Air Power was another that was in the "canon" lineup, too, before the revision.
Always got the impression that was more of a personal/wartime project, and not meant to be "commercial" canon afterwards.
At least some fans could buy the Treasures WWII set without freaking out over "Der Fuhrer's Face" or "Education for Death", and that, gasp, Walt participated in morale propaganda even outside of their Army commissions.
Last edited by EricJ on January 7th, 2020, 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
Daniel wrote: January 6th, 2020, 3:23 pmThe short with Clara Cluck alone is a riot!
I remember trying to find the 30's Mickey short "The Orphan's Benefit", and found a distinctly 70's Ron-Miller-era futzed-with version that substituted new contemporary 70's animation of Mickey & Donald in place of their earlier different-animated 30 selves.
(So that modern kid audiences wouldn't be confused, you see.)
Should I assume it came from the Party special, and that's not been the version sneaked into the Disney Archive, like Walt's Epcot film?
I’ve never heard of that, but it would undoubtedly be because of story linking material changes, not for any kid confusion, which wouldn’t have been viable in the 70s, just like it wasn’t for the links in the Warners cartoon compilations that have wildly different character designs often in the same scene!
As for the "canon"...in truth there’s never really been one (and, actually, probably shouldn’t be one)!
A "canon" in the sense of the word, suggests a series that has some connection, in which events and occurrences make up the "history" for future events and reference. In this instance, there is nothing "canon" about Disney's animated features, other than this word being inaccurately applied to a list of Disney's animated films.
Even then, there was never such a list, since until at least when television came along, every film that was released by Walt Disney Productions was A Walt Disney Production and went on that list, usually under their production banner code (Mickey Mouse, Silly Symphony, Donald Duck, etc), with featurettes labelled as Specials (most of the post-Symphonies) and Features being, well, you know, feature films...be they animated, combination or live-action.
It’s really when TV came along that outside sources began making up books and such and compiling lists of Disney animation properties, and this is where the first listings of properties that featured Disney animation came from. The compilation features such as Academy Award Revue and Mickey's Birthday, were not included, but practically everything else that had a Disney animation sequence in it was, including Air Power, Reluctant Dragon, Song/South, Dear To My Heart, the Package Features, Poppins, Broomsticks and Dragon. When I wrote to Disney's UK office in around 1981/2/3, they sent me the "official list" on Disney paper, so I know this was "fact" back then.
At one point, the Package Features were NOT included in some lists (again, mostly outside sources) because they were not full features and considered compilations. By 1985, Katzenberg came in and revised the entire list to exclude the combinations and just focus on full-feature animated films, making Cauldron the 25th, to give it some prestige-sounding number for marketing purposes. That became the list from then on, though it’s in recent times and the rise of the internet that the word "canon" has been applied, however inappropriately.
(Dinosaur is included because it was produced by WDFA.)
At least some fans could buy the Treasures WWII set without freaking out over "Der Fuhrer's Face" or "Education for Death", and that, gasp, Walt participated in morale propaganda even outside of their Army commissions.
Our library has two copies of that dvd--in the kids section! Wonder what the kids think of "education for death"? Lol.
gaastra wrote: January 7th, 2020, 7:37 amOur library has two copies of that dvd--in the kids section! Wonder what the kids think of "education for death"? Lol.
Always donate your used Disney Treasures to the library.
Now that it's finally on DMC Blu-ray, I finally felt charitable enough to take my DT DVD set of "Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow" out of its jealously guarded vault-shelf--a title at the time fetching $350-400 on Amazon--and share it with the rest of the town for free...DVD's to the People!
(And no, I didn't try to claim a $350 tax-deductible charity donation.)
Ben wrote: January 7th, 2020, 4:42 am(Dinosaur is included because it was produced by WDFA.)
Well, that, and Disney's early '08 push for Blu-ray, back when they thought they could "only" put CGI on hi-def, didn't know how the ink-and-paint traditional features would translate, and needed another WDFA "classic" to go alongside Chicken Little, Bolt, and Meet the Robinsons.
Up to that point, they were happy to ignore Dinosaur as a failed experiment of the CGI-effects department.
Ben wrote: January 7th, 2020, 4:42 amWhat’s the story on "Walt's Epcot film"?
Walt NEVER SAID the C in Epcot stood for "Community". It was his City of Tomorrow.
The former was a bit of revisionism the company cooked up in the 80's, after snooty Disney-bashers and fans asked why they got a theme park instead of Walt's city--Company PR explained that the park was a community of happy guests, employees and countries.
We don't hear "City" on archival prints of Walt's proposal film, and Disney conspiracy-theory fans have looked carefully to see whether Walt's lips match "Community".
But the Syn DMC BD doesn’t have the theatrical cut or extras...I couldn’t do without those!
Interesting about Epcot. I knew it was originally described as a "city", but always understood the acronym used Community. I’ve never heard Walt say otherwise, not even on other programs going back to the late 70s/early 80s. That line certainly isn’t dubbed in the 1966 proposal film, and there wouldn’t have been time to change it before Walt passed, so I’m putting it down to conspiracy theorists.
Ben wrote: January 7th, 2020, 7:28 pmThat line certainly isn’t dubbed in the 1966 proposal film, and there wouldn’t have been time to change it before Walt passed, so I’m putting it down to conspiracy theorists.
The theory is that it was dubbed later, shortly before/after the park opening, in response to the controversy at the time--And Disney's own hyperdefensiveness at the time about the industry almost unanimously claiming they were going to "fail" and "lose money" on a park "nobody understood".
Although that gets back to the long-running fan question of why 80's Epcot, when it opened, was officially "Epcot Center"--
As in, it resembled Walt's plan for the central domed pedestrian downtown business/tourist district of his city, only without the outlying suburbs, farms and Peoplemover commutes.
Walt always had a city in mind (even if his ideas now seem unrealistic, even before Disney's attempt to run Celebration, FL), and if we're going to compete on memories, I remember "City", until any other evidence shows up.
