Opening title for The Wonderful World of Disney used from 2022 onward (with the "Presented by Disney+" tagline from 2022 to 2023 (later reappeared in 2024); currently used in promos)
Also known as
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)
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.
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 ABC 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, Disney co-founder Walt Disney and former Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner.[2]
The show is the second longest-running prime-time program on U.S. television, behind Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Although Walt Disney was the first major film producer to venture into television, two established independent film producers successfully ventured into television production before Disney, Hal Roach and Jerry Fairbanks. Disney wanted to produce a television program to finance the development of the Disneyland amusement park. After being turned down by both CBS and NBC, Disney eventually signed a deal with ABC (which had merged with United Paramount Theatres in 1953) on March 29, 1954. The show contained teasers for Walt's park, as well as episodes representing life in one of the park's main sections: Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Fantasyland, and Frontierland, with the opening titles used from its inception until the show's move to NBC in 1961, showing the entrance to Disneyland itself, as well as the four aforementioned lands, one of which was then identified as the main feature of that evening's program.
Consequently, Davy Crockett and other pioneers of the Old West, and American history in general, appeared in "Frontier Land". Similarly, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea might be the focus of an evening spent in "Adventure Land", although a documentary on the film could also be possibly presented as a topic for such episodes, including clips from the actual film. Topics for "Fantasy Land" would include either actual cartoons, and animated films, or documentaries on "The Making of ..." (such as behind-the-scenes presentation of Peggy Lee singing the duet of the wicked Siamese cats in Lady and the Tramp, or the barbershop quartet of lost dogs in the municipal Dog Pound); excerpts from a True-Life Adventure documentary might also be included (for example, one on the life and works of beavers and their dam-building) or those using stroboscopic stop-action photography (such as investigating what really happened when a rain-drop fell in a puddle, as part of a "Fantasy Land" episode), explaining the techniques of cartoon animation. The multiplane camera used to create the three-dimensional effects of Bambi was also a topic for a "Fantasy Land"-set telecast. In the episode An Adventure in Art, four different artists were given the task of drawing the same tree, with each artist using his own preferred ways of drawing and imagining a tree; this led to cartoon examples of differently animated trees, as in some of the early Silly Symphonies shorts, and later full-length animated films. "Tomorrow Land" was an opportunity for the Disney studio staff to present cutting-edge science and technology, and to predict possible futures, such as futuristic automobiles and highways, and featured Wernher von Braun as an on-air technical consultant in Man and the Moon, which aired December 28, 1955. This format remained basically unchanged through the 1980s, though new material was scarce in later years. Other episodes were segments from Disney films such as Seal Island and Alice in Wonderland, or cartoons of Donald Duck and other Disney standbys.
The program spawned the Davy Crockett craze of 1955 with the airing of a three-episode series (not shown over the course of consecutive weeks) about the historical American frontiersman, starring Fess Parker in the title role. Millions of dollars of merchandise relating to the title character were sold, and the theme song, "The Ballad of Davy Crockett", became a hit record that year. Three historically based hour-long programs aired during late 1954/early 1955, and were followed up by two dramatized installments the following year. The TV episodes were later edited into two theatrical films.
On July 17, 1955, the opening of Disneyland was covered on a live television special, Dateline: Disneyland,[5] which is not technically considered to be part of the series. It was hosted by Art Linkletter, with whom Walt Disney had worked out a deal prior to the opening to allow Linkletter to lease a shop on Main Street in return for the broadcast.[6] Art Linkletter was assisted by Bob Cummings and Ronald Reagan, and the program featured various other guests, including various appearances of Walt himself as he dedicated the various lands of Disneyland.[7]
Walt Disney Presents (1958–1961)
In 1958, the series was retitled Walt Disney Presents[8] and moved to a Friday-night timeslot; by 1960, ABC had switched it to Sunday nights, where it remained for 21 years. During this iteration, The Peter Tchaikovsky Story, an episode made to promote Walt's latest animated feature, Sleeping Beauty, was one of the first stereo simulcasts on TV; in this case it was 3 channel stereo. FM radio stations across the country carried the left channel at the same time as ABC broadcast the TV show in mono, which served as a center channel, and AM radio stations broadcast the right channel. In the second half of the show, a lengthy clip of Sleeping Beauty was shown, with its 6 channels (70mm version) mixed down into 3 for the broadcast. Walt apparently wanted people to see Sleeping Beauty in 70mm, so, in the introduction, he explained the difference between 35mm and 70mm and held up a card with both sizes on it.[9] In addition to episodes devoted to the latest additions at Disneyland, many episodes during this period were Westerns such as "Texas John Slaughter" and "Elfego Baca", while others talked about the United States' burgeoning efforts to explore outer space and others, such as "Moochie of the Little League", were set in the then-present day. Some episodes even mixed live-action and animation, showing Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Chip 'n' Dale, Professor Owl and Jiminy Cricket talking with Walt himself, while one 1959 episode (titled The Adventures of Chip 'n' Dale) turned the spotlight on Chip 'n' Dale, combining their theatrical cartoons with mixed media wrap-around footage including the chipmunks' own theme song. The episode's genre is a live action/animated musical comedy, and as the title suggests, it stars the titular chipmunks. At the end of the episode, Chip 'n' Dale say (singing) their goodbyes to the audience and return to their nut home on the counter hoping the audience enjoyed their show.
