Hey guys! Happy Friday! How's everyone doing today? I'm doing well. So today I'm going to be starting a series where I talk about the books, movies, music and video games that I had when I was a kid. This is a massive collection that I'm going through here so it will be in many parts. I'm starting with my childhood VHS collection. The biggest parts of this collection were Disney and Star Trek, so I'm going to be starting with Disney since that's the biggest section of my childhood VHS collection. Before we get into it though, I would like to point out that these are just the tapes that I owned and had either at my house or at my grandparents's place, that I saw. So it leaves out tapes that my grandparents and parents had that I obviously didn't watch, as well as tapes that we rented or that I watched at the hospital. So with that disclaimer out of the way, let's get into it.
The Walt Disney Classics was a line of home video releases consisting of classic Disney animated movies that were produced before 1981, as well as a few that were released in the late 80s and early 90s. This is how I saw many Disney movies such as Peter Pan and The Jungle Book. It was also where many of these movies were released on home video for the first time. These tapes won't be in any particular order, I'll just show them off one by one.
First up is Peter Pan. This was probably one of my most watched tapes growing up. Yes, it has it's issues today, but it was the fantasy of the movie that drew me in every time I watched it. What I remember most about this particular tape is the previews at the beginning. Back in the 90s Disney did a really great job of promoting their movies on the home video releases of other movies. Peter Pan had a behind the scenes featurette for The Rescuers Down Under, which was about to come out in theatres only two months after this tape was released. So it was my first time seeing Roy E. Disney on video. I'm still hoping to get a copy of this release of Peter Pan again someday as I have the Masterpiece Collection VHS release and the Platinum Edition DVD.
Next up is Bambi. This was the first tape that I had at my grandparents's place. I didn't watch this tape alot. I only remember watching it a couple of times in fact. There was nothing super scary in this movie that prevented me from watching it, but when you have so many tapes to choose from and one of those choices is the VHS release of "Encounter at Farpoint", the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to watch, chances are you're going to watch that instead of Bambi. Aside from a trailer for The Little Mermaid, which was about to come out in theatres, there aren't any previews or promotional featurettes on this tape. In fact Peter Pan was the first of the Walt Disney Classics tapes to include any such promotional material. While I don't have this exact copy in my collection (it's still at Nana's house), I did obtain a different copy at Chumleigh's in Kingston two years ago when Brad and I were visiting Jonathan.
And now we come to my favourite Disney movie of all time, The Jungle Book. Of the Walt Disney Classics line, The Jungle Book is the only movie I saw in theatres. It also holds the distinction of not only being my first movie going experience, but also being the first Disney movie that I had on VHS. And like I said, it's my favourite movie. This release of The Jungle Book also has a unique behind the scenes featurette for Beauty and the Beast, which was due to come out in theatres at the end of 1991. I say unique because this is actually the only tape that has this featurette on it. Seven Walt Disney Classics tapes were released in 1991, with Fantasia being the tape that was released closest to the release date for Beauty and the Beast. But, none of them have this featurette. So I thought that was interesting. While I have the Masterpiece Collection VHS, the Limited Issue DVD, and the Diamond Edition DVD, I'm still looking for a copy of this release, because it was the first tape in my Disney movie collection when I was a kid, and I would love to have it back in my collection someday.
The Rescuers Down Under is a movie that I didn't watch more than the first half of on VHS because of a scene that scared me when I was a kid. Wilbur the Albatross gets hurt when landing in Australia after ferrying Bernard and Bianca there so they can save Cody from McLeach, and ends up going to a hospital, run by mice who use instruments that aren't exactly medical in nature. Yeah, if I were Wilbur I'd want to break out of there too. Anyway, I did have this tape and I think I finally watched the whole thing as a teenager, and ended up really enjoying the movie. As a kid though, yeah, it scared the crap out of me because of those hospital scenes in particular. At the beginning of this tape there's a preview for The Jungle Book which had just come out on home video a few months earlier. That's it.
