A decade ago, I first thought that the Sorcerer Mickey Classics logo that was introduced in 1988 made its final appearance on the 1994 VHS of The Fox and the Hound. The Fox and the Hound was the final title in the Classics line. The very line that Disney launched as a banner to release their animated classics on home video under...
Then someone told me in early 2006 that some copies of the 1996 VHS of Pocahontas, which was part of the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection, had the logo... Sure enough, they were right... The earliest printings of the 1996 Pocahontas VHS, for some unusual reason, opened with the Sorcerer Mickey Classics logo... Even weirder, the 1989 variant was used, rather than the 1992 one! These are a little uncommon too, for Walt Disney Home Video's editors quickly printed copies that had the proper logo.
So was that the last ever appearance of this logo, in visual form? It was not... I discovered today (I'm totally behind, here) that the last time this logo appeared on a Disney home media release was in 2003.
That's right.
2003.
And not in North America, either! That's the real kicker right there!
Many a Disney VHS collector knows that The Classics line was really only a thing here in the states and Canada, and Japan. The line and its logo once in a blue moon showed up on international releases, some Italian and Australian releases had diamond logos on the packaging. Some UK VHS tapes from 1992 use the Sorcerer Mickey Classics intro - albeit without Mickey himself - before a preview of The Great Mouse Detective (known in the UK as Basil the Great Mouse Detective), and it also showed up on the 1991 Finnish VHS of Lady and the Tramp...
It appears... Twice! On the 2003 UK VHS of Pinocchio...
Why?
Oh, and not to mention, the logo is in PAL speed and it's the distorted 1992 variant.
One would assume that they lazily used the print from the 1993 North American VHS, but no, the start of the film uses the proper RKO title card and not the Buena Vista card. This is all kinds of bizarre. How did it get on there? Someone must've noticed, no?
Unless it was intentional! I have no other explanation. It looks intentional, it only occurred once. Europe barely ever got this very logo, so maybe one of the Disney Home Entertainment UK tape editors saw it on an American Disney VHS tape and wanted to use it?
Again, I don't know... But anomalies like these are just so much fun to come across.
I remember seeing a special Japanese variant of the Classics logo, which had a still variant of the diamond reading "THE CLASSICS" on a starry sky with a thicker, more glass-like frame. It was seen during a promo at the end of the 1988 Japanese VHS of "Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day". Sadly, the video is no longer on YouTube, but if you know anyone who has it, I would REALLY like to see it again.
ReplyDeleteI've seen that before!
DeleteA shame it didn't end up on the DVD version!
ReplyDelete