Theoretical Re-issue

Long time, no post, folks.

Not too long ago, a fellow on YouTube who goes by "Erik" has been uploading original titles sequences for Disney short cartoons from the RKO era. Unlike features, Disney cartoon shorts didn't open with custom RKO title cards... Instead, "RKO" would be mentioned in the character title cards. Here's a fine example...

When re-issued, these credits were altered in different ways. Some shorts had a Buena Vista logo tacked onto them when re-issued in the 1950s and onward.

I was monkeying around the other day and thought about the re-issues of RKO-era Disney films. Each Disney animated feature and live-action picture had its own unique RKO title card preceding the opening credits. Throughout the 1950s, several new Disney pictures used custom Buena Vista title cards, too... That stopped sometime around the early 1960s, few pictures released afterwards used custom ones. One example off the top of my head would be The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin, which was released in 1967.

Re-issues of the animated classics used the standard Buena Vista title cards. I'll use Dumbo as an example, and you'll see why in a minute...

Here's how Dumbo originally opened...

Now here's the re-issue opening, which you can find on the early 90s Classics VHS, and the Masterpiece Collection edition...


Now think about this for a second... What if Disney simply altered the original RKO title card?

Instead of swapping it out for the plain, gradient Buena Vista card... What if they did this?

That way, they still would've been able to keep the artwork for each film's respective opening title cards...

That card is a work in progress, and I hope to more soon.

This is why folks like us often hope that restorations of classic Disney films keep the right logos. Sometimes, the title card or logo is unique to the film itself. When you replace it with a generic Disney card, you lose a little bit of something. While it's not the worst thing imaginable, it's still something to us collectors and Disney fanatics.

Thankfully, Disney is for the most part very good at preserving logos. When muck-ups happen, sometimes they correct them. The recent Signature Edition release of Bambi finally restored the RKO logo to the film's opening credits, the previous Blu-ray release - the Diamond Edition - contained the 2011 CG'ed Walt Disney Pictures castle logo at the beginning!

As I said above, I plan to make more of these, as the semester is coming to a close. Also, I want to update all my custom Disney VHS covers. Right now, I'm reworking the first one I ever made - the theoretical 1984 Classics release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs...