Bringing The Magic Home

Walt Disney Home Video certainly got off to a rather slow start, but in the mid-1980s, the launching of the Classics line would start a new, successful era for the company and for their animation studio...

The Disney executives saw how successful an animated feature could be on home video, as opposed to a theatrical re-release. However, Pinocchio ultimately grossed $13 million on home video, less than what the latest re-release took in ($21 million), but Disney was satisfied nonetheless. It was withdrawn and put on moratorium in February 1986, a month after a certain promotion ended. One that would help the video sell.

The $29.95 price drop for Pinocchio would apply to 20 other titles, which would all be part of a special holiday promotion Disney launched called “Making Your Dreams Come True”. The other titles consisted of re-issues of live-action titles that were currently available, but in a new packaging scheme. The Walt Disney Home Video logo and Mickey Mouse artwork would be significantly smaller compared to the earlier releases, and the artwork would take up more of the cover.

Other titles were special-made collector’s videos that featured sequences of Disney films, both animated and live-action. One of these releases is the rather odd The Walt Disney Comedy and Magic Revue, which feels like a cheesy variety program showcasing clips from classic Disney films. It’s as if Walt Disney Home Video was flat out saying, “Yeah some of these aren’t yet, but here’s some footage!” See for yourself.

The most notable title in this promotion was the repackaged release of Dumbo, which was now a Classics edition with deluxe treatment artwork and the diamond all over the packaging.

I felt I'd show my Betamax copy,
my VHS copy has faded artwork.

However, I always felt that this was turned into a Classics release at last minute: The tape itself opens with the Walt Disney Home Video logo, as opposed to the Classics logo. Perhaps it was nothing more than an editing mistake, but it could’ve been scheduled for a non-Classics releases. Needless to say, this is the first release of “that older pink cover”. Perhaps at such a lower price (it retailed for $84.95 up until then), it was easier for consumers to add to their collection alongside the seemingly out-of-reach Robin Hood and Pinocchio.

So what would come next? Sleeping Beauty was considered, since the theatrical re-release was coming up for March 1986. In the meantime, they released what was planned to be the second Classics release: The Sword in the Stone. The packaging was a bit different this time around. The clamshell wasn’t padded, and the diamond logo was not embossed inside. However, the logo is still all over the packaging. It was quietly released on March 25, 1986 for the typical price, $79.95.

Two months later, Disney launched the “Wonderland Sale” promotion, and the centerpiece was the fifth Classics release: Alice in Wonderland. This was the first time it hit home video after dropping out of print three years earlier. For the first time, it was in a cardboard slipcover case. The other titles in the sale (live-action titles and cartoon compilations) would also be packaged this way.

Disney was in need of another hit to replicate Pinocchio’s success, something that would be a hot seller. Sleeping Beauty took in $15 million, which wasn’t anything to write home about. Re-releases had been garnering less and less over the last couple of years, and Pinocchio did take in a good amount. The next big release in the Classics line would be none other than Sleeping Beauty, but unlike Pinocchio, it’s release would be closer to the holidays. Disney literally took full advantage of this.

In "Hi-Fi Stereo"!

They went all out with a $6 million marketing campaign for the release and all the other titles around it: “Bring Disney Home For Good!”

The promotion kicked off on October 14, 1986 when Sleeping Beauty hit stores. Disney adapted a new packaging scheme: White clamshell cases with removable artwork.

And the spine artwork was slightly changed for the Classics editions...

This would the norm for all future clamshell releases. The previous Classics editions were also re-issued, some of which had been in the vault such as Pinocchio and Robin Hood. All of them were priced at $29.95, like Sleeping Beauty. Disney also released all six of them in a collector’s box set, one that’s not too easy to find these days. It cost a whopping $179.70 back then, and this artwork was never again released.

The artwork itself on the box is a bit questionable, almost like watered down versions of the character models from the cover artwork. The images feel a bit cluttered too, but the best thing about this box is the top.

The Classics logo looks nice and eye-catching, though the font for Classics does look a bit like the Coca-Cola font. Ironically, Disney would do promotional tie-ins with them, which included a Classics box set in 1988. Other titles surrounded the Classics title premiere, such as the first volume in the highly successful Disney Sing Along Songs line (what 90s kid didn’t own at least one?) and more obligatory cartoon compilations alongside live action classics.

Sleeping Beauty completed trumped Pinocchio in sales. Over one million units were sold, becoming one of the best-selling home video titles of all time. The other titles in the promotion added to that, making it the biggest and most successful home video campaign in history. The Disney executives saw that the industry had changed. Consumers were willing to buy these films, especially families, on home video. The overall gross of the Sleeping Beauty video doubled what it made in its last theatrical re-issue, unlike Pinocchio.

With a lower price and lots of marketing, a Disney animated classic would sell extremely well and even possibly break few records and compete with the current blockbuster hits on home video. From there, the mindset changed. The next Classics releases would be backed by massive marketing campaigns, and as such, they would do exceptional business.

Next in line was Lady and the Tramp, which did take in $31 million in its 1986 theatrical re-release, more than what most of the Disney classics were making at the time. It was the logical choice for the fall 1987 title. What happened? It broke records for pre-orders (over one million) and ultimately became the best-selling home video title at the time with over three million units sold.

The video sales of the Classics were certainly a big help to the animation industry, and Disney’s quest to get their critical and box office power back. They were especially enthusiastic after Don Bluth’s An American Tail not only became the highest grossing animated film on initial release, but also sold over one million units on home video months later, rivaling Sleeping Beauty. Disney executives should’ve listened to Roy E. Disney, he knew it was wise to keep the animation studio alive.

Lady and the Tramp’s sales certainly showed that there was a large audience for animation, one that Disney didn’t get with The Black Cauldron or most of the re-issues of their classics. With that, and An American Tail beating them at the box office, the company had to strike back with an all-new animated film. That particular film would be Oliver & Company, which debuted in November 1988, months after the runaway success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Meanwhile, Cinderella was released on home video on October 4, 1988, following its successful 1987 theatrical re-release.

It topped Lady and the Tramp, over seven million units were sold. Like the last two titles, it was backed by a huge campaign that would be a collaboration with Coca-Cola. Disney had their guns loaded, big time. Tons of cassettes were sold, and they even had a nice limited edition box set like the ones they released in 1986 and 1987 respectively. This box set, however, also contained some non-Classics titles.

The packaging scheme changed for Cinderella. The headings would no longer say “Walt Disney’s” (Robin Hood was the exception with “Walt Disney Productions’” and The Sword in the Stone with just “Disney’s”, later issues had the “Walt Disney’s” heading), they would say “Walt Disney’s Classic”. For post-Walt films, it would say “A Walt Disney Classic”. The big Classics diamond logo wouldn’t be on the back cover. The videos also sported a lovely new introduction, with its opening animation taken from their then-new Walt Disney Home Video logo.



This is actually an early version of the logo that was only used for this one release, though it did randomly show up on titles released years later. Perhaps Disney didn’t care for the color scheme, that’s why the next Classics release would contain a slightly altered one.

More importantly, the videocassette featured a trailer for Oliver & Company. The Classics release of Pinocchio contained a trailer for The Black Cauldron, but Sleeping Beauty didn’t contain any trailers because: a) Most Disney videocassettes didn’t have previews at the beginning, and b) Disney didn’t have anything new for the holiday 1986 season, animation-wise. With Cinderella, it was perfect timing.

Oliver & Company would prove to be a box office smash, beating out Don Bluth’s An American Tail and his latest film, The Land Before Time at the domestic box office with an enormous amount for its time. So with the runaway success of that, would Disney release it on home video? They didn’t...

Seems strange, doesn’t it? Universal didn’t hesitate to release An American Tail on home video right after its theatrical release, and it was a huge success for them. Again, the tape rivaled Sleeping Beauty’s record-breaking home video gross. Disney still had felt like the newer films had to be more exclusive events. It’s no surprise that the most recent Disney animated film available on home video happened to be a film that was over a decade old.

The Fox and the Hound wasn’t released on video because Disney didn’t release the animated films on video in the early 1980s and they were just getting into the market, and The Black Cauldron wasn’t released on home video for obvious reasons. The Great Mouse Detective? Also kept from video. Disney wouldn’t release a recent animated film on home video, they wanted to focus on the older films. They felt that re-releasing the recent films would benefit them, despite being released in the era of home video. Many 80s kids have mentioned this before, remembering the days when they wondered “Where’s Oliver & Company? How come it’s not on video?” in 1988 and 1989. This is why you 80s kids had to wait another eight years for the film to come out on home video.

You’d think with the success of An American Tail on home video, Disney would do the same for their current animated blockbuster. Oliver & Company wouldn’t appear again until a theatrical re-release in 1996, which wasn’t much of a success. When it came to home video months later, it didn’t do particularly. Disney learned a lesson, they should’ve released it as a Classics edition sometime in 1989 while the film was still a hot property. By 1996, the film was seriously dated. If they released it on home video in 1989, they could’ve sold millions of units and built up buzz for the next film.

For fall 1989, Disney released Bambi, since it did well in its recent theatrical re-release (1988). It streeted on September 28th, and once again it was backed by a huge marketing campaign. Over ten million units were moved, making it one of the top-selling home video titles of all time. The top spot happened to be held by Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Bambi would also be the first title to have promotional tie-ins: A rebate was offered if a consumer were to send in two proofs of purchase of Crest toothpaste. Who would’ve thought it?

Gotta love the pandering, but hey... Prototype artwork at the end!

The Bambi videocassette also contained a trailer for The Little Mermaid, much like the Cinderella video. The trailer has what sounds like a rough mix of “Under the Sea” and an early logo for the film that was originally used in a demo reel in 1988. This can be seen on the film’s 2006 Platinum Edition DVD.

Then in the holidays of 1989, we all know what happened...

The Little Mermaid became the highest grossing animated film on initial release, got two Oscars and got rave critical reception. Disney did some research at various movie theaters, finding out that consumers were willing to buy on home video whenever, holidays or not. Disney missed that with Oliver & Company, so for the spring of 1990, they would release The Little Mermaid as the next Classics title.

The Little Mermaid hit home video on May 18, 1990. The release was highly successful, a whopping ten million units were sold. And before you make a joke about the cover artwork, no this release was not banned. There was a small controversy surrounding the artwork because a single person wanted it banned from her local supermarket. Now let’s put that to rest and stop claiming that the release was banned. It wasn’t. Also, unlike Bambi, there were no promotional tie-ins, oddly enough.

This would also be the first time since 1986 where there would be more than one new Classics release. On September 21st, Walt Disney Home Video released Peter Pan, fresh off of its successful 1989 theatrical re-release. There was a promotional tie-in with Nabisco, which Disney would later use for future home video releases.

Now Disney released this as the fall 1990 title for obvious reasons, but in all honesty, they should’ve released The Rescuers instead. That’s right, The Rescuers, the little 1977 film from Disney that people seem to forget. That was theatrically re-released in 1989 as well, probably to get audiences geared up for The Rescuers Down Under. Had they released this in fall 1990, it could’ve helped The Rescuers Down Under score a bigger opening weekend than it did.

Of course, The Rescuers Down Under would be an underperformer at the box office. Jeffrey Katzenberg saw the disappointing opening weekend take, and he had all the marketing for the film pulled. It could’ve garnered word of mouth and made a good amount, but he had no faith in it. Competition was heavy on top of it. It was a premature decision, and one that held a very ambitious film back from being the success it should’ve been. This is why The Rescuers oddly appeared on home video after its sequel. In Europe, it was the other way around.

Peter Pan was also a massive success, selling seven million units. Both The Little Mermaid and Peter Pan went into moratorium in April 1991. This strategy would prove to be highly successful.

This was the birth of the vault. Like the theatrical re-releases, putting them out for a limited time paved the way for successful sales. Titles like Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland and The Sword in the Stone weren’t put on moratorium. They were constantly re-issued with slightly changed packaging schemes, and were given brand new artwork (sans Alice) in 1989. Initially hesitant with the home video market, it proved to be a great success for the company and played a great role in shaping the Second Golden Age of Animation which of course lead to... The Disney Renaissance.

The Main Attraction

Perhaps a lot of home video consumers in the early 1980s wondered why they couldn’t own or rent the Disney animated classics. The very films that defined Disney, the first things you think of when someone brings up Disney. As said BEFORE, Walt Disney didn’t believe in showing the animated classics on the small screen. He believed that re-releasing them in theaters every seven to ten years was the way to go, because he wanted these films to be those rare events. Keeping them out of reach would only increase demand, and when they’d return to theaters, people would flock to see them.

This strategy saved former flops like Pinocchio and Bambi, which broke even by the mid 1950s and got more fans and audiences. Dumbo already turned a profit on its initial release and its 1949 re-release, so Walt showed an abridged version on the Disneyland television series in 1955. Alice in Wonderland was shown on the first episode in 1954, a film that got poor reception and bombed at the box office. It wasn’t theatrically re-released in Walt’s lifetime, and he also wasn’t too fond of the film himself.

This is why they were also released on home video first in the early 1980s. In fact, Disney gave them a rental only release first in 1981, before releasing sales only versions in 1982. Since there was no established Disney animated classics “canon” back then, Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland simply weren’t in the league of animated films that wouldn’t appear anywhere else except theaters.

Ditto the package anthology features. Saludos Amigos was only theatrically re-released once, in 1949 on a double-bill with Dumbo. The Three Caballeros got a brief re-release in 1977 due to its popularity with the young adult audience like Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland. The package features were broken up, and the different segments would be released elsewhere or shown on television. The Three Caballeros and Fun & Fancy Free were released on home video in 1982, for both sale and rental.

Then-current Disney CEO Ron Miller finally had plans to release the animated classics on home video, since the home video market was changing. In 1983, Disney launched the Cartoon Classics series, a line for compilations of the classic short films. Boasting full artwork as opposed to the typical Walt Disney Home Video cover scheme, the volumes all sold well. Disney followed the series up the next year with the Limited Gold Editions and used a campaign that was the beginning of their traditional home video practices. It kept reminding consumers, “When they are gone, they’re gone.” Over 600,000 videocassettes were sold.

Walt Disney Home Video then created “The Classics” in 1984, a special line where these titles would premiere. So with all that waiting, what would Disney give us as the first prestigious Classics edition? Snow White? Bambi? Cinderella? Peter Pan? What out-of-reach Disney animated classic hit video stores on the cold morning of December 4th in 1984?

Robin Hood?

Seems like an odd choice, but the Disney management felt that Robin Hood was the most suitable title to start this new but risky line. But why? Robin Hood, out of the Disney classics, wasn’t a film that was met with great critical reception or one that was considered a “classic”. It was a title that was mostly popular with the younger set, as opposed to the best Disney classics.

Robin Hood’s lack of praise was exactly why it was the first title in this line. It was a “test the waters” experiment, to see if this new line were to work in their favor. The film also hadn’t fared particularly well in its last and only theatrical re-release in 1982 and amongst the other titles, the demand wasn’t high. It retailed for $79.95, which seems like a high price to any of us born after 1990, but high prices for videocassettes was the norm back in the 1980s. Despite being more of a rental hit than a sales hit, Robin Hood did manage to be one of the top 15 sell-through titles "ever"... Or so Disney says, according to my promotional VHS for the home video premiere of Pinocchio. (We'll get to that later!)

Since it was an animated "classic", and one of the titles that wasn't going to be shown on the small screen, it was given the tip top treatment in terms of packaging. The full, detailed artwork would be in a black, soft padded clamshell case.

Open up the clamshell case, and you see this on the inside...

Pretty neat, isn't it? The diamond was everywhere on this package. The case spine, the back of the case, the inside of it, the label itself, and it even got its own animated introduction! However, this logo definitely does not hold up and it was quickly replaced almost four years after it debuted.



Disney was taking this seriously, they knew their animated classics deserved this kind of presentation. It's own special line. Since Robin Hood did well enough, what was next? Richard Fried, who was a marketing director for Walt Disney Home Video at the time, stated that The Sword in the Stone would be next...

