In 1984 home video was a relatively new market still. At the Walt Disney Company, it was even more in it's infancy than it had been at other studios. Mainly because of Walt's policy of never releasing the animated movies on TV, re-releasing them theatrically every seven to ten years. After Walt's death in 1966, his brother Roy, and the studio executives continued that tradition. However, there were four animated movies that Walt had aired on the Disneyland TV series (this became The Wonderful World of Disney in the '80s). They were Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Fun and Fancy Free and The Three Caballeros. So while Disney had been releasing the live action Disney movies like Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, and The Love Bug on home video since the late '70s, in 1981 they put out Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland on VHS and Betamax, with a Laserdisc and CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc) release in 1982. Also in 1982, Fun and Fancy Free and The Three Caballeros were released on VHS and Betamax. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was released on VHS and Betamax in 1981 for the video store rental market, and then in 1982 for the regular retail market.
1984 saw many changes happen at Disney. One of those changes was that Ron W. Miller, the CEO of the studio, decided to start releasing the classic animated movies on home video platforms. Some of the studio executives, who were older and didn't realize the money making potential of the home video market, hated this idea as they felt that if a Disney animated movie was released on home video it would take away from the film's potential to make more money at the box office when it came time to re-release them theatrically. Miller was a visionary though and saw the potential that the home video market had. So, on December 3rd, 1984, the 1973 animated classic, Robin Hood was released on home video.
Before I go into each release, I just wanna talk about my experience with the Walt Disney Classics collection and what I liked about them. When I think about this line of VHS tapes, this logo comes to mind. This logo was such a huge part of my childhood. It's how I saw most of the movies in this line. Between having many of them at home in my family's video collection, renting some of them, and seeing others at the hospital, this was my introduction to the magic of Disney and I've been a lifelong fan ever since. The original logo (shown earlier in this post) was retired in 1987 with the release of Lady and the Tramp, with the second logo (and it's many variants) first appearing on the 1988 VHS release of Cinderella. I still own thirteen out of twenty-five of the Walt Disney Classics, and every time I pop one of those tapes in, it transports me back to the '90s when I'd sit on the living room floor, in front of the TV, and watch a Disney movie. Let's get into the actual releases themselves.
Robin Hood was chosen because it wasn't one of the more popular movies that Disney had produced over the many many decades they'd been making movies. It hadn't done as well at the box office as other Disney movies had, and had actually gotten some criticism for recycling old animation and repurposing it for it's own use. So those older executives felt that it would be safe to release on home video since they had had one theatrical re-release of the film in 1982 and that's it. They were wrong. It had a fairly moderate home video success and was actually one of the best-selling home video releases of 1984 (gotta love those Christmas releases). Which kind of deflated the older executives who had balked at the notion of releasing one of their animated movies on home video.
The second release in the Walt Disney Classics was kind of a shock. Pinocchio was originally considered to be one of the "untouchable" Disney movies for home video release, because Disney was still re-releasing it in theatres every seven years or so and it was one of Walt's greatest achievements, being the second full length animated feature film that Walt had produced, after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Nonetheless, on July 16th, 1985, Pinocchio was released on home video for the very first time. It's sales further vindicated Ron Miller's faith in the home video market, though he'd been replaced by Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and Frank Wells shortly before Robin Hood had been released.
The next release was a no-brainer for a home video release by the studio. Dumbo was considered to be evergreen as it was in constant re-release, and had already been successful in the home video market, due to it's earlier 1981 release. So it came out as the third release in the line, and I think it might've also had another theatrical re-release at this point too.
While Pinocchio and Dumbo were no-brainers for movies to be released on home video, The Sword in the Stone wasn't. At least, not for audiences. For the studio executives though it made perfect sense. Like Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone was less of a hit for the studio and wasn't as well liked by the critics. Which made it perfectly safe to be released on home video since it wasn't making as much money during it's two theatrical re-releases, the last one being in 1983 when it was packaged with the fourth Winnie the Pooh cartoon, Winnie the Pooh and A Day for Eeyore. There aren't any numbers that I could find for how well this movie sold though. I assume it did fairly well. Before I continue with the movie overview, I just want to touch on something real quick.
While all of the movies that had been released on home video so far had been classics from the '40s through to the mid-'70s, none of the modern animated movies had been included. The Fox and the Hound was originally released theatrically in 1981, but would not get a home video release until 1994. The Black Cauldron had come out, but had bombed, which meant that Disney wanted to distance itself from such an embarrassment, so it wasn't going to be getting a home video release. The Great Mouse Detective had it's theatrical earlier in the year, but Disney was still hesitant to release new animated movies on home video, which actually put them behind pretty much every other studio.
By 1986 home video was super popular. Owning movies was more difficult because VHS tapes were fairly expensive, but the rental market was huge. Especially with families. They'd go to the video store on Friday nights, rent a few movies, some for the kids, some for them to watch as a family, and then maybe one or two for mom and dad. Then over the weekend, they'd watch the movies before returning them to the video store on Monday morning on the way to work. With the exception of Disney who had mainly limited their current output to classic films, and newer live action films, other studios such as 20th Century Fox, Universal, United Artists, Columbia Pictures, and MGM would put their movies out on home video, both classic and current, with the current movies coming to home video six months to a year after their theatrical runs. Yet Disney clung to it's outdated policy of theatrical re-releases of classic movies, and holding onto modern movies until they too could be re-released theatrically, reserving home video for the cartoon shorts and direct-to-video releases like Disney Sing-Along Songs. It wouldn't be until 1990 that Disney would catch up to everyone else.
Alice in Wonderland was another evergreen movie in the Disney library. Walt had aired it on the Disneyland TV series in 1954 as the show's second episode, and it had a few theatrical re-releases in the '70s and '80s before being released on home video in 1981. And it's because of this status that Alice in Wonderland has so many VHS and DVD releases.
The last Classics release in 1986 was Sleeping Beauty. I don't remember seeing this movie's VHS release. In fact, I don't actually think I saw Sleeping Beauty until it's 1998 home video re-release, which I'll be talking about in a future post. I probably saw it on TV at some point and I just don't remember.
1987 was a very lean year for the Walt Disney Classics collection. Though The Great Mouse Detective had ended it's theatrical run, 1987 did not see a home video release for Disney's most recent animated feature film. Instead, it was the release of Lady and the Tramp due to the film's 1986 theatrical re-release. It was the only Classics release that year. I'm pretty sure my parents rented this movie for me when I was a kid, but I don't know fro sure. The cover is familiar besides seeing it on the Disney Wiki and on the VHS Collector website, but I know we didn't own the movie, so we had to have rented it at some point.
1988 was another lean year for the Walt Disney Classics collection. Oliver & Company wasn't due to be released theatrically until November 18th, 1988, and no other animated movies were due to come out. I'm pretty sure my parents rented this release for my siblings and I sometime before 1995 when the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection release came out. I remember seeing Cinderella when I was really young, but I don't really remember when it was or if it was on VHS or on TV. As I mentioned earlier, the more iconic Walt Disney Classics logo debuted on this release. It's also the first Classics tape to have previews at the beginning of the tape. The early tapes had previews for the early 1980s home video releases for the live action movies, but no mention of theatrical releases. This tape has a preview for the upcoming theatrical release of Oliver & Company. I have this tape in my current VHS collection.
1989 was a third lean year for the line, with only Bambi having been released that year. It's another tape with only one preview before the movie. That preview was for the theatrical release of The Little Mermaid. I don't know what it was about 1988, but something that year switched at Disney because suddenly they were promoting their theatrical releases of animated movies, though The Sword in the Stone had a preview for the 1986 home video release for the 1985 live action film, The Journey of Natty Gann at the beginning. This is how I saw Bambi as I owned this tape growing up. We kept it at my grandparents's place. I do remember watching it at least once while we were there. When I started building up my VHS collection again almost two years ago, this is one I made sure to put back into my collection, unaware that our original copy was still at Nana's house.
May 18th, 1990 was a major date for the Walt Disney Classics collection, and for Walt Disney Home Video in general. It's the date that The Little Mermaid was released on home video, giving it the distinction of being the first modern animated Disney movie to be released on home video. Something changed in the six years between the original decision to launch this line of home video releases, and the release of The Little Mermaid. Maybe it has something to do with movies like Lady and the Tramp doing well at the box office for theatrical re-releases as well as on home video that finally swayed the studio to start releasing current animated movies on home video as well. Whatever the case may have been, this was a huge difference between the attitude of the studio when they released Robin Hood in 1984.
1990 also saw the release of Peter Pan for the first time. This was the first of three tapes to have a behind the scenes preview for an upcoming animated movie. In this case it was The Rescuers Down Under. The preview was my first time seeing some of the Disney animators, such as Glen Keane, and my first time seeing Roy E. Disney, nephew of Walt, and Jeffrey Katzenberg as well. I don't remember exactly when I got Peter Pan, but it was probably around the same time that I got The Jungle Book. This tape also includes a preview for the home video release of The Little Mermaid, which had just come out four months earlier. Even though it's had several home video releases in the last thirty years, this is the one I think of when I think of Peter Pan just because it's the one I grew up watching.
1991 was a huge year for the Walt Disney Classics, as it had the largest number of releases in a single year with a whopping seven releases. Only three of these releases were movies that had never been released on home video before, while the remaining four were re-releases of previously released tapes. The first of the seven releases was The Jungle Book, which was released on home video for the first time on the heels of it's theatrical re-release the previous year. This tape is my favourite in the entire line. It's the one I watched the most when I was a kid and I watched it on repeat all the time. I also watched it in rotation with a few non-Disney VHS tapes as well. As with Peter Pan, The Jungle Book had a behind the scenes preview on it. This time it was for the 1991 release of Beauty and the Beast. Both Katzenberg and Keane appear in the preview. As do Angela Lansbury and composers Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. Like I said, this one was one of the tapes I owned when I was a kid and I watched it all the time. Oh and a preview for the home video release of The Rescuers Down Under is played after the behind the scenes preview of Beauty and the Beast.
Alice in Wonderland was the first of four Walt Disney Classics re-releases to come out in 1991. At least it's the first one listed on the Disney Wiki page for the Walt Disney Classics as it and the other three re-releases all came out on the same day. I have this release in my collection now. I think this is also how I saw Alice in Wonderland when I was a kid if I didn't see the movie on TV, which is also entirely possible. I'm pretty sure I saw the movie on this tape at the hospital though since I don't remember renting it. 1991 was also a stable year for Disney movies. Even though The Rescuers Down Under was a box office failure, Disney didn't pretend it didn't exist like they had been doing with The Black Cauldron since 1985 and Katzenberg was eager to move along with Beauty and the Beast without any real hesitation on his part. Which is pretty good, given his attitude towards Animation only six years earlier. There aren't any previews on this tape.
The second of the four 1991 home video re-releases was Dumbo. I'm pretty sure I saw this movie at the hospital because I don't recall seeing it at home unless we rented one of the earlier VHS releases of the movie. Which is entirely possible since we did rent alot of movies whose VHS releases were from the '80s even though many of them had newer releases in the '90s. I just remember the cover for this VHS release of Dumbo being the one I saw when I watched this movie in the '90s. So I'm pretty sure I saw it in the hospital since I was there often enough. Regardless, I have this tape in my collection now. There aren't any previews on this tape. Just the Walt Disney Classics logo before the movie starts.
The third re-release in 1991 was Robin Hood. I've talked about this tape a lot on this blog, so I won't say too much more about it here. You know the story of how I always got interrupted watching this movie because I would watch it in the waiting room at the Cardiology clinic at CHEO and would always get called in for my appointment before the tape was finished. I own this tape now, though mine is the previewless variant, which I'm about 99% certain is the one I watched at CHEO too. The original version had two home video previews on the tape. One for The Jungle Book and one for The Rescuers Down Under.
The final re-release in 1991 was The Sword in the Stone. Now, I am 100% certain that this was the edition that my parents rented for us from Rogers Video, because it was the only version in stores by the time I was old enough to remember seeing this movie. As with Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo, The Sword in the Stone has no previews on the tape before the movie. I don't know if that's because the releases are just an update from the original releases, which had no previews on them, or there was another reason for there to be no previews on them, all I know is that the 1991 VHS release of The Sword in the Stone has no previews on it.
The second new release of 1991 was The Rescuers Down Under. Despite being a box office flop, Disney put the movie out on home video relatively quickly, it having been released on home video, only ten months after the film's theatrical release. I had this movie when I was a kid and I think I watched fairly frequently, though Wilbur being in the hospital freaked me out because I was a kid who was in the hospital all the time, and seeing it in a movie just scared me. The only preview on this tape is the one for The Jungle Book, which was on the 1991 re-release of Robin Hood as well. I thought it was cool that this movie came out on home video the same year as The Jungle Book.
The final Walt Disney Classics release in 1991 was also a brand new release. That release was Fantasia. But this release was different. While all the previous VHS releases in the Walt Disney Classics collection had the Classics logo on the spine and said either "Walt Disney's Classic" or "A Walt Disney Classic", depending on the era the movie was produced in, Fantasia doesn't mention the Walt Disney Classics at all on the packaging. Instead it says "Walt Disney's Masterpiece" with no logo anywhere on the box or on the tape's label on the cassette itself. However, the Walt Disney Classics logo still appears on the tape before the movie. This is another tape that I had at my grandparents's place, along with Bambi. To be honest I don't actually remember watching Fantasia when I was a kid. I've seen it since then, but I don't think we ever actually watched it. One thing about the tapes from 1991, is that some, if not all, have a biege tape head instead of the standard black one that most VHS tapes have. The Jungle Book has it, Dumbo has it, and Fantasia has it, I think The Rescuers Down Under has it, but Alice in Wonderland and Robin Hood don't, and I don't know if The Sword in the Stone has it or not. I got it back into my collection earlier this year, which is cool because it's one I would really like to watch on VHS.
1992 produced four releases in the Walt Disney Classics line, two classics and two modern films. The first of that year's releases was 101 Dalmatians. Of course this was that movie's debut on home video. I had this tape growing up and it's a movie I quite enjoyed. I don't remember how often I watched it when I was a kid, but it definitely wasn't as many times as I watched Peter Pan and The Jungle Book. This is also the first tape to have a preview for the then upcoming theatrical release of Aladdin, which was still a few months away. There aren't any home video previews on this tape though, like there had been on previous tapes. This is one of the most recent additions to my current VHS collection, having gotten it in the stack of VHS tapes that Michelle and Jonathan gave me a month ago
Next up is The Great Mouse Detective. Despite having been in theatres back in 1986, Disney sat on this movie for home video release until after it's 1992 theatrical re-release because of that mentality the studio had about home video in the mid-'80s. This is also only third more modern Disney animated movie to be released on home video, after The Little Mermaid and The Rescuers Down Under. This was the third tape that we had at my grandparents's place when I was a kid. I only really remember watching it once or twice when I was over there, and then I remember borrowing it when I was in high school and watching it on my TV/VCR combo set. Back in early March I grabbed this tape from Nana's house when we were there one weekend, before the pandemic hit, so it's in my personal collection now. Like the previous tape, this one only has a preview for Aladdin, though it's a different one from the preview on 101 Dalmatians. There also isn't a home video preview on the tape either.
The third Classics home video release in 1992 was The Rescuers. As you can imagine, I owned this tape as well when I was a kid, though we got it quite a bit later than some of the other tapes. In fact, I think we got it after we had gotten the next three tapes in the line, Beauty and the Beast, Pinocchio and Aladdin. There weren't any previews for this movie on other tapes for some unknown reason. Maybe because the sequel was already out on home video and had done poorly at the box office, so Disney didn't feel the need to market the home video release for this movie, even though they marketed the heck out of the home video release for the sequel, The Rescuers Down Under only the year before. I liked this one though and enjoyed watching it from time to time. There are two home video previews on this tape, but no preview for Aladdin. The first preview is for the then upcoming home video release of Beauty and the Beast and the second is for The Great Mouse Detective, which had just come out on VHS two months earlier.
The final Classics release for 1992 was Beauty and the Beast. Yeah, I don't think I have to tell you that I owned this tape do I? My sister and I watched this movie all the time when we were kids. In fact this was probably our most watched Disney VHS tape after Peter Pan and The Jungle Book. We freaking loved this movie! I still do. I honestly believe that this movie was Disney's best animated movie of the '90s. I love Aladdin, The Lion King, Hercules and Mulan, and enjoy Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but Beauty and the Beast works on every level. So naturally, when I got a stack of VHS tapes from my buddy Lance back in February and this tape was in it, I had to grab it to put it back into my collection even though I have the movie on DVD. It's classic nostalgia. This tape has lots of previews on it, both before AND after the movie. Some editions only had the preview for Aladdin at the beginning of the tape, with the home video previews for Pinocchio and 101 Dalmatians after the movie, while the one I had as a kid, as well as the one I have now (I think) has the Pinocchio preview before the movie, leaving the one for 101 Dalmatians alone after the tape. Also, at the beginning of the tape, after the Aladdin theatrical preview, there's a preview for a theatrical re-release of Sleeping Beauty, which was originally slated to happen in late 1993, but then didn't actually happen until 1995.
1993 saw only two Classics releases. The first was the re-release of Pinocchio. Yeah, I owned this movie too. Though we didn't watch it quite as often as some of the other Disney movies we had on VHS just because it scared my sister so much it caused her nightmares every time she watched it. So I think this was one movie that my brother and I watched together. Like all of our old Disney VHS tapes, except for the ones we had at my grandparents's place, we got rid of it sometime in the late 2000s or early 2010s. But I got it back in my collection from the box of tapes that Michelle and Jonathan brought over for me to peruse last month. Pinocchio has two previews on it. The first is for the theatrical release of The Nightmare Before Christmas, where I saw Tim Burton for the first time. The second is for the then current theatrical release of Aladdin. There aren't any home video release previews on the tape since no other Disney movies were being released on home video in 1993 until Aladdin at the end of the year. No animated movies anyway. The animated movies hadn't previewed the live action movies being produced by Walt Disney Pictures on their home video releases since the 1986 release of The Sword in the Stone had the preview for The Journey of Natty Gann on it. But, I do know that Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey had a VHS release in mid-1993, since it had a theatrical release in early 1993.
The second and final Classics release in 1993 was Aladdin. Yes, we owned this one too, and yes, I re-acquired this tape earlier this year in the stack of tapes I got from Lance. Aladdin is another Disney movie that I love and that my siblings and I watched all the time on VHS. Though I don't think we watched it quite as much as we watched Beauty and the Beast. Unlike Pinocchio though, Aladdin was a movie that all three of us could watch together any time we wanted to and we could watch it whenever we wanted to because we had our own top loader VCR hooked up to an old dial TV set in the second floor kids common area outside of our bedrooms of the old log farmhouse we had moved into in the summer of 1993. I'm also about 95% certain that we got Aladdin on VHS for Christmas 1993 since it was released on home video on October 1st, 1993. Come to think of it, I think we also got Pinocchio for Christmas that year too, if I didn't get it as an Easter present instead of chocolate (since I couldn't eat chocolate anymore), or for my birthday that year. There are two previews on this tape. The first is for the upcoming theatrical release of The Lion King which was due to come out in the summer of 1994. The second is for the home video re-release of Pinocchio, which had come out earlier that year, which I just talked about.
The 25th and final release in the Walt Disney Classics collection was The Fox and the Hound, the third Disney animated movie from the '80s to be released on home video. I didn't own this movie when I was a kid, but I do remember exactly when and where I saw the movie for the first time. I saw it in June 1994, in the hospital on 4 East, when I had been admitted with the chicken pox. I was in bed and my roommate's mother put it on for us before she left to go get herself some dinner, and my parents were gone for the night too. I remember laughing as Dinky (a sparrow) and Boomer (a Woodpecker) were trying to catch a worm who was eluding them and I remember thinking that Boomer sounded alot like Tigger, because Paul Winchell, who voiced Tigger at the time, voiced Boomer in the movie. Even though I never owned the movie on VHS when I was a kid, I grabbed it when I saw it in that box of tapes that Michelle and Jonathan brought over for me to look through last month, because I remembered it so fondly from that one time I saw it at the hospital when I was a kid. Plus I have it on DVD as well and watched it the night of the day I got the DVD.
After ten years, Disney wrapped up the Walt Disney Classics collection, to pave the way for the next line of home video releases, the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. The longevity of this line vindicated Ron Miller's belief in 1984 that home video would be profitable for Disney and it's animated movies. Though Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was deemed early in the line's lifetime to be "untouchable". Meaning it could never be released on home video because it would diminish it's value for theatrical re-releases. By the line's end in 1994 though, Disney's policy on this changed and Snow White was prepped to be released on October 28th, 1994 to kick off the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection.
A few other movies were absent from this line as well. Besides The Black Cauldron and Oliver & Company, the movies that didn't get a release under the Walt Disney Classics banner were Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, The Aristocats, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Though The Three Caballeros, Fun and Fancy Free, and The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh had all had home video releases in the early '80s, along with Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland, and The Three Caballeros had a home video re-release in 1988 and again in 1991, though it was not released under the Classics banner, despite having packaging that was similar to the Classics releases, with the wrap-around artwork and the diamond with a character's face on the bottom of the case's spine. All of these movies would get releases in either the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection in the mid to late '90s or the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection in 2000.
For me personally, the Walt Disney Classics collection is my childhood. This is how I saw these Disney movies if I didn't see them on TV. This is what kept me entertained for hours upon hours during my waking hours if I wasn't watching Barney, Teddy Ruxpin, Winnie the Pooh or Star Trek. These are the movies that made me a fan of Disney animation. Just seeing some of these releases sitting on my shelf transports me back to my childhood when I would sit together with my family and watch a Disney movie for an hour and a half. And so does taking one off the shelf, opening up the case, taking the tape out of the case and popping it into the VCR to return to that simpler, but uncertain time.
And that my friends is my comprehensive look at the Walt Disney Classics. This is a post that I have been wanting to do since last year when I started picking these tapes up at flea markets, geek sales and thrift stores and now that I have 13 of the tapes and a VCR to play them on, I thought now would be a good time to start talking about these lines more in depth. I'll be back on Wednesday with a fun little post about the state of pop culture in 2020. Until then have a great evening folks.
Links
Walt Disney Classics: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Walt_Disney_Classics
VHS Collector: https://vhscollector.com/
*all images were taken from the Walt Disney Classics page on the Disney Wiki site.
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