One of the most important things Disney did in the 1970s was enter the home video market. I speak for a lot of millennials when I say that Disney’s videos were literally my introduction to Disney’s films, and they are the reason why I became a Disney fan. More so than The Wonderful World of Disney by that point in television history. And just like with television, which many film studios saw as a threat but Disney embraced, Disney was one of the first film studios to take advantage of the concept of home videos. That experiment would pay off for the studio for decades. Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment was so commercially successful with their videos that sequels like Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Fantasia 2000 and An Extremely Goofy Movie were built off the success garnered by home video sales.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment was founded in 1978. Disney had first agreed to license their titles for home video in the seventies with early LaserDisc company DiscoVision, including the 1960 film Kidnapped and some Disney short film compilation videos with titles like The Adventures of Chip ‘n’ Dale. But Disney’s partnership with DiscoVision only lasted until 1981.

The first time Disney licensed their films to videotape was when they teamed up with video rental company Fotomat in 1980, who distributed Disney’s films in select cities for a limited time before expanding nationwide. The 1977 film Pete’s Dragon was the first film Disney released on videotape and that was followed by The Black Hole, The Love Bug, Escape to Witch Mountain, Davy Crockett, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Mary Poppins, Dumbo and many other films from their back catalog in addition to the usual short film compilations and episodes of The Wonderful World of Disney. Some compilation videos came in multiple volumes, such as the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics, which had a series of videos that initially ran from 1983 to 1986 and a second series from 1987 to 1992 featuring videos with titles like Here’s Mickey!, Mickey and the Gang, Nuts About Chip ‘n’ Dale and The Goofy World of Sports (several of these volumes were combined into one video when they were released on LaserDisc).

The Walt Disney Classics line, which lasted a decade from 1984 to 1994, was a series of home video releases of the films of Walt Disney Animation Studios and they have always been Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment’s biggest sellers. Disney video collectors will recognize those videos by their black diamond logo.

You would think that the first film Disney would release for the Classics line would be something along the lines of Snow White, but the first release was actually Robin Hood, and there was a reason for that. Despite earlier video releases of films like Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland in the early eighties, Disney executives were reluctant to release too many classic animated films onto the home video market. They knew that Disney’s animated films were by far the most popular properties they owned, but the studio traditionally re-released their animated films in theaters every few years and they didn’t want to dilute their brand and eat away at their theatrical business, so they chose Robin Hood as their first Classics release because it was less famous than films like Snow White and Pinocchio and therefore a relatively low-risk release. However Robin Hood sold well and Disney’s home videos were growing huge in popularity that decade, so Disney gained confidence and the Classics line soon continued with Pinocchio, Dumbo, The Sword in the Stone, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Cinderella and Bambi in the eighties, followed in the nineties by The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, The Rescuers Down Under, Fantasia, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Great Mouse Detective, The Rescuers, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Fox and the Hound. Even after this bold shift from the big screen to the small screen, Disney still treated their movie releases like limited-edition opportunities for customers, which contributed to much of their commercial success. This moratorium practice came to be known as “The Disney Vault,” with Disney even fully embracing the phrase in their video commercials. Plus following the home video success of newer Disney films like The Little Mermaid, Disney would begin the tradition of releasing their theatrical films on home video months later, and so too would Disney continue to distribute straight-to-video releases, which mostly consisted of sequels like The Return of Jafar and The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue.

Other Disney videos you might remember:

Walt Disney Mini-Classics (1988-93)

Featured such titles as Mickey and the Beanstalk, Donald in Mathmagic Land, The Wind in the Willows, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Peter and the Wolf, Mickey’s Christmas Carol, the Winnie the Pooh featurettes and other films and segments that were not quite shorts but not quite feature films.

Disney Sing-Along Songs (1986-2006)

Included such volumes as Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, Height Ho, The Bare Necessities, Under the Sea and more. These videos were hosted by Professor Owl of Melody and Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom fame (with recycled animation from those shorts and new voice work added in) and featured scenes from Disney films with sing-along lyrics on the screen, often accompanied by Mickey Mouse-shaped bouncing ball. Some volumes even featured themes, such as the underwater-themed Under the Sea and the friendship-themed Friend Like Me, and sometimes characters like Ludwig Von Drake and Jiminy Cricket would even take over hosting duties for a volume or two.

Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection (1994-1999)

This series of home videos included many of the films previously released in the Classics line, plus Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mary Poppins, Pete’s Dragon, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Three Caballeros, So Dear to My Heart, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Aristocats, Oliver & Company, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Fun and Fancy Free, Hercules, Melody Time, The Black Cauldron, Mulan and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.

Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection (2000-01), Platinum Editions (2001-09), Diamond Editions (2009-15) and Signature Collection (2016-19)

The Gold Classic Collection was notable for including the first ever home video releases of Make Mine Music and Saludos Amigos (albeit with cut content) as well as the first DVD release of Pixar’s Toy Story, but that series lasted shortly due to low sales as a result of releasing too many of them onto the market at once. A lesson learned for the Platinum Edition line which consisted of annual and bi-annual special edition DVD releases (straight from the vault) of Disney’s animated classics, featuring many great bonus features and brand new content, such as documentaries, audio commentary tracks and retrospectives. Those special edition Platinum DVDs consisted of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aladdin, Bambi, Cinderella, Lady and the Tramp, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio. They were followed by the Diamond Editions and the Signature Collection which included Blu-ray and digital HD releases of Disney’s most famous animated features, all of which were previously released in the Platinum Edition line with even some recycled bonus features. Not to say that there weren’t plenty of other Disney films outside these collections that received excellent special edition bonus feature-packed DVD releases, including Fantasia, Dumbo, Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins, Tron, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Mulan, Tarzan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Lilo & Stitch and all of the Pixar films.

Walt Disney Treasures (2001-09)

The Walt Disney Treasures were a series of DVD collections created and hosted by Leonard Maltin featuring the complete and uncensored set of Mickey Mouse cartoons, Silly Symphonies, Donald Duck cartoons, Goofy cartoons, Pluto cartoons and other short films, in addition to DVD collections centered around Davy Crockett, Disney’s war films, The Mickey Mouse Club, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Zorro and certain episodes of Walt Disney’s television anthology series, all released in nine waves. The more offensive short films featuring dated content were often separated into another section of the DVD and were accompanied by an introduction from Leonard Maltin providing historical context.

Disney would also sometimes use their corporate Buena Vista Home Entertainment moniker when teaming up with other companies for video distribution such as Jim Henson, ABC and Studio Ghibli, whose English dubs were handled by Disney until 2017 when GKIDS and Shout! Factory acquired the North American home video rights to Studio Ghibli’s films.

As I said at the beginning of the article, Disney videos were my entry to Disney films (and cinema in general) and as a result my entry to Disney fandom. Bambi was released in the Classics line the same year I was born, and that was also my first Disney video, so I guess you could say my mom was the reason why I became a Disney fan. I didn’t have a choice. My standard for entertainment was literally shaped by the films of Disney since I was a baby. Which is why, aside from the standard for quality that Walt Disney set himself, Disney videos are the ultimate X factor in my love for Disney.