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (1961–1969)
Although the basic format remained the same, the series moved to NBC on September 24, 1961, to take advantage of that network's ability to broadcast programming in color.[5] In addition, Walt Disney's relationship with ABC had soured as the network resisted selling its stake in the theme park before doing so in 1960.[10] In a display of foresight, Disney had filmed many of the earlier shows in color, allowing them to easily be repeated on NBC; since all but three of Disney's feature-length films were also made in color (the three black-and-white exceptions were The Shaggy Dog, The Absent-Minded Professor, and Son of Flubber, all family comedies starring Fred MacMurray), they could now also be telecast in that format.
To emphasize the new feature, the series was retitled Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color when NBC began airing it.[11] The first NBC episode even dealt with the principles of color, as explained by a new character named Ludwig Von Drake (voiced by Paul Frees), a bumbling professor with a thick German accent, who was the uncle of Donald Duck. Von Drake was the first Disney character created specifically for television.
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color title sequence
Walt Disney died on December 15, 1966, 12 years after the anthology series premiered. While the broadcast that aired three days after his death featured a memorial tribute from Huntley-Brinkley Report anchor Chet Huntley with film and television star Dick Van Dyke,[12] the introductions that Walt already filmed prior to his death continued to air for the remainder of the season. After that, the studio decided that Walt's persona as host was such a key part of the show's appeal to viewers that the host segment was dropped. The final episode featuring Walt's host segment was the episode "A Salute to Alaska".
The Wonderful World of Disney (1969–1979)
The series was retitled The Wonderful World of Disney in September 1969, by which time the color distinction was no longer needed as all big three networks were broadcasting in color. It continued to gain solid ratings, often ranking in the top 20, until the mid-1970s.
In 1976, Disney showed its hit 1961 film The Parent Trap on television for the first time, as a 2½-hour special. This marked a major step in broadcasting for the studio, which had never shown one of its more popular films on television in a time slot longer than an hour (although it had shown Now You See Him, Now You Don't and Napoleon and Samantha in a two-hour format in 1975).[13] Walt Disney Productions also began running some of its multiepisode television programs, such as 1962's Sammy The Way-Out Seal, as televised feature films on the anthology series. A slightly edited version of the 1954 Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea made its television debut as a two-hour special on NBC in October 1976.[13] Several other Disney films, some of them not especially successful (such as Superdad, which was an outright flop in its initial theatrical release) were also aired on the program in the form of two-hour broadcasts that year. However, the multiepisode format for feature films had not been discontinued; as late as 1981, films such as Pollyanna were still being shown on the Disney program in several installments running a week apart.[13]
During the early 1970s, the show began to increasingly concentrate less on animated cartoons and dramatic or comedy films, and began to place an emphasis on nature-oriented programs (such as the True-Life Adventures).[13]
The show's continued ratings success in the post-Walt era came to an end during the 1975–76 season. At this time, Walt Disney Productions was facing a decline in fortunes due to falling box-office revenues, while NBC as a whole was also slipping in the ratings. The anthology series became even more dependent on airings of live-action theatrical features, its True-Life Adventures, reruns of older episodes, and cartoon compilations. Nothing from the Disney animated features canon aired, with the exceptions of Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo, as part of a long-standing policy placed on the program by Disney. Additionally, in 1975, when CBS regained the broadcast rights to the 1939 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film The Wizard of Oz, it was scheduled opposite Disney, as it had been between 1960 and 1968. At that time, telecasts of that film were highly rated annual events, which largely attracted the same family audience as the Disney series. From 1968 to 1975, when NBC held the television rights to Oz (which it had acquired from CBS in 1967), it usually pre-empted Disney to show it. However, the show's stiffest weekly competition came from CBS's newsmagazine 60 Minutes.
In 1975, an amendment to the Prime Time Access Rule gave the Sunday 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time slot back to the networks, allowing NBC to move Disney back by a half-hour. It also allowed CBS to schedule 60 Minutes at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time starting on December 7; prior to this, 60 Minutes had aired at 6:00 p.m. Eastern and did not begin its seasons until after the National Football League season ended. Disney fell out of the top 30, while 60 Minutes had its ratings rise significantly.
Disney's Wonderful World (1979–1981)
In September 1979, the studio agreed to then-NBC president Fred Silverman's request for changes to the program. The show shortened its title to Disney's Wonderful World, and updated the opening sequence with a computer-generated logo and disco-styled theme song, but largely kept the same format. The problems for the show continued. As a result of the ratings strength of 60 Minutes, compounded by low ratings, increasingly less original material, and frequent pre-emptions (primarily due to sporting events such as NFL game telecasts),[14] NBC cancelled Disney in 1981.[15] One factor that was beyond the control of either Disney or NBC was a 94-day strike by the Screen Actors' Guild that cut the number of shows for the 1980–1981 season,[16] but the damage was done nonetheless.
Walt Disney (1981–1983)
Following NBC's announcement that it would drop the anthology series, CBS picked up the program and began airing it on Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, in September 1981. Despite a more elaborate credit sequence and another title change, to simply Walt Disney, the series' format remained unchanged. During the 1981–1982 season, the series had a full season's worth of material again, but little of it was new. Among the little that actually was new were a handful of pilots based on Pollyanna, Escape to Witch Mountain, and The Apple Dumpling Gang, but only the last of the three pilots was sold and became the half-hour sitcom Gun Shy the following season, one of the studio's first entries in that genre but only lasted six episodes.
The 1982–1983 season had enough material to fill the time slot, but almost all of it was pre-existing material, the lone exception being the celebrity-laden opening ceremony of Epcot on October 23. It also did not help matters that NBC slotted the family-friendly sitcoms Diff'rent Strokes and Silver Spoons at 8:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. up against it to draw children away from CBS. After moving to Tuesday at the beginning of 1983, it went on hiatus on February 15 while the aforementioned Gun Shy took up the second half of its time slot. When it came back for summer reruns on May 3, it was still on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m.; its final network broadcast was on September 24, bringing an uninterrupted 29-year run on all three networks to a close.
The end of the show coincided with the launch of the studio's cable television network, the Disney Channel. While ratings were a factor, the final decision to end the show came from Walt Disney Productions' then-CEO Card Walker, who felt that having both the show and the new channel active would result in cannibalization of viewership.[17] The new channel would provide a home for the show in reruns for the next two decades, but for the time being, Disney's presence on U.S. network TV would be limited to the occasional holiday special, theme park anniversary, or cartoon compilation. The CBS version of the shows' intro would also be featured on Disney Channel. [citation needed]
The Disney Sunday Movie (1986–1988)
After the studio – which was rechristened as the Walt Disney Company in 1986 – underwent a change in management, Disney sought to bring back some sort of programming to broadcast television. Their efforts led to the premiere of The Disney Sunday Movie, which debuted on February 2, 1986, on ABC.[18] Many names were considered to serve as presenter for the revived show, including Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Cary Grant, Tom Hanks,[17]Walter Cronkite, Roy E. Disney (who closely resembled his uncle), and even Mickey Mouse.[19] The studio finally decided to have Michael Eisner, the company's recently hired CEO, host the series. Although he was not a performer, after filming a test video with his wife Jane and a member of his executive team (which required multiple takes), studio management believed he could do the hosting job. Eisner hired Michael Kay, a director of political commercials for then-U.S. SenatorBill Bradley, to help him improve his on-camera performance.[19]
The Disney Sunday Movie initially aired as ABC's lead-off program on Sundays, running from 7:00 to 9:00p.m. Eastern Time.[18] By this point, the format was similar to a movie-of-the-week. Gary Barton, a Disney senior vice president, was in charge of the program. Help Wanted: Kids was the first episode's film. Other first revival year films were, Young Again, The Richest Cat in the World, I-Man (starring Scott Bakula),[20] and My Town. Sometimes the slot would feature a special instead of dramatic material, such as "Disney Goes to the Oscars" featuring the studio's Academy Award winners, and "The Greatest Moments in Disney Animation".[18] A handful of Disney Channel original films made their network television debuts during these iteration as well,[21] but the program did not present any film made by Disney's Touchstone subsidiary, as such films were not considered appropriate for children. However, Splash, Too, a sequel to the 1984 film, aired on the series over two weeks in May 1988. The series had increased Disney park attendance and ABC's Sunday night ratings for the evening by an average 27% for the rest of the season. Disney, wanting to make it a regular viewing habit, gave ABC additional films from its library, including Old Yeller, The Apple Dumpling Gang and Candleshoe for the normal rerun mid-year period. The Last Electric Knight movie produced a spin-off series called Sidekicks (originally to be called Karate Kid) for ABC's 1987 season.[21]
Despite improving ABC's numbers, the program's ratings were never strong as the established 60 Minutes and scripted mystery series Murder, She Wrote on CBS, both of which Disney was competing with for viewers, remained the leading primetime programs on Sunday nights. In 1987, ABC reduced The Disney Sunday Movie from two hours to one. The move did not help drive ratings, and ABC decided not to renew its contract with Disney or pick up a fourth season of the second iteration of the anthology series.
