca to Devil's Bayou on their mission to rescue Penny. There's no sound, just the animation, but I remember playing with that Movie Viewer with the cartridge for this movie before I ever had this particular VHS tape. Oh, and the previews on this tape are for the home video releases of Beauty and the Beast and The Great Mouse Detective.
I think besides The Jungle Book, Beauty and the Beast is the Walt Disney Classics tape that my siblings and I watched the most when we were kids. I'm pretty sure this was my sister's tape rather than all of ours, but we all watched it together alot. It was released on October 30th, 1992. This tape probably has the most previews on it out of all of the Classics releases. Our copy had previews for Aladdin, which was out in theatres by this point, a theatrical re-release of Sleeping Beauty, which was supposed to happen near the end of 1993, but got delayed until 1995 for whatever reason, a home video preview for Pinocchio, which was the next tape to come out in the Classics line, and then a home video preview for 101 Dalmatians at the end of the tape.
Pinocchio was not a tape I watched very much until I was a teenager and had my own TV and VCR in my room. We had it at our house, but the movie scared my sister so we didn't watch it a whole ton, if she wanted to watch a Disney movie with me. We did watch it occasionally though. The previews on this tape were for Aladdin, which was in theatres, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, which was scheduled to be released on October 29th, 1993. Of course Pinocchio had been released on VHS all the way back in 1985, as the second release in the Walt Disney Classics line, so this was a re-release. However, the cover and the spine didn't include the Walt Disney Classics logo on it anywhere. However, unlike with the Fantasia tape, having Walt Disney's Masterpiece on the cover makes sense since this tape came out on March 26th, 1993 and by then Disney was most likely planning to start the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, even if they didn't yet know that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was going to be the line's launch title.
The last Classics release I owned when I was a kid was Aladdin, which came out on October 1st 1993. This was another tape my siblings and I watched constantly when we were kids. Aladdin is one of my favourite Disney movies, because it's such a good movie, and it still holds up after almost 30 years. So that's cool. The previews on this tape are for the theatrical release of The Lion King, which was due to come out in the summer of 1994, and the home video release of Pinocchio, which I just talked about.
So that's it for the Walt Disney Classics tapes that my siblings and I had when we were kids. But, there are five tapes that we rented or that I watched at the hospital. So that's what I'm going to be talking about next time. Until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
.jpg)
.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment