Waiting… Waiting...

In March, three Disney animated classics arrived on Blu-ray alongside new release Wreck-It Ralph and non-canon film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. You could say it was "Disney Blu-ray Month", because we got a boatload of titles within a few weeks. Disney Blu-ray was release-happy again in June, giving us three more Disney animated classics. In August, four more!

So, it seemed like Disney would do the same this coming March, right? Apparently they aren't.

Two titles are scheduled for release in March, both are direct-to-video films: The Jungle Book 2 (since the first one's Diamond Edition comes out in February) and Springtime with Roo. Ermmm… Ummmmm… Okay? Disney, any animated feature-length films? Apparently they'll save those films for the summer.

For a while, I had predicted that Disney would repeat what they did this past March and finally give us Hercules and Tarzan on Blu-ray (the former hit Blu in Europe two months ago, the latter in May 2012) this coming March. Maybe even throw The Black Cauldron in there, because that's the only other non-package feature that they need to release on the format. I figured they'd bang those out in March, and then release all six of the package features in the summer. They'd get it all done right away, but that doesn't seem like that's in the cards.

If anything, the earliest we'll get Hercules and Tarzan is in the summer, mid-June to be exact. Disney may surprise us and release them in a spot that we wouldn't have expected them to pick, but who knows at this rate.

What do you think?

BluWorks

It looks like an older DreamWorks animated film is coming to Blu-ray this spring…

According to Amazon, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is going to hit the format on March 11, 2014. This makes it the first DreamWorks hand-drawn film to get a Blu-ray release, as it is one of four hand-drawn films produced by the studio. This implies that DreamWorks is intending to release everything else in their library that isn't on Blu-ray yet all throughout next year.

Currently, the following DreamWorks films aren't on Blu-ray in North America: Antz, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Shark Tale and Over the Hedge. The three Aardman films - Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Flushed Away - also aren't on Blu-ray in North America. It made me ask a couple times, "What's taking them?" You can rent all of them on iTunes or Vudu or whatever… Except Over the Hedge. That film seemed to fall off the face of the Earth. Nowhere to be found… Could it be a rights issue? It is based on a comic strip.

As for Spirit, I'll pick it up. I happen to like it, I like the fact that it's mostly dialogue-free and does have a pretty decent story. There are a few things about it that kind of irritate me, but I look past that and admire some of the great animation, the surprisingly effective use of Bryan Adams' songs and some genuinely good moments. I liked what they tried to achieve with it: A mostly silent story set during the Old American West of a lost horse trying to get back home and having quite the adventure. While a money loser when it opened, I'm sure it probably got a bigger fan base later on. I think it's a solid, good film.

Anyways, do you think DreamWorks will release a lot of their films on Blu-ray this coming year? Or not? Sound off below!

About Cussing Time...

It looks like the Criterion Collection is going to get their hands wet with animation…

That's right… Fantastic Mr. Fox will be the first animated feature film to get a Criterion Collection edition since Akira, which was released on LaserDisc way back in the mid 1990s. This edition will be released on February 18, 2014! Right around the corner!

Now, does this mean that Criterion will begin investing in other animated titles?

Back in 2010, Kevin T. Rodriguez of Examiner put together this excellent list of what titles that Criterion should give a release. It would give many obscure and hard-to-find animated films a chance to shine, and also gain new fans.

The Black Cauldron and Song of the South were listed, but these will probably never happen since Disney very rarely licenses their titles to other distributors. (A few of their live action titles were released by Anchor Bay on DVD in the early 2000s.)

The Thief and the Cobbler would be the Brazil of the animated Criterion Blu-rays, considering what that film went through and how many versions there are. The visually innovative Twice Upon a Time is criminally kept away from us, having only gotten a home video release once… In 1991. The Plague Dogs is always given the cheapo DVD treatment in the US, and every home video release of that film in the US (and even in its home country, the UK, until 2008) has the 86-minute version. The Secret of Kells got a great Blu-ray edition from Cinedigm months after this article was posted.

When The Wind Blows only got one VHS release here, and a few DVD releases in the UK. The Land Before Time would be interesting, if they track down Don Bluth's original cut or something close to it. (If it was ever finished and finalized before Steven Spielberg and George Lucas unusually forced him to water it down.) Coonskin is also ideal, along with some of Ralph Bakshi's other films that weren't as successful. The Point! is another good addition, being a particularly rare one.

But 10 isn't enough… There are tons and tons of animated films begging for a Criterion release or a release of that caliber…

Watership Down (also from the director of The Plague Dogs, Martin Rosen) never really got a great DVD release here, at least not to my knowledge. I have the 2008 "Deluxe Edition" DVD, but it had very few bonus features and nothing from a good 2005 DVD released only in Australia, which apparently contained an audio commentary from Rosen himself.

The UK's first feature-length animated film, Handling Ships, is a good candidate along with the 1954 Animal Farm. The former is tough, because it was really a training film requested by the British Admiralty that didn't get much of a release. The latter is doable, considering the source material and its status as one of the UK's first animated features.

Aside from The Thief and the Cobbler, Richard Williams' work deserves a set of its own, from his short films to his commercials. But of course we have Garrett Gilchrist restoring his work and making it readily available for animation fans, after all, it was his dedication that brought Cobbler into the limelight as he tracked down the work print and also put together his wonderful fan-edit, The Recobbled Cut.

What about The Adventures of Mark Twain? Will Vinton's stop motion animated film from 1985? A limited released back in the day, it needs to reach a wider audience.

Several anime films… There's a goldmine there!

There are also lots of interesting European productions from the Golden Age that could get some form of release as well.

Anyways, that's just some pipe dream stuff. Maybe this will be a one-time thing given the fact that Criterion has given many of Wes Anderson's films tip top treatment. Or maybe, just maybe, they'll finally mine the animation caves. Let's hope that happens!

By the way, that cover artwork is splendid. It fits the film better than the current Blu-ray edition's cover…

Yeesh…

Rising Again?

DreamWorks might want their ill-fated, ambitious animated feature Rise of the Guardians to make its money back somehow...

A new Blu-ray edition is hitting shelves on November 5th, with cover artwork that plays up the Christmas angle of the film.

Fortunately for DreamWorks, they were able to release this film on Blu-ray earlier in the year because it's not truly a Christmas film (unlike something like The Polar Express, which they waited a year after its theatrical release to put out on DVD for obvious reasons) and it actually takes place around Easter. But since Santa Claus and Jack Frost are in it, this release was inevitable. I had actually thought way back when that DreamWorks could re-release this film on Blu-ray with different packaging for a Christmas release, and perhaps a Halloween release focusing on Pitch. (Probably a no-go since Pitch was the villain and he supposedly scared many kids.)

Like the original Blu-ray cover, this doesn't present our childhood heroes as badasses. The more they promote it as cutesy fluff, the more people will scoop it up. Unfortunately, in America, you have to market animation as cutesy or comedic. Just look at Frozen's new trailer...

Anyways, this might help the film get more fans and hopefully those who didn't see it get to check it out. Will it put the film in the black? Probably not... That'll probably take a while, though I heard that the DVD and Blu-ray sales have been good for this one. Long live Rise of the Guardians!

August Animation Tidbits

More tidbits for ya...

Planes once again proves that animated films that don't have much adult appeal won't fare too, too well. Planes is unabashedly a children's film, so it didn't set the box office on fire over the weekend unlike something like Monsters University or Despicable Me 2. You know, animation that's both for kids and adults.

But others (such as are ever-so-accurate press) would lead you to believe that Turbo, The Smurfs 2 and Planes underperformed because there's "too much animation", implying that people are getting sick of feature animation... No, they are getting sick of bland animation and animation that's aimed at kids only... Plus, with all these films opening so close to each other, families got super-choosy. I hope this summer teaches distributors a lesson: Don't open so many animated films so close to each other. 2 or 3 is fine, but 5 or more? A big no-no.

Opening with a small $22 million, Planes already made Disney very happy since the film only cost $50 million to produce. Plus, it's bound to make a good amount overseas given some foreign locations they cover in this film. All I can say is... Ehhhhhhhhhh. Why oh why does the sequel have to be a theatrical release?

~

DreamWorks, in a rather surprising move, pushed their highly anticipated How To Train Your Dragon 2 a week forward. The film is now set to open on June 13, 2014, but honestly... I can kind of see Kung Fu Panda 2 happening all over again. Sort of.

If you remember, Paramount and DreamWorks for some reason felt that the sequel to their 2008 blockbuster would put up a good fight against The Hangover Part II. But what happened? The teens and adults flocked to The Hangover Part II, leaving Kung Fu Panda 2 to rely on family audiences and those who have no interest in The Hangover franchise... The result was a very disappointing $47 million opening while The Hangover Part II took in $85 million for the weekend. Its opening was certainly no major take off, especially when you consider that its predecessor opened 3 years earlier with $60 million... Without 3D ticket prices!

What opens the same weekend as How To Train Your Dragon 2? 22 Jump Street...

Let's see... A sequel to a sleeper hit R-rated comedy? Need I say more?

How To Train Your Dragon 2's opening may not be spectacular unless Fox plays their cards right. The teaser for this was fabulous, unlike the lazy "staring contest" teaser for Kung Fu Panda 2. Its official trailer better deliver and make audiences want to see it opening weekend, because Kung Fu Panda 2's underwhelming trailers and marketing didn't succeed in doing that. Hopefully Fox's marketing shows audiences why they should definitely see DreamWorks' epic sequel to their very good film and make the audiences think, "Hmmm... Yeah I'll see that instead of 22 Jump Street!"

I mean, this is supposed to be a very big follow-up to the leggy original. The original was lucky to have many weeks all to itself, so that the incredibly strong word-of-mouth was able to help the film climb to $200 million at the domestic box office. This sequel underperforming and making less would be terrible, especially since it's supposed to be like the series' Empire Strikes Back. I wouldn't doubt that, because DreamWorks went the darker route for their sequel to Kung Fu Panda but yet the poor handled of that stalled it from doing better than its predecessor at the box office. Let's hope the same mistakes aren't made again with this sequel, because DreamWorks needs a big hit and I don't quite think Mr. Peabody & Sherman will be a box office bonanza.

But apparently Fox and DreamWorks are confident in this, so it's possible that the dragons may outwit the cops that summer weekend. Personally, I think these poor choices of release dates are what's are partially killing most animated films these days. (Bolt and Winnie the Pooh, anyone?)

~

On the home media front, we got word of the postponed Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume 2 set. In case you didn't know, this series was meant to give us - the animation enthusiast - the complete, fully uncensored collection of the entire Tom and Jerry filmography from the Golden Age to the post-Hanna-Barbera films. Volume 1 delivered the goods and then some, everything on there was uncensored and there were even a couple lovely bonus features.

But this upcoming set is a disaster in the making. Warner Bros. legal department will not allow two particular Tom and Jerry cartoons to be released in any form. The problem is, both are supposed to be on Volume Two since the series is going in chronological order. Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat are the two shorts in question. The legal department want to avoid a PR nightmare, but they are hypocrites because Warner Bros. has released material that's just as offensive for general consumers, from the uncensored Looney Tunes collections to the uncensored Popeye sets to the first volume of this series... And they all have warnings saying that they're for the "adult collector", and they also give viewers an explanation of the content in these films: Again, some of the certain gags in these shorts are offensive, but censoring them out is just as offensive. They're a part of history. The first set and all their other adult-oriented cartoon collections from Warner make this very, very clear.

However, WB's legal department doesn't want these two particular shorts to see the light of day for some probably stupid reason, not even through the WB Archive, thus contradicting everything the other sets stood for. So we can't have those two shorts on an "adult collector" set, but yet we can have other offensive material. The legal department apparently thinks that we're children or something.

Let that all sink in for a minute...

PR nightmare, alright. They created a new one just by playing this game with us. We're adults, we know why these cartoons are the way are, so stop trying to hide them from us when you've released other equally offensive cartoons to general consumers, general consumers! Anyone who has seen Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat will tell you that they are no more offensive than The Milky Waif and The Truce Hurts, or any other Tom and Jerry cartoon with a blackface gag that's readily available uncensored in the US for general consumers. Warner Home Video really wants all of these pieces of history to be released, but no, the legal department has something against those two particular shorts...

Anyways, this pointless and unfair censorship lead to (much-deserved) backlash, and it's made the news, too! The set was then postponed, though a December 17th date somehow got out there. Jerry Beck (in case you don't know, he's a great animation historian and has worked on many of these sets, including this one) appeared on Stu's Show not too long ago. The set was brought up and he outright confirmed that WB's legal department is giving Warner Home Video trouble, and they're not going to let those two cartoons see any form of release in America (note: They're available uncensored in the UK). He says that we shouldn't expect the set until 2014 at the least. I'm not holding my breath for a complete set.

Insert rant here...

~

Speaking of home media, on October 15th, the surprisingly very good and well-written Disney Channel animated series Gravity Falls will be hitting some form of home media... Unfortunately, it's a DVD-only release with six episodes. "Six Strange Tales"... Yeah, because we can't have our full season just yet. Or ever, maybe... Given Disney's track record when it comes to these things.

If Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network can give us the full seasons of shows like Adventure Time and Regular Show, Disney can damn well do the same for Gravity Falls. Heck, where are the full season sets for Phineas and Ferb?! What they're failing to realize is that like those two Cartoon Network shows, Gravity Falls has a teenaged and adult fanbase that makes it very successful. People would also scoop up a season boxset of Phineas and Ferb, from families to fans to many others. However, it is possible that this is a set geared towards the kids and that they're saving the goods for the fans. (Making this show an exception to their TV shows on home media business model.)

Well, maybe. Here's hoping they do the same for TRON: Uprising, since they did a good job sending that show to the grave. At least Blu-ray sales or the fact that it's on Netflix could gain the series new fans... Though the third TRON film doesn't seem to be a go anytime soon. Director Joseph Kosinski has signed on to direct The Twilight Zone movie. Looks like that franchise is slowing down once again...

~

Animated Views recently interviewed Jimmy Hayward and Aron Warner. Hayward, as you may know, is the director of Reel FX Creative Studios' debut theatrical feature-length animated film Free Birds (formerly known as Turkeys), which will hit theaters on November 1st. Warner is a big-time producer, and he's well-known for producing the Shrek films, as Free Birds' fun trailer mentions.

Hayward talked about some of its production history, and also said that the film's plot is "all in good fun" and that they aren't trying to send some PETA-esque "don't eat turkey" message. (Phew!) He also explained the title change, saying that they wanted something that would have international appeal. Then he also explained the release date change, the movie was pretty much in the can last summer and November 2014 was too much of a family film mine (Big Hero 6, Home, Night at the Museum 3, etc.)

Warner talked about Reel FX's plans, things I speculated about months ago. I'm in support of this studio because they've got risky things planned for the future (Hayward himself elaborated on that), and they also plan on spending reasonable budgets on their films. Hmmmm, maybe other studios should follow suit, yes? For the record, Free Birds has pretty good-looking animation if you ask me. See, I like this idea. Lower budgets mean greater risks can be taken, LAIKA and Aardman don't thrive for nothing.

He also mentioned a few things about Jorge Guiterrez's Book of Life...

"The movie is unlike any computer animated film I’ve ever seen. It looks different; it feels different; it sounds different. It’s definitely Jorge’s – it is so much a project from this guy’s heart."

Now see? That's what studios should be doing, making lower budget films that take some major-league creative risks. Book of Life might just change the industry if Free Birds is a hit, and prove that good computer animation can be done for less than $100 million and it doesn't have to come from someone like Disney, Pixar or DreamWorks. Again, Free Birds looks fun despite some formulaic elements, but it's a safer film for a reason. It's the debut, it's the kick-off feature. Safe film first, risks later!

No word on Beasts of Burden, though...

~

What do you think of Reel FX? Do you think the studio has a lot of potential? Do you anticipate what they have to offer? Do you think Disney will eventually give us season box sets of shows like Gravity Falls, Phineas and Ferb and TRON: Uprising? Do you think Warner Home Video will triumph over the legal department? Or will they lose and all we'll end up getting is a censored set? Do you think DreamWorks and Fox moving How To Train Your Dragon 2 up a week was a good idea, or not?

Sound off below!

So Much Space...

In this age of digital means of watching films and entertainment, some have worried (myself included) that physical media would be on its way out by around 2015. Blu-ray Disc has been around since 2006, but it's battled with the likes of Netflix and Vudu recently. Now, as an avid Disney fanatic, I've been noticing a decline in the quality of their Blu-ray releases... Even the prestigious Diamond Editions have been lacking in some way.

In 2011, we started seeing releases where an animated classic would be paired with its cash-grab direct-to-video sequel, taking up space and in some cases, possibly compromising the image quality of the first film whilst leaving not so much room for bonus features. It didn't help that they were titles that Disney didn't really give the tip-top bonus features treatment either.

Then slowly but surely, Disney put out some double-packs that had no bonus features at all such as The Emperor's New Groove and Lilo & Stitch's two-movie collections... You had to pop in the included DVDs to see some bonus features... Because the DVDs weren't updated! They were the same masters from the previous release! For instance, New Groove last hit DVD in 2005... The DVD in the combo pack has that version of the film, complete with previews from the era! Disney probably does this because DVD-only versions of films are becoming more and more of a rarity, so they figure... "Who is going to buy The Emperor's New Groove on DVD if Cinderella and Brave didn't sell enough units?"

Picture quality on the individual titles was erratic too, as evidenced by some recent releases and the right-around-the-corner release of The Sword in the Stone. Live action titles? Some have received very poor transfers, a lot of the sets just come off as cheap. Disney has been cranking so many films out left and right, but at the expense of good quality. Disney did do this for a good batch of films during the DVD era, but I've been thinking that Disney knows something that we don't know...

Enter Sony and Panasonic, who are working on a new physical media format... One that'll specialize in discs that can hold 300GB! That's right, discs holding 300GB! That trumps Blu-ray's usual 50GB with a lead hammer! Now... Think of how much Disney can cram onto a single disc for one of their animated features. Just think about it for a second...

Maybe Disney has been slacking on their recent Blu-rays because of this. Maybe they knew of this format for a little while, or had predicted that a greater physical media format would come about in the next couple of years.

On the other hand, Disney can put a ton of films on the same disc, which I really hope they don't do. I'd rather buy The Emperor's New Groove with boatloads of bonuses and The Sweatbox (pipe dream) than "The Emperor's New Groove plus 2-3 other movies!" That would just be cheap, and it won't make the individual classics or films stand-out.

Another opportunity they can take... Their television shows. Complete series of the Disney Afternoon shows, all of them! Wouldn't be it awesome to not only own all of DuckTales (and possibly the movie, which can only be obtained on a Region 1 DVD through the Disney Movie Club?) on one set, but also the other Disney Afternoon cartoons you never got on DVD? Or how about programming that's never seen a physical release? Archives? The list goes on and on... And on...

So much potential... Like cracking open a treasure chest...

Non-Classic Confusion

Prior to The Walt Disney Company's realization that releasing the animated classics on home video would usher in a successful era for both Walt Disney Home Video and the home media industry, the company kept certain animated classics out of reach from the American public. To wit, the animated classics that were always theatrically re-released every 7-10 years and never shown on television. Classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Bambi, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty and many more...

Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland were exceptions, though while Disney theatrically re-released them after the 1950s, both films were televised on Walt Disney's groundbreaking anthology series Disneyland, albeit in edited form and in black-and-white. These films were simply not part of this particular canon of Disney animated films. What else was absent from this "canon"? The package features...

In the 1950s, many of the omnibus package features were cut up and the different segments were used elsewhere from television programs to shorts needed to accompany theatrical releases, though The Three Caballeros happened to get a theatrical re-release in 1977, given the psychedelic audiences of the time and the fact that they made the 1969 re-release of Fantasia and the 1974 re-release of Alice in Wonderland successful... In fact, both films finally turned a profit thanks to these re-issues. Though I think by 1977, Disney was a little too late to keep cashing in on this.

That all being said, this is the reason why Dumbo, The Three Caballeros, Fun & Fancy Free, Alice in Wonderland and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh were the first of the canon animated classics released on home video.

I don't have this edition... Yet!

Then of course, in 1984, Walt Disney Home Video launched The Classics. The very brand that was set up to give the Disney animated classics the prestigious treatment on home video whilst differentiating the releases of those films from the rest of their titles. At a time when everything came in a thick white clamshell and would have Sorcerer Mickey and the Walt Disney Home Video logo take up the top half of the front cover artwork...

Disney had finally started experimenting with full cover artwork in 1983 with the Cartoon Classics, which paved the way for The Classics and all of the animated films being released on home media. Dumbo became the first of the 1981-1982 releases to get the Classics treatment, which would ultimately replace the previous release with full cover artwork and the Classics diamond was all over the packaging. This would street just in time for Disney's "Making Your Dreams Come True" holiday sell-through promotion which included 20 other titles all priced at $29.95. A move that also rocketed Walt Disney Home Video's profits in the coming years. Alice in Wonderland then got the Classics treatment months later, in May of 1986 as the centerpiece of the summer-long Wonderland Sale promotion. But what happened to the other three films?

The Three Caballeros' only home video release at the time was in November 1982. Walt Disney Home Video didn't re-release the title on home video until late 1987... But was it a Classics edition? By 1987, the canon had changed. The package features were now part of the official line-up, in addition to films shown on television such as Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland, but... Caballeros' 1987 release was not a Classics edition, oddly enough!

So you've got the Walt Disney's heading. Check. Full, lovely detailed artwork? Check. Donald Duck's head is in a diamond frame on the spine of the tape? Check. No Classics Diamond to be seen, it's just a regular Walt Disney Home Video release that opens with the 1986 Walt Disney Home Video logo. (The "Sorcerer Mickey" one, if you don't know.) Also, prior to 1988, all Classics editions of pre-1970 Disney animated films would have the heading "Walt Disney's" or "Disney's" (only used for The Sword in the Stone's first two packages).

So how come this package feature wasn't given the Classics treatment?

A year after The Three Caballeros was re-issued with very fully detailed packaging, Mary Poppins was re-issued and got the nice full artwork treatment!

In 1989, Bedknobs and Broomsticks also got the same treatment. Pete's Dragon was next in 1991, followed by So Dear to My Heart in 1992. Maybe Disney still considered something like Caballeros, with its live action portions, a separate entity from the other classics thus it wasn't deserving of that black diamond. Maybe they felt it was more in line with their live action films that contained animation.

Fun & Fancy Free wasn't re-released on video at all between 1984 and the mid-to-late 1990s, ditto The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. In fact, none of the other package features got released on home video. No Classics editions for those, nor any standalone editions that didn't bear the Classics name. Why was that?

I think that a certain video line introduced the same year as Caballeros' second video release was the reason you didn't see something like Fun & Fancy Free or The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in their full complete form at the time...

The Mini-Classics line was launched in 1987 alongside the next wave of Cartoon Classics editions (or the "2nd Wave"), a line where featurettes and longer short subjects would get a video edition of their own. Mickey and the Beanstalk was one of the premiere titles, Bongo got the Mini-Classics treatment two years later in fall 1989. The versions of the short subjects were different; Beanstalk was presented in its 1962 form that Ludwig von Drake narrated for the anthology television series, which was by that time was called Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. In the original 1947 feature film, it's narrated by Edgar Bergen along with Luana Patten, Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd.



Bongo is narrated by Jiminy Cricket, as this version was televised in 1955 on the anthology series. In fact, the back cover of the VHS mentions that the program consists of "Jiminy Cricket presents Bongo" and Fun & Fancy Free! The original was narrated by Dinah Shore, a pop singer and actress from the era. Another version (with the original narration) would later be attached to Disney's live action film The Wild Country in 1971. (More on this short subject on Jerry Beck's Cartoon Research, a very interesting read that includes the press kit from the short film's 1971 theatrical release!)

Maybe Disney just felt that having the two shorts out was all they needed, instead of restoring and re-releasing the full film. Maybe they just felt in 1989-1990, "Who wants Fun & Fancy Free when we can give them Bambi?" Also, Mickey and the Beanstalk was always the main attraction anyways, as the original 1982 of the film cover totally stresses. Another possible reason is that Disney felt like milking the cash cow with the individual shorts that made up the films, selling 2-3 short subjects from each film for a good price.

So with Bongo and Mickey and the Beanstalk available separately on home video in the late 1980s, when did Fun & Fancy Free finally get it's second ever home video release? 1997.

Notice it was part of a line that included the other canon animated classics? Well by the mid-1990s, things were different. Disney retired the Classics brand in 1994 and replaced it with the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, which would not only include package features, but also live action films that contained animation. So Dear to My Heart, Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Pete's Dragon were among the nine premiere titles. All four of those films hadn't been retired to the vault, so Disney just updated the packaging for each film, ditto all the Classics editions that were still in print at the time. (i.e. Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland.) Oh, and the cover totally leaves poor Bongo out. It's all about Mickey and the Beanstalk... Sheesh, the cover almost implies that this film is just about Mickey, Donald and Goofy. Well hopefully a full-length film about Mickey is coming... You know... That one that Burny Mattinson confirmed a couple years ago.

Anyways, to get back on topic, the VHS was a 50th Anniversary release so Disney did give it the treatment it deserved. The VHS even had a behind-the-scenes special at the end, like most other VHS releases of Disney classics in the late 1990s. Fun & Fancy Free got one more home media release 3 years later as a Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection, on both VHS and DVD. The fact that it hasn't seen a new release in over 13 years is kind of upsetting, but hopefully it'll get the Blu-ray treatment soon. (Along with the other package features!)

Now we get to The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Disney didn't update the packaging in the mid 1980s like they did to several of their in-print films, so I'm assuming Winnie went into the vault sometime in 1983 or 1984, much like Alice in Wonderland. In the mid 1980s, Disney gave a lot of their films slight packaging makeovers. In late 1984/early 1985, clamshell covers would replace the EPCOT-style font for "HOME VIDEO" with a less 1980s-styled one.

In late 1985, Disney began using bigger cover images surrounded by a white border with the Mickey and WDHV logo at the top of the artwork, albeit a lot smaller. This style stuck until 1987, though it didn't apply to every release.

Yet The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was never re-issued or updated with cover artwork like that. But we did get the individual shorts, some way or another!

In 1984, Disney released Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore on a VHS and Laserdisc called Winnie the Pooh and Friends...

The other three bear-themed shorts included are two classics with Humphrey the Bear - Hooked Bear and In the Bag - and the 1950 Goofy cartoon Hold That Pose, a funny entry in the "How To" series where he attempts to photograph a bear... Or essentially an early version of Humphrey. I never really considered that bear in question to be Humphrey. With over 43 minutes of content on the program, it seemed like a suitable release.

In 1986, all four Winnie the Pooh shorts got their own editions, which came in cardboard slipcover cases. This made sense, since the Classics line was just getting warmed up. Maybe the full feature would be released sometime later? The possibility of that happening was shot down in 1990, when all four of the shorts were re-released as Walt Disney Mini-Classics editions. Fans and consumers had to wait until 1996 to get the full feature again, but Disney didn't slack off on giving it good treatment!

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh hit home video again as a Masterpiece Collection edition on March 27, 1996. 

A deluxe edition was released alongside it, so Disney gave the film the treatment it deserved. Gone were the days where you had to find the out-of-print 1981 VHS or watch all the shorts in order without the tacked on ending. Man, did the Masterpiece Collection fulfill fans' wishes or what?

The other package features weren't ever released on home video in the United States and Canada during the 1980s and early 1990s. Disney only opted to release The Three Caballeros and Fun & Fancy Free in 1982, re-releasing the former in 1987 while leaving the latter one to sit in the vault. Individual segments from the films did, however, appear on video. Melody Time's Little Toot segment was on the 1982 compilation Storybook Classics. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow segment from The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was the main attraction of its own spooky-themed compilation tape in 1983. With the advent of the Mini-Classics line a few years later, more segments were released on video between 1987 and 1991: Peter and the Wolf and Willie the Operatic Whale from Make Mine Music, and finally The Wind in the Willows segment from Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

It seemed like Disney knew something was going to work out for them. They couldn't cut The Three Caballeros up, since the sequences were mostly under 10 minutes in length or weren't really stories per se, unlike some of the segments from other package features. With them being over 10-15 minutes, Disney saw some opportunities there. With the Mini-Classics line, Disney could easily make a good amount off of 2-3 segments on their own VHS tapes from a package film rather than a single VHS containing the full film. Smart strategy, and they continued this with the Favorite Stories line in the 1990s until calling it quits and finally releasing the full films (well, almost all of them) in the Masterpiece Collection. It didn't matter whether it was a package feature or a live action film containing animation, they'd find a home in this line.

About the Masterpiece Collection... Well, two particular home video releases from the early 1990s were always rather... Strange. What are they?

The 1991 video release of Fantasia and the 1993 video release of Pinocchio...

Remember, the Classics line was retired in 1994... But these two releases don't have the Classics diamond anywhere on the packaging, though the characters' heads are in a diamond. Both have a "Walt Disney's Masterpiece" heading. Oddly enough, however, they both open with the Walt Disney Classics logo!





Fantasia was one of two films that Walt Disney Home Video didn't plan on ever releasing on any home media formats. The other one was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, this was probably due to their popularity (they always did well in re-releases, even after the video boom starting firing up) or their status as two of Walt's finest. Anyways, Fantasia seemed like it would never come out. Even in 1991, the year it was released, it seemed like it wouldn't be released. Some early plans supposedly had One Hundred and One Dalmatians pegged as the holiday 1991 tape release (following its very successful summer 1991 re-release that grossed $24 million less than The Little Mermaid on its initial release!), since everything else was set in stone... The Jungle Book in spring, Robin Hood and The Rescuers Down Under in the summer.

Other rumors suggested that Dalmatians would compete with Down Under or Fantasia for the holiday spot. All three ended up being released within the same timeframe: Down Under was a very late summer release (as in three days away from the first day of autumn in 1991), Fantasia was the holiday release and Dalmatians appeared in spring 1992.

Fantasia wasn't given the Classics treatment in the packaging department. In fact, this would be the first time Disney released a lavish deluxe set for an animated film. Maybe because it was given such grand treatment, Disney didn't feel the need to make it part of a line... Maybe they just wanted it to be its own special entity.

But why does the Classics logo precede the film? Mistake, maybe? Or was this release going to be a Classics edition? A long time ago (I want to say mid-2006), I saw a scan of the cover artwork that actually had the "Walt Disney's Classic" heading... Haven't seen it since, but it's possible that it was a fake. If it's real, then it's proof that it was going to be a Classics edition with the diamond and all. But the logo's inclusion already tells me that it in fact was going to be a Classics edition. Do you think so?

Pinocchio was first released as a Classics edition in 1985 (the second, the first being Robin Hood), and that film went on moratorium in 1987 (not counting it's brief stay in the vault from early to late 1986). It wouldn't be released on home video again until March 1993, following its final theatrical re-release. This re-release presented a fully restored version of the film to audiences, but it didn't really gross much at the box office, probably because many people already had the VHS. On an interesting side note, a fully restored Sleeping Beauty was supposed to re-released in spring 1993... But those plans fell through, probably because the Pinocchio re-release didn't do so well. Have a look at the trailer for this scrapped re-release, which came from the Beauty and the Beast VHS...



Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs' fully restored print that was first re-released in 1987 would be re-released in fall 1993, but this re-release happened because the last one did well and it wasn't ever released on home video at the time. Pinocchio, again, most likely did poorly in 1992 because it was already on video. Disney probably figured that the same would've happened to Sleeping Beauty, since it was released on home video before and sold very well.

Back to the Pinocchio VHS...

Like the Fantasia VHS, the diamond is nowhere to be found nor any mention of "The Classics". The tape opens up with the Classics logo... But unlike Fantasia's VHS, there is firm evidence that this was in fact a Classics release at one point.

A good friend of mine and fellow Disney VHS collector Nick William (YouTube) found a demo/sales/in-store tape VHS for this release (from late 1992) back in September...



As you can see, the spine has the Classics and WDHV logo scheme that the other Classics editions from 1986-onwards have... But the heading says "Walt Disney's Masterpiece". Strange indeed. For some reason, Disney instead made it a standalone edition and also gave it a lavish box set edition.

But why for this film? It had been released on home video before, unlike Fantasia. Maybe Disney was getting ready to retire the Classics line early on? It couldn't have been for films that got box set editions, because Beauty and the Beast also had a box set and that was an actual Classics edition. (The film was released on video in October 1992, between Fantasia and Pinocchio.) Aladdin, the second-to-last Classics edition, also got a box set edition.

Us collectors might not have cracked this nut yet (has anyone ever viewed a Fantasia demo tape, by the way?), but this is a rather interesting tidbit in Walt Disney Home Video's history. In fact, it kind of repeated itself in 2010. Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 were going to be a two-movie collection Blu-ray in the Diamond Edition collection line. The trailer touted it as a Diamond Edition, and when you insert the disc into a PlayStation 3 (or any BD player that shows you the name of the content), it says "Diamond Edition". But the packaging doesn't mention "Diamond Edition" anywhere, it's just a standalone release. 1991 all over again?

So package features didn't get the Classics treatment, yet they could've. (This calls for an alternate Walt Disney Home Video history!) A few titles were going to be Classics editions, but then became weird hybrid editions... Looking into these things is a daily thing for us collectors, because the many VHS tapes released from the 1980s to the mid 1990s have their oddities and errors. These cases are just one of many!

Branching Out on Blu

In a rather strange move, Disney's home entertainment division announced that two titles that are hitting stores on November 5th... But they aren't full-length features!

That's right... A featurette and a cash grab holiday special assembled from a television episode and other footage.

According to DVDizzy, Mickey's Christmas Carol will come with two other cartoons that are currently unspecified. My guess is that The Small One will be one of the two, being a holiday-themed roughly half hour-long short subject. Coincidentally, both films were products from the then-young turks at the Disney studio. Don Bluth worked on The Small One - which was released in 1978 to accompany the holiday re-release of Pinocchio - one of the last projects he completed work on at the Disney studio before leaving in 1979. Mickey's Christmas Carol was another safe project for the animators, as the executives weren't willing to let them tackle the likes of a big budget Snow White-type epic - something like The Black Cauldron - just yet.

Though it may be criticized for being a watered down version of the classic story, I always thought it was a good short. I particularly liked the surprise appearances of characters from some of the classics, including the package features. I'll happily pick it up. If the Blu-ray contains The Small One, what else will it contain? Supposedly the main feature runs 95 minutes, and that's 52 minutes down so... I'm guessing a package of Christmas Mickey short subjects (Cartoon Classics-style) or maybe a special from the 90s or something... Can't really guess at the moment.

A Very Merry Pooh Year was a 2002 special cobbled together from "Winnie the Pooh and Christmas Too" (a special from the New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh television series that ran from 1988 to 1991) and newly-created animation... All I can say is this: Does this really warrant a Blu-ray release? Why can't Disney just do the right thing and release the entire first season of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on Blu-ray... Oh, and while they're at it, seasons for every Disney Afternoon cartoon. Consumers may not demand it, but many other folks do! Plus, if they forget the special and just release seasons of New Adventures, parents will snatch them up for their tykes. Heck, even Pooh's Grand Adventure is more deserving of a Blu-ray release than this!

Anyways, if Disney is willing to release short subjects and specials on Blu-ray as standalone titles, then what could they possibly churn out next year? Cartoon compilations, maybe? More shorts? What do you think?

P.S. - I saw Monsters University yesterday and I thought it was very, very good... Review should be up soon, but I'd prefer if I gave it another watch... Until then, stay tooned!

June Animation Tidbits [#2]

More animation tidbits! Looks like this month is picking up a bit! Oh, and check out that nice Frozen teaser poster...

Well how about that... The teaser for The Lego Movie has finally arrived! Just in time for a certain big animated film that's opening on Friday...



One thing I liked about the trailer was the beginning, parodying most trailers for big blockbusters and humorously implying a Justice League movie is what's in store. I also love the animation of the individual Lego people, it was almost stop motion-like in a way. But the film is said to be an all-CG production, hmmmm...

The jokes? A lot of them worked, but what really thrilled me was the look of it and the glimpses of the action. All in all, it looks like it'll be a whole lot of fun. 2014's animation slate just got more and more exciting...

~

Speaking of 2014 animated films, a new image from DreamWorks' Mr. Peabody & Sherman. It's just another look at the titular duo, so hopefully we'll get a poster or a teaser sometime soon.

Here's hoping it's fun one! This DreamWorks production will hit theaters nationwide on March 7, 2014.

~

Thanks to a recent press release from Disney, we now know what the Fall 2014 Diamond Edition title will be... Sleeping Beauty!

Though I had thought that Aladdin and One Hundred and One Dalmatians would follow The Jungle Book (Spring 2014), it seems like Disney will do whatever with this line now despite the fact that this title is already on Blu-ray unlike the other titles that haven't been released as Diamonds yet, sans Pinocchio. The home entertainment division is probably doing this because Disney's big budget tentpole Maleficent hits theaters in the summer of 2014, and the Blu-ray should hit stores in the autumn.

So basically, I have to revise my predictions!

~

Animation Fascination and HitFix have some great details about Walt Disney Animation Studios' upcoming Mickey Mouse short Get A Horse!, which premiered at the Annecy eighteen days ago. The presentation was held by Disney legend Eric Goldberg and animator Adam Green. Hitfix's Drew McWeeny had this to say...

“Evidently, they opened the presentation by talking about how storyboards had been found for an unfinished Mickey Mouse short, and then the classics ‘Plane Crazy’ and ‘Steamboat Willie’ were shown. Perfect way to set the stage for what happened to those recently discovered storyboards. As Get A Horse! begins, it appears to be an actual 1928 Disney cartoon, but at some point, the screen shakes and a full-color 3D rendered Mickey Mouse appears in the cartoon. From that point on, the film mixes the ’20s style hand animation and modern cutting edge 3D work, with the beginning of Disney’s legacy colliding to what sounds like hilarious effect with the latest and most technically polished expression of Disney’s vision.”

McWeeny also states that the short will be attached to Frozen, though there hasn't been much of an official confirmation... Strange, considering that Disney announced that Paperman would precede Wreck-It Ralph in theaters.

~

What do you think of the teaser for The Lego Movie? Are you anticipating the film? Or not? When do you think we'll get a trailer for Mr. Peabody & Sherman? Or better yet a proper first look? What do you think of Sleeping Beauty hitting Blu-ray as a Diamond Edition before Aladdin and One Hundred and One Dalmatians? Are you hyped for Get A Horse!?

Sound off below!

[UPDATE] Four In August

A few weeks ago, Disney quietly put it out there that Oliver & Company was coming to Blu-ray on August 6th, which was almost in line with some predictions I made a while ago. Since Oliver was one of those Disney animated films released on DVD only between 2009 and 2010, I figured it would get a release sometime this year since Pete's Dragon and The Great Mouse Detective got Blu-ray releases last year that were essentially upgrades of their previous DVD editions with the same cover artwork and edition names to boot. Also, Oliver turns 25.

Oliver & Company, in my eyes, certainly isn't one of Disney's better animated classics though it's an important one. It was a safe way for Disney to regain their audience after the suits had seen how well Don Bluth's An American Tail did at the box office two years earlier. That very film was a record breaker for the animation industry, and it was released at a time when the higher ups didn't see much of a future for Disney's feature animation (imagine that!) despite Roy E. Disney's insistence to keep the studio afloat. It appealed to audiences back in 1988, as it had attitude, 80s pop music-styled songs and a rather grungy animation style. Nowadays it's a fun watch, but definitely not all there in the story department and a lot of it is forgettable aside from the good songs. Its record-breaking success at the domestic box office enabled the studio to keep going.