The Disney Sunday Movie was also being run on the Disney Channel, also hosted by Eisner.[2]
The Magical World of Disney (1988–1990)
In early 1988, NBC decided to renew its association with Disney after it cut ties to the anthology series seven years earlier; NBC brought the series, now named The Magical World of Disney, to serve as the lead-in of its Sunday lineup in September 1988. As the program had done during its last season as The Disney Sunday Movie, The Magical World of Disney ran for one hour, airing at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time; Michael Eisner also returned as its host. During this period, the show attempted to reintroduce the rotating format the show started out with in 1954.[22] It also introduced new versions of Walt-era movies and TV shows such as The Absent-Minded Professor, a reboot of Davy Crockett, and the musical Polly, which was based on the book Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter and the Walt Disney's 1960 film adaptation of it. New television animation came in the form of Super DuckTales—a compilation of an arc from Disney's syndicated animated series DuckTales—as an Easter special on March 26, 1989; another DuckTales special, A DuckTales Valentine, aired on February 11, 1990.[23][24]
In the 1989–1990 season, during which Disney was negotiating with Jim Henson to buy The Muppets, they aired two Muppet specials; one of them was The Muppets at Walt Disney World, which turned out to be Henson's last Muppet special. He died May 16, 1990, 10 days after the special aired, and Disney only acquired The Muppets more than a decade later.
After two seasons experiencing the same lackluster ratings as it had accrued during the end of its initial NBC run and its subsequent runs on CBS and ABC, Disney elected to end the broadcast television run of The Magical World of Disney and began airing the anthology on the Disney Channel – in the same time slot it had been airing for the past decade – starting in September 1990, expanding back to a two-hour format. Since the Disney Channel operated as a premium channel at the time, films presented on the series were presented without commercial interruption. The Magical World of Disney originally aired on the cable channel as a weekly Sunday-only program for its first 5½ years; but in December 1996, as part of the first phase of a programming revamp that culminated in its formal conversion into a commercial-free basic cable channel in April 1997, the Disney Channel expanded the Magical World brand to encompass its Monday through Saturday primetime film block, maintaining its 7:00 p.m. Eastern time slot.
The Wonderful World of Disney (1991–present)
The Wonderful World of Disney returned in 1991 as an umbrella title for Disney specials airing on major networks (CBS airings used the historical title The Wonderful World of Disney for the first few years, while other networks broadcast the show with another title, A Disney Special). During this time, one of the telefilms shown under the banner was spun off into its own series -- The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage, a collaboration with Stephen J. Cannell Productions.
In 1997, with Disney acquiring ABC in 1995, ABC gave the series a regular slot in the schedule.[2] Disney CEO Eisner formed Disney Telefilms by 1995 to supply original films to the series[25][26] and program together with ABC.[2] It led ABC's Sunday night lineup at the 7:00p.m. Eastern time slot,[27] resulting in the displacement of Sunday mainstay America's Funniest Home Videos, which had occupied the slot since 1992.[citation needed] On September 28, 1997, the all-new Wonderful World of Disney premiered with the network television premiere of Toy Story. On October 5, 1997, Disney Telefilms' first production, Toothless, debuted on the series. In addition to the planned 16 original Disney telemovies, ABC and Disney added a few direct-to-video movies and films from other sources.[2]
In 2001, a Spanish-language version of the program premiered on Telemundo (which, incidentally, was acquired by the English version's former home, NBC, that same year) as El Maravilloso Mundo de Disney, with more of a focus on Disney theatrical films than the English broadcasts at the time.
In September 2003, The Wonderful World of Disney moved to Saturdays at 8:00 pm Eastern, with the previous Sunday time slot being ceded to AFV (which moved back to Sundays that season) and drama series in the 8:00pm hour. Rare exceptions to the program's format occurred during this time; for example, a Little House on the Prairie miniseries ran for several weeks in 2004 under the Wonderful World of Disney banner. For most of its second run on ABC, the program aired throughout the television season, with the exception of the 2005–06 season (when it aired during the midseason only), and in 2007 and 2008 (when it was relegated to the summer months), with a broader array of films occupying the network's Saturday primetime slot at other times, when sports programming did not air. The series ended as a regular program in 2008.
On December 12, 2015, ABC's The Wonderful World of Disney officially returned to its anthology format with a showing of Mary Poppins for the first time on ABC since 2002, hosted by Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke took viewers on a tour through the Disney Archives, as they explored props and costumes from the production of Mary Poppins and discussed the film's history and context within the Disney legacy.[28] It was then shown on February 21, 2016, with the special Disneyland 60, which honored Disneyland's 60th anniversary;[29] on November 24, 2016, for their Magical Holiday Celebration, filmed at Walt Disney World;[30] and on December 11, 2016, for the network television premiere of Frozen.[31] On August 5, 2019, it was announced that The Wonderful World of Disney would present The Little Mermaid Live! on November 5 of that year with Auliʻi Cravalho, Queen Latifah and Shaggy starring as Ariel, Ursula and Sebastian, respectively.[32] The cast also included John Stamos as Chef Louis and Graham Phillips as Prince Eric.[33] The special featured music from both the film and the Tony Award-nominated Broadway stage version and was performed in front of a live audience with giant projection surface.[34] The title was used again on November 28, 2019, for a two-hour music special, The Wonderful World of Disney: Magical Holiday Celebration, hosted by Emma Bunton and Matthew Morrison.[35]
On May 7, 2020, it was announced that The Wonderful World of Disney would bring back its banner for a series of theatrical movies from the Disney+ library, which featured an updated title card, which includes Moana, Thor: The Dark World, Up, and Big Hero 6, for four weeks beginning May 20, 2020.[36] A fifth week was later added, featuring the 2010 Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story 3, marking ten years since its theatrical release.[37] The program returned on September 23, 2020, featuring the 2014 Marvel film, Guardians of the Galaxy, filling a gap in ABC's fall 2020 schedule. On October 9, 2020, ABC announced the program would return on October 14, with the broadcast television premiere of the 2017 Disney/Pixar film, Coco.
On April 28, 2021, it was announced that the program would return on May 3, 2021, for five weeks with a series of theatrical movies from the Disney+ library, which includes the broadcast television premieres of Incredibles 2 and Finding Dory, Monsters, Inc., Tangled and The Princess and the Frog. On October 28, 2021, the program returned with the broadcast television premiere of the 2019 Disney/Pixar film Toy Story 4.[38]
Hocus Pocus aired on September 29, 2022, to promote Hocus Pocus 2, which premiered on Disney+ a day later. Enchanted aired on November 17, 2022, to promote Disenchanted, which premiered on Disney+ a day later. During the airing of Hocus Pocus, a new title card premiered bookending with the new Disney100 logo to celebrate the Walt Disney Company's 100th anniversary. Avatar aired on December 11, 2022, to promote Avatar: The Way of Water, which premiered in theaters 5 days later. Home Alone aired on December 24, 2022.
To kick off 2023, the program returned for five weeks with a series of theatrical movies from the Disney+ library, which includes the 2019 CGI film The Lion King and Finding Nemo, as well as the broadcast television premiere of Iron Man and The Avengers.[39] Due to the death of Barbara Walters on December 30, 2022, the schedule would be moved by a week and the broadcast television premiere of the 2017 live action film Beauty and the Beast was canceled but was instead replaced with the 2019 film The Lion King. In May 2023, it was announced the program would air on Sunday nights for 3 weeks in June (when the NBA Finals were not being played) in a 2-hour block, it would also air on Sunday nights in the fall of that year with a three-hour block.[40]
In May 2024, it was announced that the program would return the following month with a showing of Inside Out and that the program would air weekly on Sunday nights as part of ABC's 2024-25 schedule.[41][42]
The Magical World of Toons
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.[43] It continued at least until 2003.[44]
The Magical World of Disney Junior
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.[45] The channel also premiered its first Disney Junior Original Movie, Lucky Duck during Magical World on June 20, 2014.[46]
Reruns
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.[47][48]
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[49][50] 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.[51] 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.[52]
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
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 (i.e. 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).
Theme music
From 1954 to 1961, the series used the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" as its theme. The recording was taken directly from the soundtrack of the movie Pinocchio. Once the title was changed to "Walt Disney Presents" in 1958, the theme was used only over the ending credits.
From 1961 to 1968, an original song was used, "The Wonderful World of Color", written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. This song helped to emphasize the use of color with its lyrics.
From 1968 to 1979 (The Wonderful World of Disney), orchestral medleys of various Disney songs from movies and theme parks as theme songs.
From 1979 to 1980 (Disney's Wonderful World), a disco-styled theme was written to emphasize the new visual changes, even though the format remained the same. John Debney composed the melody and John Klawitter wrote the lyrics.
From 1980 to 1981, the series discarded the Debney/Klawitter theme and went back to an earlier orchestral medley theme, while keeping the 1979 credits motif and title.
From 1981 to 1983 (Walt Disney), a short disco arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star", arranged by Frank Gari, served as theme against some elaborate, then-state-of-the-art computer graphics. CBC Television in Canada also used this title sequence and theme music for their own versions of the show. The sequence was also used as the opening sequence on international Walt Disney Home Video releases until 1987.
From 1986 to 1988, a synthesized, pop-rock arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" with some clapping was the theme. This was used again for season of The Magical World of Disney on NBC from 1989 to 1991 and on The Disney Channel from 1991 to 1996.
In 1988, an orchestral medley of "A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes" and "When You Wish Upon a Star" was used. This was switched back to the 1986 theme in 1989.
From 1991 to 1997, an orchestral medley of "When You Wish Upon a Star" and "Part of Your World" (the latter from Disney's then recent hit The Little Mermaid), composed by David Newman, was used for network airings of the show (known as The Wonderful World of Disney on CBS and A Disney Special on other networks). This theme was also used internationally.
From 2000 to 2007, a newer orchestral arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" with a wordless choir, composed by James Horner, was used for ABC airings in the United States. The opening title sequence was updated in 2007 to include the castle shown in the 2006 Disneylogo, along with clips from Disney and Pixar films. This updated intro was also a promotion of the new Disney website, which debuted earlier that year.
From 2007 to 2008, another orchestral arrangement of "When You Wish Upon a Star" (in actuality, the theme from the 2006 Disney logo, written and composed by Mark Mancina and co-arranged with and orchestrated by David Metzger) and a brand-new opening title sequence (depicting a montage of the company's work with audio from Walt Disney himself) are used for ABC airings in the United States.
From 2015 onwards, "Heaven's Triumph", composed by Robert Etoll via Q-Factory, is used alongside a brand-new opening title sequence (updated with a longer voice-over from Walt Disney and including clips of films from the Star Wars franchise and Marvel Studios). The opening title sequence was updated in 2020 to add "Presented by Disney+" text to the show's title card (with the animated Disney+ logo) as the 2006 Disney logo (without the text) was shortened, and 2022 to replace the 2006 Disney logo with the Disney100 version of the 2022 Disney logo (without the text), in celebration of The Walt Disney Company's 100th anniversary in 2023, as in which the "Presented by Disney+" text (with the animated Disney+ logo) was shown earlier as the program's logo was being shown. After that, it transitions to the print Disney100 logo. On December 11, 2022, the intro was updated with the print Disney100 logo was removed as the "Presented by Disney+" text was still shown for the rest of the intro, due to the addition of films from 20th Century Studios. However, a scene from the featured movie is shown as well, starting with Hocus Pocus (that scene was later used in Enchanted). On June 2, 2023, the "Presented by Disney+" text was removed. However, on October 1, 2023, to add the print Disney100 logo back to the title card, now smaller in size. It was reverted to the previous version on January 7, 2024. The "Presented by Disney+" tagline made a surprise re-appearance on October 20, 2024.
International broadcasts
Argentina
The Telefe era
El mundo de Disney (The World of Disney) aired for the first time on the OTA network Telefe in 1990, hosted by Leonardo Greco.[53] He remained as the sole presenter of the show, lasting until 1995, when the series concluded. The programme started airing at 8:00 pm nightly from the second half of 1990 until December 1992. By 1993, it was moved to weekday afternoons at 5:00 pm. When it was coming to an end, around 1994, shifted to Sunday afternoons, and aired a long marathon of movies and cartoons. According to Greco, this programme was possible because of a distributor who acquired the material, and was allowed to be shown without following a strict format, because the company wanted to do so.[54] Telefe wanted a comeback, and appointed chef and host Maru Botana (then network talent) to present Planeta Disney (Disney Planet) on Sunday evenings, at 8:00pm, beginning November 21, 2004.[55] Starting on July 9, 2005,[56] Botana was replaced with two personalities employed by Disney, Carolina Ibarra and Dani Martins. They both shared the duties of hosting this show and the South American edition of Zapping Zone, on Disney Channel. This lasted for a year and a half, with relative success.[57]
The Canal 13 era
While Telefe had a major success carrying the animated movies and some TV series like Blossom or Dinosaurs (distributed by Buena Vista Television), Canal 13 saw the possibility of buying material from the company and airing it (sometimes competing against the Telefe's program) on Sunday afternoons, beginning in 1994, which at that time was filled with telecasts of ancient Argentinian films from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, and by reruns of Tarzan and The Three Stooges. The only clear difference was that only movies starring human actors, like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or The Island at the Top of the World, could be broadcast, and not the cartoons. This experiment lasted until early 1996.[58] By 2007, the network took off from Telefe the exclusive rights to show all the Disney franchise movies and programs, and began to air its movies on Sunday evenings at 7:00 pm, without a host. This also allowed Canal 13 to detain rights for other shows not related with Disney, but with the ABC network, like Lost or Grey's Anatomy, and to produce a localized version of the high-grossing film High School Musical.[59]
Australia
For more than 30 years, The Wonderful World of Disney was broadcast on the Seven Network, but in 2019, The Wonderful World of Disney moved to Saturday nights on the Nine Network and Friday nights on Nine's sister network, 9Go!. In 2020, The Wonderful World Of Disney moved to Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights on Seven's sister network, 7flix.
Brazil
The ABC run of the program under The Magical World of Disney title originally aired in that country under the title Cine Disney, now as O Mundo Mágico de Disney and Sessão de Filmes Domingo Disney, on the Brazilian-Portuguese version of Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão (SBT) in partnership with The Walt Disney Company. The ABC run of the program under The Wonderful World of Disney title originally aired in that country under the title O Mundo Maravilhoso de Disney on the Brazilian Portuguese version of Disney Channel; the program moved to SBT as Mundo Disney in 2015, for return in partnership with The Walt Disney Company, for end partnership in 2018 from 2 years.
Canada
CBC aired Disney shows for many years. Disney Movies were simsubbed in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s on CBS, NBC and ABC with the CBC Broadcast via Cable and later with satellite. CTV aired The Santa Clause but later moved to CBC. The movies moved to 4pm eastern many times to prevent simsubbing. Starting in 2023, the CTV Television Network acquired the rights to The Wonderful World of Disney, and has since aired it on both CTV and CTV 2.[60] However, CTV doesn't use the intro or a host for the series, and only airs the movies.
Hong Kong
The TVB Pearl era
United Kingdom
The rights to broadcast the series were held by the BBC throughout the 1970s and into the 80s. Originally broadcast as Walt Disney: The Wonderful World of Colour from September 1971, its title changed to The Wonderful World of Disney the following year and remained thus until the final broadcast in September 1983. Almost all the broadcasts ended with an orchestral version of the "Wonderful World of Color" theme. With only a handful of exceptions, the broadcasts tended to be on Friday or Saturday early evenings. Additionally, the BBC broadcast Disney Time, one-off programmes usually restricted to holidays, with a celebrity presenter introducing extracts from Disney films. This series was first broadcast on Christmas Day 1964 (introduced by Julie Andrews) and ended on Boxing Day 1997 (hosted by Keith Chegwin).
From the Pirates of the Caribbean to the World of Tomorrow (first half)
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.
The Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that aired intermittently from 1955 to 1996 and briefly returned to social media in 2017. Created by Walt Disney and produced by Walt Disney Productions, the program was first televised for four seasons, from 1955 to 1959, by ABC. This original run featured a regular, but ever-changing cast of mostly teen performers. ABC broadcast reruns weekday afternoons during the 1958–1959 season, airing right after American Bandstand. The show was revived three times after its initial 1955–1959 run on ABC, first from 1977 to 1979 for first-run syndication as The New Mickey Mouse Club, then from 1989 to 1996 as The All-New Mickey Mouse Club airing on The Disney Channel, and again from 2017 to 2018 with the moniker Club Mickey Mouse airing on internet social media.
