Hey guys! How was your weekend? Mine was good. Nothing exciting happened, but it was still good. Today I'm continuing my look at the live action Disney Sing-Along Songs VHS tapes from the 90s. These next three tapes are interesting, but I'll get into that a little later on. Last time I took a look at The Twelve Days of Christmas, a Christmas themed tape that didn't work for me the way Disneyland Fun does. As I said in that review, the reason it didn't work for me is a combination of it being a tape I didn't grow up watching, or even knowing about, and the fact that it's a Christmas themed tape, and I was watching it on the last day of February. This time I'm going to be taking a look at Campout at Walt Disney World, the first in a trilogy of unique tapes that are and aren't part of the Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes. Does it work for me better than The Twelve Days of Christmas did? Let's get into it and find out.
Like Disneyland Fun, Campout at Walt Disney World takes place at a Disney theme park and stars the Disney gang and a group of kids. However, there aren't the huge crowds like there were at Disneyland in the previously mentioned tape which is because they're in the camping area of Walt Disney World. While Disneyland Fun is nostalgic for me because not only did I own the tape, but I had been to Disneyland only a few years after the tape had originally come out and so I love watching the tape and seeing some of the places that my family and I went to while at the park back in 1993. I don't have as much interest in the theme parks and their history as I do the Disney movies and some of the TV show. And so I don't have very much knowledge of Walt Disney World at all, other than it opened in 1971, and was renamed Walt Disney World in honour of Walt Disney by his brother Roy, and that Roy passed away shortly after the theme park opened. I've also never been to Walt Disney World and so I don't have any insight into the places they visit in this tape.
Campout at Walt Disney World, along with Let's Go to the Circus! and Beach Party at Walt Disney World, wasn't originally released as part of the Disney Sing-Along Songs series. Instead, all three tapes were released as a separate series called Mickey's Fun Songs that was exactly like the Disney Sing-Along Songs series in every way, with the exception of the Professor Owl intro, and the classic opening title card that we're all so familiar with. It even had it's own theme song/intro sequence. This one was released on February 2nd, 1994 alongside Let's Go to the Circus! with Beach Party at Walt Disney World not coming out until June 30th, 1995.
It wouldn't be until sometime in 1996 that all three tapes were re-packaged and re-released as Disney Sing-Along Songs releases. Because Mickey's Fun Songs never went beyond these three tapes, and these three were re-released in the Sing-Along Songs line, many people, myself included, just lump this tape in with the Sing-Alongs rather than separate them into their respective line. Even the Disney Wiki places them in the list of tapes on the Disney Sing-Along Songs page as volumes 13, 14, and 16 respectively, according to their original release date.
I'm not going to spend too much time on the songs, because they really are just the usual camping songs that we all know either from school or if you went camping with your families when you were kids. I've never gone camping because of my medical condition, but I definitely learned most, if not all, of these songs at school in Kindergarten and Grade 1. Though I know "The Happy Wanderer" from the Barney & The Backyard Gang tape Barney's Campfire Sing-Along which was released in 1990. The only actual Disney song sung on this tape is "The Bare Necessities" from The Jungle Book, which automatically makes it my favourite song on this entire tape. Although it is extremely weird hearing Goofy sing the lines he sings since I'm used to hearing Baloo sing the song along with Mowgli. Even though it's a traditional song, I also consider "Turkey in the Straw" to be a Disney song since this is the first song that was played in a Disney cartoon back in 1928 when Mickey played it on makeshift instruments in Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with synchronized sound. So it's fitting that the song appears in a Sing-Along tape featuring Mickey and Minnie and their friends.
Unlike with Disneyland Fun, where I had to guess at when it was filmed compared to when it was released and when I first saw it, the Disney Wiki says that Campout at Walt Disney World was filmed in 1992 about a year and a half to two years before it was initially released. Given this has about the same production quality as Disneyland Fun, I'd say that tape was filmed in 1988 as it was released in 1990.
This tape is pretty good. It still doesn't have the same energy that Disneyland Fun has, but I suspect that none of these other live action Disney Sing-Along Songs tapes will though Beach Party at Walt Disney World definitely comes close. And unlike the other tapes in this series, including Disneyland Fun, Campout at Walt Disney World is the most timeless of them all. Even the clothes the kids wear, and their hairstyles could be from the 80s, the 90s, or the 2000s and it wouldn't matter. I guess the only thing that would solidly set this tape in the 90s is the sections of the park the kids and Mickey and the gang are at. But even then, campgrounds don't change a whole lot the way the Disney parks have changed in the last 30 years. So this is definitely the most timeless Disney Sing-Along Songs tape of them all.
Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow though with this week's review of Superman & Lois. Then on Thursday I'll be reviewing the fifth issue of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew, then on Friday I'm starting a new series where I show off my childhood collections like VHS tapes, books, comics and video games. I'll only be talking about the things that I owned and none of the stuff I borrowed from friends, borrowed from the library, or rented from the video store. And finally, on Saturday I'll be reviewing this week's episode of The Hardy Boys. So until then have a great day and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
No comments:
Post a Comment