The Sword in the Stone, like Robin Hood, also wasn't one of the classics that was held in high regard despite its fans and the fact that it appealed more to young children than the whole family. Plus, its then-current theatrical re-release in 1983 didn't really rake in as much despite having a new Winnie the Pooh featurette attached to it. However, this plan ultimately did not go through...

The management changed at Disney in 1984. We all know the story, Michael Eisner was now CEO of the company and so forth. The rookie executives didn't share the beliefs of the veterans. Pinocchio was brought up shortly after its latest theatrical re-release occurred in Christmas of 1984. It was successful, but no hit by any means. Michael Eisner and the new executives understood where the veterans were coming from, but they realized that the re-releases weren't bringing in as much revenue as they did before and there was a demand for them. They basically felt that something like Pinocchio wouldn't make much being locked up for years until another re-release. The same went for the other titles.

Disney finally agreed to release Pinocchio on home video, and they backed it up with an impressive $1 million campaign.

A while back, I obtained a promotional VHS for the home video release that details the campaign, the marketing and interviews from everyday consumers. It's cornball enough and it smacks of Disney's rather short-sighted advertising of their classics, but it's worth a watch. I uploaded this to Dailymotion a while back so others could see what was on this rarity...


Pinocchio Promo Tape by Imaxination1980

The quality is mediocre. I apologize...

It basically shows how ready Disney was to release it. It finally hit stores on July 16th. Like Robin Hood, the cover artwork was fully detailed and it was quite beautiful.

However, the artists took the background and extended it to the spine and the back. Robin Hood only used a black background.

The videocassette even contained an exclusive trailer for The Black Cauldron, which contains a few seconds of the infamous deleted footage.

The video release was ultimately out of reach. With a $79.95 price tag, 125,000 units were moved during the summer. Disney announced a price drop for the holiday season, only to irritate consumers who bought it at the full price along with video retailers. The price dropped to $29.95, and it was promoted alongside twenty other titles. More on this next time, but the promotion helped the film. 250,000 units were sold in total, exceeding Disney's expectations. It was put on moratorium on February 28, 1986. With the success of this release, Disney was confident to really go through with the Classics plan.

They were only getting started...

~

On a related side note, Sleeping Beauty was released on home video on this day in 1986. It was an even more successful release and one that really set things into motion.

The Early Days of Walt Disney Home Video

I had officially started collecting videocassette releases of Disney films in the summer of 2005, and I was mostly interested in getting the Classics titles along with releases from the 1980s. This is when I started to find out more about the early days of Disney's home entertainment division and how the history of it turned out to be something worth looking into.

Walt Disney Home Video was formed in 1980 by James P. Jimirro (the man who also came up with the idea of having a Disney channel), who served as the first president of the division. Walt Disney Productions had released a few titles on MCA DiscoVision prior to that in 1978 and 1979, and also struck a deal with Fotomat to get into the home video business. This went through in 1980 with live action titles like Pete's Dragon, The Black Hole, The Love Bug, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Apple Dumpling Gang. Released alongside those titles were some of the cartoon compilations that Disney released on DiscoVision like On Vacation with Mickey Mouse and Friends.

If you grew up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, you may remember seeing Disney videocassettes from this era. I remember my local rental stores had them too, and one of my neighbors had a pre-1987 VHS of Treasure Island. I saw them once in a blue moon, and most of the live action films sported this packaging. I had actually never watched one though when I was young.

When I started collecting, the first video I wanted to add to the collection was the pre-1989 Classics edition of Dumbo. You know, that one with the pink spine and the different artwork.

Then I came across this on eBay while searching for that said video release...

I had no idea that Dumbo was actually released with that kind of packaging, but I was still interested in getting the Classics edition, believing that it was THE first home video release of the title. A site accidentally stated that Dumbo hit home video in 1980, I assumed that the Classics edition was THE one.

A site that detailed logos that appeared at the end of television shows and in front of films, videocassettes and other media also helped. Most 90s kids have seen this logo somewhere, it was as common as ever...



I assumed it was probably the earliest logo in 2005, knowing that the Classics logo (featuring Sorcerer Mickey) dated back to 1988 thanks to a few viewings of the Cinderella VHS from 1988, though seeing the 1984 Classics logo on the Alice in Wonderland VHS made me wonder. This site actually stated that a logo existed before this one, and it dated back to 1978!

(uploaded by fellow Disney VHS collector Gabrielkat)

This is what you would see at the start of the Walt Disney Home Video releases prior to 1986. This logo, with its blaring fanfare and primitive graphics, was actually a modified version of this...

This intro appeared on almost, if not all

new releases in 1978...

As soon as I gathered most of this information, I had to find some videos that contained this and came in the packaging that featured Mickey and the Walt Disney Home Video logo on the box. I believe it was around January 2006, I visited a video rental store that was going out of business. By this time, the local mom-and-pop video rental places were closing up shop, while chains like Blockbuster thrived and On Demand got more and more relevant. It’s almost to the point now where physical media may cease to be... (shudders) I found two titles that fit the bill. They were Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Both releases were from 1986, and in cardboard slipcover cases instead of clamshells. They bore the same packaging artwork, though. This was for Disney’s “Wonderland Sale” promotion, which they kicked off on May 28, 1986. This was also the first time I saw what the original Walt Disney Home Video looked like, since I didn’t discover YouTube until a month later or so. I know, odd right?

Then I really wanted to get my hands on an older release, which us collectors nickname the “Neon Mickey” tapes since the outlines of the spinning Mickey in the WDHV logo have a neon-like appearance. Others have called it “Laser Mickey”. The first clamshell Neon Mickey title I got was Alice in Wonderland, which must’ve been around February or so. I just remember that it took a long time to arrive. This was the sales only version released in November 1982, since it was available for rental only as far back as October 1981.

Rental only editions of Disney videocassettes came in plastic blue cases that lacked artwork, just a label with text. In the mid-1980s, Disney took back most of them and only sent the ones that were still playable to stores for sale only. They would receive the “sale only” packaging, which of course had artwork. Now in the 1990s, this was not the case. Your local rental place would have the cover and a case behind it that the video in question came in. Other studios did it too, but the “rental only” versions with the artwork-less cases are not easy to come across.

At the end of the Alice in Wonderland VHS, I saw this...



Talk about strange marketing... The titles they are hyping up here are probably not well known to casual Disney fans today: The Devil and Max Devlin, Condorman, The Watcher in the Woods... This was at the time Disney was trying very hard to push their contemporary image, as they were moving into the PG territory. When Tron, Tex and Something Wicked This Way Comes hit home video the year after (1983), they were promoted as the “new Disney”. Disney even tried to pass them off as “adult” films, whereas everything else for kids. Yeah, Disney marketing was harmful to animation (their own, mostly) long before Michael Eisner ever came on the scene. In the early 1980s, non-animation fans tended to view animation is “kids only” stuff, a mindset that continues to this day. Also, without any animated features to release, they focus on live action classics. They don’t get this kind of marketing boost nowadays, so it’s cool to see titles like Treasure Island, 20,000 Leagues and The Absent-Minded Professor get some sort of promotion.

Why no animated features except for Dumbo, Alice and a few of the package features? Walt Disney himself never wanted his films to be shown on the small screen, he wanted them to make money through theatrical re-releases, especially since theatrical re-releases saved Pinocchio and Bambi. It would bring in revenue for the studio, and keep the titles fresh for generations to come. When home video came about in the mid 1970s, Disney most likely saw it as something that was yet to bloom.

Dumbo and Alice were available first because Walt had actually shown them on television. Dumbo was a very short film and Walt most likely showed the film on the Disneyland series because it had already turned a profit in both releases prior to 1955. Walt himself disliked Alice in Wonderland, and the film was a critical and box office failure, so Walt showed an hour-long version on Disneyland instead. Alice in Wonderland was never theatrically re-released in Walt’s lifetime, it got a theatrical re-release in 1974 when Disney realized that it caught on with the young adult crowd that made Yellow Submarine and the Fantasia re-issue successful.