Disney Channel is an American pay television channel that serves as the flagship property of Disney Branded Television, a unit of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company.
Toon Disney was an American multinational pay television channel owned by Disney Branded Television, a subsidiary of Disney-ABC Television Group. The channel's target audience was children aged 7–11, and older children and adolescents aged 8–15 during the Jetix programming block.
The Disney Afternoon, sometimes abbreviated as TDA, was a created-for-syndication two-hour programming block of animated television series. It was produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and distributed through its syndication affiliate Buena Vista Television. Each show from the block has aired reruns on Disney Channel and Toon Disney. Disney Channel reaired four shows on "Block Party," a two-hour block that aired on weekdays in the late afternoon/early evening.
America's Funniest Home Videos, also called America's Funniest Videos, is an American video clip television series on ABC, based on the Japanese variety show Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan (1986–1992). The show features humorous homemade videos that are submitted by viewers. The most common videos feature unintentional physical comedy, pets or children and some staged pranks.
ABC Kids was an American Saturday morning children's programming block that aired on ABC from September 13, 1997 to August 27, 2011. It featured a mixture of animated and live-action series from Walt Disney Television Animation and Disney Channel, aimed at children between the ages of 6 and 14. This was the only time that Disney Channel content aired on over-the-air television in the United States, but first being Nickelodeon on CBS two years earlier.
Soapnet was an American basic cable network owned by the Disney–ABC Television Group division of The Walt Disney Company.
The following is the 1961–62 network television schedule for the three major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1961 through April 1962. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1960–61 season.
The first and original incarnation of Walt Disney Television was an American production company and the original/former television production division of the Walt Disney Company, which was active from 1983 to 2003.
The ABC Sunday Night Movie is a television program that aired on Sunday nights, first for a brief time in 1962 under the title Hollywood Special to supposedly replace an open time slot for the TV show Bus Stop, which was cancelled after March 1962. It then began airing regularly under its more commonly known title from late 1964 to 1998, on ABC. Since 2004, it has aired sporadically as a special program, now titled the ABC Sunday Movie of the Week, though as of the 2011-12 television season, the only films in this timeslot were aired under the Hallmark Hall of Fame banner, which transferred to ABC in that season. However, in 2014, The Hallmark Hall of Fame moved exclusively to cable on the Hallmark Channel. As a result of this, the Sunday Night Movie is now exclusively relegated to two special holiday movies, The Sound of Music every holiday season and The Ten Commandments every Easter.
The Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade is an American television special that airs on Christmas Day annually on ABC, airing live and taped, primarily inside the Magic Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, approximately one month prior to Christmas Day.
The 1955–56 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1955 through March 1956. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1954–55 season.
The following is the 1954–55 network television schedule for the four major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1954 through March 1955. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1953–54 season.
ABC Saturday Movie of the Week is the umbrella title of a weekly American film series that airs on ABC. The series began as the replacement for ABC's Big Picture Show and as a revival of ABC's Movie of the Week theme. Since its inception, it has been ABC's main platform for airing theatrical movies, although other movies air as part of the movie of the week format during the holiday season and as special presentations. Other presentations of Disney's animated films are placed under Wonderful World of Disney as an umbrella title.
NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was the first television show to broadcast in color relatively recent feature films from major studios. The series premiered on September 23, 1961, and ran until October 1978, spawning many imitators. Television stations had previously only been able to show older, low-budget, black-and-white films. In the late 1970s, competition from cable television and home video led to a decline in viewership.
↑ Walt Disney – Pop Culture Legends, by Jim Fanning, 1994. Page 100. Retrieved from Polsson, Ken. "Chronology of Disneyland Theme Park". Chronology of the Walt Disney Company. Ken Polsson. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
1 2 Masters, Kim (2000). "13". The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else (2nded.). New York: HarperCollins. pp.189–190. ISBN0-06-662109-7.
↑ Goldberg, Lee (2015). The Best TV Shows That Never Were.
↑ "Rank And File". Entertainment Weekly. June 6, 2003. Archived from the original on July 19, 2012. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. Archived from the original on September 30, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2013– via The Internet Archive.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. Archived from the original on March 10, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2013– via The Internet Archive.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. May 23, 2006. Archived from the original on May 5, 2012. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. June 5, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. August 21, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. May 28, 2008. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
↑ "ABC Medianet". ABC Medianet. The Walt Disney Company. August 5, 2008. Retrieved October 15, 2013.
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