So with its August 6th release date, I figured that Disney would put two or three more titles out on the same day since they've picked up this new routine where they'll release multiple classics on the same day. This started in August 2012 with The Aristocats, the Rescuers films and Pocahontas alongside other titles. Disney repeated this two months ago with the releases of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan and Brother Bear. A week earlier, the non-canon Who Framed Roger Rabbit hit Blu-ray.

Now, Disney has announced that The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh will be hitting Blu-ray, but not on August 6th... But rather August 27th. I would've assumed that it would hit store the same day as Oliver, but it looks like Disney is willing to release multiple classics the same month but not on the same day. The Digital Bits also report that Robin Hood is being prepared for a Blu-ray release here in the states, since the film is turning 40 this autumn and it's already available in other countries. It's possible that Disney will also release The Sword in the Stone on Blu-ray around this time, since that film is turning 50 this year and it's so similar to Robin Hood in many ways.

That being said, those two, Oliver and Winnie would round off a strong August. Bedknobs and Broomsticks and The Black Cauldron are the last two post-2008 DVD only releases that are due for a Blu-ray release, so we may end up seeing those two in October. It would be perfect for Cauldron too, since Disney seems to like promoting that film as a Halloween film as evidenced by the 2000 and 2010 DVD releases.

Anyways, I'm glad both of these titles are coming and I hope to hear about any other August Blu-ray titles soon. Updates shall come!

Update! Sword and Robin Confirmed For August 6th!

Disney has confirmed that The Sword in the Stone and Robin Hood have been confirmed for an August 6th release!

The cover for The Sword in the Stone is lovely, fresh and once again... It's simple and great. I also like how the "50th" and "40th" Anniversary headers are great because they don't use some generic fountain, instead they're stylized to look like the middle ages... Goes perfectly with the settings of both films. Disney didn't seem to bother creating brand new artwork for Robin Hood, instead modifying the cover used for the 2006 Most Wanted Edition DVD.

Either way, I'm excited to pick up all four of them in a couple of months!

A "Tom and Jerry" Update

Warner Bros. might be listening to us animation fans after all...

Of course, as many of you may know, Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two was to arrive to stores this summer but without two controversial cartoons: Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat. This was, of course, contradictory to the fact that the series was aimed at the adult collector and not for children, and that the series would contain all of the short subjects uncut. A representative for WB went as far as justifying the removal of the two cartoons on WB Classic Animation's Facebook page, saying that they were "inappropriate" for the "intended audience" - the adult collector. We sure got angry. Blog posts, forum posts and even close to 100 one-star reviews of the forthcoming set on Amazon.com ensued... Us animation fans weren't going to be robbed like this, especially after what we got with the excellent first volume.

What we know so far is that a higher up in Warner Bros.' legal department doesn't want these two shorts released in any form, not even through the WB Archive! Apparently this person has been there for a while and has something against these cartoons, I mean... Why else would Warner Bros. release equally controversial and potentially offensive cartoons in the Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Merrie Melodies and Popeye series on home media formats whilst keeping these two and the Censored 11 locked up?

All hope seemed lost. It looked like we were not going to get these two uncensored cartoons on Blu-ray and DVD in the United States, but... TV Shows On DVD has confirmed that Warner Bros. has postponed the second volume of this series! This makes sense, because Home Theater Forum owner Ronald Epstein collected questions from animation aficionados and sent them to Warner Bros. Apparently they had a meeting about these cartoons, so maybe the postponement of this set may bring good things. However, we can't get our hopes up too high... Yet.

Anything can happen now...

Here's my theory: Warner Bros. (or more specifically, that person in their legal department) will drop all of this opposition to Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat. Thus, those two cartoons will be added to the line-up and the packaging will be altered. It'll say 44 shorts instead of 42, or the last 2 cartoons on the set (chronologically) - Puppy Tale and Posse Cat - will be left off for time constraints and will be the opening shorts on the third Golden Collection volume. The liner notes will mention both formerly missing cartoons. This is of course the win-win situation, the one everyone hopes will happen. Well, it better happen!

Why do I think it might happen? Well, WB announced that the set was postponed after those questions were sent... Plus it came off of a slew of negative reactions. I haven't seen such reaction to a home media release in a long while. Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume One has less than 40 reviews in total on Amazon.com, Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two has nearly 100 one-star reviews warning consumers to stay away from the butchered set whilst also calling WB out for their unnecessary censoring of a set that's meant for adults.

Also, WB can't just re-insert the shorts between now and June 11th, or make liner notes mentioning them. It's also possible that Mouse Cleaning and/or Casanova Cat had audio commentaries, so it'll take some time to put those back in as well. So maybe the delay does mean that WB gets it.

Now it's also possible that we will end up getting the butchered set later this year, which would only anger fans more resulting in a bigger backlash. The fans are now willing to give WB a chance to correct the mistakes they have made, and to not omit Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat from this set. If a new announcement for the set shows that the two cartoons won't be in the line-up... Well then, expect more heat, WB! And weaker sales, too!

Right now, we have no clear idea why the set was postponed. All we can do is speculate right now, but personally, I'm going to try to be optimistic here and believe that WB delayed the set to do the right thing: Include Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat, and never attempt to censor this set or any forthcoming adult collector set (whether it's Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies or Popeye) ever again.

Hopefully everything will turn out alright. If Tom and Jerry Golden Collection Volume Two arrives to stores complete and uncensored with Mouse Cleaning and Casanova Cat, then... Immediate sale!