Consumers would have to wait until the mid-1980s to get the classics. By 1984, home video was becoming the new thing and Disney executives soon realized how lucrative that business could be, especially if they treated the titles like they were being theatrically re-released. Ever wonder why the Disney Vault strategy is a reality?

October 2012 Disney VHS Update

The last place I would go to for collecting Disney VHS tapes would have to be a donation center be it Goodwill or Savers, it's something I never really looked into. Well over a week ago, I looked in both of my local venues and came across a very good batch of Disney VHS tapes. If I am to get more this month, then the next one will simply be titled "October Disney VHS Update #1". In the mean time, enjoy...

The Magic Lives On...

Though I don't plan to go a completely different direction here, I felt I dedicate a good chunk of this place to my #1 hobby: Collecting videocassettes of Disney films, both animated and live-action. It's been something I've been doing for nearly seven years now and much of my YouTube channel is centered around that.

As a big collector, I look into all the little things about these videocassettes. Some might look at that and say, "What's the big deal?" and so... Well, it is a big deal if you collect and look for these little things. I see it as being no different from another collection. I also collect vinyl records, as I've shown many times on YouTube (both successfully and unsuccessfully), and I notice that people in those circles tend to look for tiny details to find out which variation or pressing they have. I do the same for my tapes.

Over the years, a lot of people have come out of the woodwork to reveal their passion for Disney videocassettes made in the 1980s and 1990s. Many 90s children look back on these videocassettes with fond memories. I remember when YouTube wasn't the go-to place for other people's collections of Disney videocassettes. There were a few videos here and there. When I got a YouTube account way back in 2006, I was considering showing my tapes, but I didn't have the means to do it. Then in October 2007, a good friend of mine and I decided to film a few videos of it and show it on YouTube. I was young, they weren't anything professional, just a taste of what my collection was like...



Anyways, I followed that up with more videos as I kept collecting and such. When I got my new channel in February of 2010, I started over and simply showed all my tapes while explaining some of the histories behind them and such. I sought to improve the videos and focus on the history of the home video division and the films themselves, in my upcoming series. More on this later...

So why do I collect the videocassettes of these films when you can own them on DVD and Blu-ray? Well, the videocassettes have always fascinated me. I grew up with them, I grew up in the good old days where you didn't access movies through menus and you had to fast forward through the previews. When you were a kid, the previews were often a required viewing, one way or the other.

At the same time, the packaging fascinates me and all the different lines that some titles were issued under. The animated classics are a fantastic example. The first line was The Classics (or Walt Disney Classics) in 1984, and that was replaced by the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection in 1994. Then came the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection in 2000, when these films were starting to hit DVD for the first time, and then so on... Platinum Editions, Diamond Editions, Special Editions...

Back to the previews... The previews on these tapes give you a good look at how Disney was back in the day. Take this chestnut for example...



Now how about that? Look at those titles they're hyping up! Though we get some live action classics like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mary Poppins and of course three animated titles. We also get such "classics" like The Devil and Max Devlin and... Condorman.

This promo was produced back in 1982. At the time, only three animated features from the Disney animated classics "canon" were available on home video: Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. At the time, Disney was trying to push their contemporary image with films like Condorman and such. In fact, they continued to do that when films like Tron, Tex and Something Wicked this Way Comes hit theaters. This is when Disney was moving into PG territory (back before PG-13 was invented) before Touchstone, so it's an interesting era to look into.

Again, this is just one example of many. I'll be looking into all of this for my YouTube series... As of now, I've only gotten around to doing three "test" episodes. They serve as a glimpse to what the series will be about. They are amateurish, yes. They are a bit embarrassing, yes, but... Whenever the final product comes, it'll be miles above these tests. In the mean time, check them out and see what you think.







Of course I did these last summer. They aren't the best of quality, but they are basically a preview of what's coming. If you have comments or suggestions for the series, fire away! I'm all for suggestions. I'm not sure when this project will ever come to fruition, but I'm hoping it happens soon.

As for everything else about these cassettes, more on that later...