The Rescuers on the other hand, is a movie I absolutely loved when I was a kid. I watched this tape alot. Madame Medusa and Snoops were the most off the wall comedic villains I have ever seen in a Disney movie up to this point. And of course I loved Bernard, Bianca, and Penny as well. While it was a darker adventure film than what I normally watched from Disney, there was just something about it that I loved. Before the movie, the tape has the same previews for Beauty and the Beast and The Great Mouse Detective that were after the movie on the 101 Dalmatians tape, though they were in reverse order and on the one for The Great Mouse Detective it didn't say The Adventures of the Great Mouse Detective like it did on the preview on 101 Dalmatians, which is interesting. Both The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under are movies I'd love to have the Walt Disney Classics VHS releases of back in my collection.
Speaking of Beauty and the Beast, that's another movie that I absolutely loved when I was a kid. It's also the movie my sister and I watched together the most. This was her favourite Disney movie and once we got it, we loved watching it together. It didn't matter what time of day it was, if we wanted to watch it, we watched it. I don't think we ever watched it on repeat, though we definitely wanted to do so. There were two theatrical trailers and one home video preview before the movie. The theatrical trailers are for Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty. While Aladdin was released a few weeks after this tape was released, Sleeping Beauty, which was supposed to have a theatrical re-release in the spring of 1993, didn't get it until 1995 as the 1993 one was cancelled for some reason. The home video preview before the movie was for the then upcoming VHS re-release of Pinocchio. After the movie, there's a home video preview for 101 Dalmatians, which was still available at that point. Naturally I have this VHS back in my collection thanks to a geek sale pickup from a friend who had a booth there, just before the pandemic hit last year.
Up next is Fantasia, which is another of the Walt Disney Classics tapes that we had at my grandparents's place. It's also another one that I remember watching once when we were over there but didn't watch again after that. I saw the movie on DVD as an adult (my other grandparents had the DVD) and I really enjoyed it, but as a kid it didn't grab me quite as much, because back then I didn't really understand the concept of telling a story with only music and that's what Fantasia does. Each segment tells a story through the music. Especially in the Mickey Mouse segment, "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". There aren't any previews on this tape to speak of. I also have this back in my collection thanks to that geek sale pickup early last year. I really need to watch it since I haven't done so yet.
The last of the Walt Disney Classics tapes that we had at Nana's and Grandpa's house was The Great Mouse Detective. This is another tape that we only watched once or twice when I was a kid, but that I ended up really enjoying when I saw it as a teenager after borrowing the VHS tape from my grandparents. A year ago my parents and I went to Nana's house where I grabbed this movie along with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and a few other VHS tapes just before the pandemic hit so this is in my collection now. In terms of trailers and previews, there's only that behind the scenes trailer for Aladdin, with no home video previews on the tape.
Next up is Aladdin. This is another Disney movie that I loved growing up. Part of that is because of Robin Williams as the Genie obviously, but the songs and the story are pretty great too. It's probably one of the funniest Disney movies I've ever seen, with Hercules coming pretty close. We got this tape during the period where we were getting new Disney movies on VHS as they were coming out, which I guess had to have started with The Rescuers Down Under and continued, with the exception being Pocahontas, until Mulan came out on VHS in 1999. I think Aladdin was a Christmas present for me in 1993 if I'm not mistaken. There's a behind the scenes trailer for The Lion King which was due to be released in the summer of 1994 before the movie, as well as a home video trailer for Pinocchio, which had just been released earlier that year. Aladdin is actually the last Walt Disney Classics release that we got when I was a kid, as we didn't have The Fox and the Hound when I was a kid, though I did watch that movie at the hospital one time. And yes, I do have Aladdin back in my collection.
And finally we had Pinocchio. I remember watching this tape pretty frequently when I was a kid, but not as often as Beauty and the Beast, The Rescuers, Peter Pan, Aladdin and The Jungle Book because my sister doesn't like Pinocchio. I don't blame her because it is pretty scary between the boys turning into Donkeys and the entire Monstro the Whale sequence. I enjoyed this movie quite alot, but like I said, I didn't watch as much because my sister never wanted to watch it. I think it was a movie that I watched with my brother if my sister didn't want to watch a movie with us. There's a behind the scenes trailer for Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas before the movie as well as a home video preview for Aladdin. This release of Pinocchio is back in my collection thanks to Michelle and Jonathan who brought over that box of VHS tapes back in September.
Alright guys, that's it for my childhood Walt Disney Classics VHS collection. Next time I'll be talking about the tapes I had in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection. I'll be back tomorrow for my review of the second episode of The Hardy Boys. So until then have a great rest of your Friday and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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