Wait, Which Hundred?
The Disney Corp turned 100, and as a company thats never willing to let a good “limited time” logo go to waste, we’re fully in the thick of “Disney 100” merch. To wit: this week’s announcement of a 100-film “Legacy Animation” box set for fifteen hudred bucks. That is a lot of money, but in that way where you stop and go, “well, fifteen bucks a movie isn’t that bad, really,” but still never consider buying the thing.
That said, in a world where Disney seemed to be moving away from physical media over the last few years, between this containing several titles that hadn’t previously gotten a widely-available blu-ray, and the new remaster of Cinderella, we might finally be moving past the “streaming only” era.
The contents are pretty great, though. Because: which 100 movies? There’s only sixty-one “Disney Animated Movies” in the way most people mean it. Okay, throw in the Pixar movies, thats another 27. Add Henry Selick’s Nightmare before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach and we’re up to…. 90?
Imagine the meeting! “The box says 100, we need ten more!”
You can’t just add all the DisneyToon direct-to-video sequels, because then we’d be up near to 150. The remit is “fully animated,” so you really can’t throw in Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks , or Roger Rabbit.
So which ten do you pick?
I’d love to have been a fly on the wall the day they gritted their teeth and picked the last ten:
“Goody Movie!”
Yes!”
“DuckTales Movie!”
“No!”
“First TinkerBell movie!”
“Yes!”
“Tinkerbell sequels?”
“No!”
“Beauty and the beast mid-quel?”
“No!”
“That piglet movie?”
“Yes!”
You can almost smell the flop sweat from here.
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And, two asides:
First, as always when Disney releases something from the Deep Vault, the usual suspects show up and demand to know where Song of the South is, like it’s some kind of gotcha. These people always tell on themselves because it’s Song they bring up, instead of Victory Through Airpower, or So Dear to my Heart, or any other movie that’s slipped into the freezer section of the Vault. And look, if you can read the web, you can scare up a copy of Song, it’s not that hard to find. But let me save you the time: not only is it crazy racist, it’s also just a a bad movie. It’s not good. If you really need to watch some vintage Disney racism, this box set does include Saludos Amigos, so go nuts.
Second, there was a weird tone in a lot of the coverage along the lines of “physical media? How quaint!”. And, man, that would have been a great take in 2021, but unless you can show me where to watch the episodes I missed of Jeff Goldblum’s show, maybe that’s not the best angle anymore?