Hey guys! How were your weekends? Mine was pretty good. Quiet, nothing really happening. You know, the usual. So today I'm going to be taking a look at the Disney Sing-Along Songs tape, The Twelve Days of Christmas. Technically it's the third live action tape in the series, but that's only if you count the European tape, Let's Go to Disneyland Paris!. Not counting that tape though, it's the second live action tape after Disneyland Fun. So let's get right into it.
As I said in my review of Disneyland Fun, I didn't grow up with these live action Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes. For whatever reason the hospital and our local video store didn't have them available, despite the fact that The Twelve Days of Christmas, Campout at Walt Disney World, Let's Go to the Circus!, and Beach Party at Walt Disney World all came out while I was still renting the tapes from the video store and watching them at the hospital.
If you are old enough to have rented movies from the video store, or old enough that you had parents who rented movies from the video store for you, then you know that your local video store, whatever that may have been back in the day, didn't always carry every single tape in a series like the Disney Sing-Along Songs series. It just wasn't possible, even for the big video stores like Blockbuster, West Coast Video, Rogers Video etc. Especially when they carried thousands of movies in their stores. And the children's hospitals also couldn't have every single tape in a series either, no matter what the series was. So naturally there would've been gaps in my viewing of series like Disney Sing-Along Songs, Barney & The Backyard Gang, The World of Teddy Ruxpin, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Not to mention trying to own the entire series was almost impossible back then too because VHS tapes were more expensive back then than they are today since they were the primary home video format for people to watch movies and TV shows on. Yes, there were Laserdiscs as well, but those were more expensive than VHS was.
Honestly, The Twelve Days of Christmas isn't as good as Disneyland Fun is. It's fun seeing the Disney characters in their theme park costume version, especially since we didn't see Scrooge McDuck or Huey, Dewey, and Louie walking around Disneyland when we were there back in 1993. Not that I remember anyway, and not that I recall seeing on our home movie recording of our day at Disneyland. But that's the only real novelty as the songs are mainly the usual Christmas songs that we hear every year. At least, ones that weren't on the previous Christmas Disney Sing-Along Songs tape, Very Merry Christmas Songs. And the ones that were written for this tape like "Hip Hop Noel" were just reminders that as much as I love the 90s, that decade produced some really weird music. Although I have to say that the dance choreography reminds me of the type of dance choreography favoured by pop bands like the Back Street Boys, 'N' Sync, the Spice Girls and Britney Spears, about three or four years after this tape was originally released. No wonder my generation ate up that type of music.
The Twelve Days of Christmas was re-released in December of 1994, a year after it's original 1993 release, with packaging that reflected the changes made to the layout with Circle of Life in 1994. And that was the last time this tape was released. I'm sure the 1994 release had reprintings throughout the rest of the 90s and into the early 2000s, but it didn't get a DVD release in the 2000s, nor did it get a brand new VHS release after this. I don't know how well this tape sold compared to the other volumes in the series, especially with it being a seasonal tape, rather than a general one but with it getting only one re-release and no DVD release, it may not have been one of the more popular ones
Don't get me wrong, I like this tape, but because it is a seasonal tape, AND I've seen live action versions of other animated characters in a sing-along song type tape like the two Rainbow Brite specials, Rainbow Brite and the San Diego Zoo Adventure and Rainbow Brite: It's Your Birthday Party, as well as the seventh Teddy Ruxpin VHS release from Hi-Top Video, Come Dream with Me Tonight, seeing the Disney characters doing it isn't really a novelty to me. Disneyland Fun is different because it took place at Disneyland. This one is more like a live action Mickey Mouse special, with Disneyland appearing at the very end. I don't know, maybe I would've liked it more if I'd seen it when I was a kid back in 1993 when it first came out, or in 1994 when it got re-released. It's still good, but it doesn't beat out Disneyland Fun.
Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'll probably be back tomorrow with another blog post, but I'll be back on Wednesday for sure for my review of this week's episode of Superman & Lois. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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