Disney anthology television series
The Walt Disney Company has produced an anthology television series since 1954 under several titles and formats. The program's current title, The Wonderful World of Disney, was used from 1969 to 1979 and again from 1991 onward. The program moved among the Big Three television networks in its first four decades, but has aired on ABC since 1997 and Disney+ since 2020.
Disney anthology television series
- Walt Disney's Disneyland (1954–58)
- Walt Disney Presents (1958–61)
- Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (1961–69)
- Disney's Wonderful World (1979–81)
- Walt Disney (1981–83)
- The Disney Sunday Movie (1986–88)
- The Magical World of Disney (1988–90)
- The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–79, 1983–87, 1991–present)
- Walt Disney (1954–66)
- Michael Eisner (1986–2002)
- Dick Wesson (1954–79)
- Mark Elliot (1979–88, 2006-2007)
- Ernie Anderson (1986-88)
- Danny Dark (1988–91)
- Andy Geller (2000-2006)
- "When You Wish Upon a Star" (1954–61, 1968–2012 and 2012–present; various instrumental adaptations)
- "The Wonderful World of Color" (1961–68)
- "Heaven's Triumph" (2012–present)
United States
English
58
2207 (list of episodes)
Multi-camera (hosted segments)
156–180 minutes
October 27, 1954 –
present
The original version of the series premiered on ABC in 1954. The show was broadcast weekly on one of the Big Three television networks until 1983. After a two-year hiatus it resumed, running regularly until 1991. From 1991 until 1997, the series aired infrequently.
The program resumed a regular schedule in 1997 on the ABC fall schedule, coinciding with Disney's purchase of the network in 1996. From 1997 to 2008, the program aired regularly on ABC. Since then, ABC has continued the series as an occasional special presentation from 2008 onward, the most recent being a holiday music special in 2019.[1] In 2020, the series returned with movies from the Disney+ library.
The show has had only two hosts, founder and former president, Walt Disney, and former chairman and C.E.O., Michael Eisner.[2]
The show is the second longest-running prime-time program on U.S. television, behind Hallmark Hall of Fame.
The Magical World of Toons[edit]
The Magical World of Toons was the daily prime time programming block featuring character's key series episodes coinciding with the launch of Disney's new channel, Toon Disney, on April 18, 1998.[41] It continued at least until 2003.[42]
The Magical World of Disney Junior[edit]
In 2012, Disney Junior launched a variant of the movie night anthology as The Magical World of Disney Junior on its new 24/7 channel.[43] The channel also premiered its first Disney Junior Original Movie, Lucky Duck during Magical World on Friday, June 20, 2014.[44]
Reruns[edit]
Prior to the launch of the Disney Channel, several of the films and specials made for the anthology series were licensed to pay-TV networks such as HBO; in HBO's case, the kaleidoscopic-pattern titles that preceded them in the original run were retained.[45][46]
Around the same time that the 1980s incarnations aired on ABC and NBC, reruns of older episodes of the Disney anthology series, airing under the Wonderful World of Disney banner, were syndicated to broadcast television stations throughout the United States[47][48] as well as in various international markets. In Australia, the program aired on Network Seven on Saturdays at 6:30 pm, before it was dropped in 1994 due to Optus Vision (later Foxtel)'s launch of a domestic version of the Disney Channel, with Saturday Disney replacing it as the channel's main block of Disney films.
Reruns of the shows were a staple of the Disney Channel for several years under the title Walt Disney Presents (which used the same title sequence as the 1980s CBS incarnation), when it was an outlet for vintage Disney cartoons, television series, and films, basically serving the same function that the anthology series served in the days before cable. The original opening titles were restored to the episodes in 1997. Reruns of the anthology series were discontinued when the channel exclude all vintage material with the removal of its Vault Disney late-night block on September 8, 2002.[49] However, a few select episodes are available on VHS or DVD (some of which are exclusive to the Disney Movie Club), with the possibility of additional future releases.
From 2014 to 2019, live-action Disney films from the 1950s to the 1980s including special episodes from Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color aired on Turner Classic Movies, without commercial interruption, and presented uncut and with letterboxing on the network's standard-definition feed.[50]
All of the episodes and existing material used on the series up to 1996 are listed in the Bill Cotter book The Wonderful World of Disney Television, which was released in 1997 by Hyperion Books (which was owned by the Walt Disney Company at the time of the book's publication).[7]
Programming[edit]
Originally hosted by Walt Disney himself, the original format of the Disney anthology series consisted of a balance of theatrical animated cartoons, live-action features, and other informational material (some original, some pre-existing) from the studio's library. For many years, the show also featured edited one-hour versions of such then-recent Disney films as Alice in Wonderland, and in other cases, telecasts of complete Disney films that were split into two or more one-hour episodes.[5] Later original programs consisted of dramatizations of other historical figures and legends along the lines of the Davy Crockett mini-series. These included a miniseries based on Daniel Boone (not the Fess Parker characterization), Texas John Slaughter, Elfego Baca, Francis Marion (the "Swamp Fox") and 1977's Kit Carson and the Mountain Man (with Christopher Connelly as Kit Carson, Robert Reed as John C. Fremont, and Gregg Palmer as mountain man Jim Bridger).
Occasionally, a more educational segment would be featured (such as The Story of the Animated Drawing), including nature and animal programs similar to the True-Life Adventures that were released in theaters, as well as various dramatic installments which were either structured as single-part, two-part, and sometimes, multipart editions. Much of the original informational excerpts were to create awareness of Disneyland. In spite of essentially serving as advertisements for the park, entertainment value was emphasized, as well to make the shows palatable. Some of the program's informational content was formatted to promote upcoming feature film releases by the studio (such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Darby O'Gill and the Little People), with some programs focusing on the art and technology of animation itself.
This format generally stayed consistent in the later years of the program, with minor deviations (ie. more wildlife programming) until The Disney Sunday Movie era, which began to rely more on original telefilms and specials as opposed to Disney library content; in certain cases, these films were intended to be spun-off into regular series (including The Last Electric Knight, which became the short-lived Sidekicks, and the equally short-lived 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage). During the 1997-2008 period on ABC, more original telefilms and recent Disney theatrical films made up the bulk of the content; however, films from outside producers were featured occasionally, including Princess of Thieves (a production of Granada Media) and the 2001 remake of Brian's Song (produced by Columbia TriStar Television).
Several home media releases have included episodes of the anthology series.
In the 1980s, Walt Disney Home Video released 15 volumes of the anthology series on VHS, while many episodes have been released on DVD from either the Disney Movie Club or the Disney Generations movies-on-demand (MOD) program on Amazon.com.