80s Disney Features on Super 8?

[Lincoln Thorn]

Greetings friends!

While I'm quiet fond of some of the films Disney was putting out in the 80s, it was undoubtedly not their best performing decade until The Little Mermaid washed on screens.

I was curious to know how many films, if any, from that time period made it on to Super 8! Movies like Something Wicked This Way Comes, Tron, Great Mouse Detective, etc....

Or did Video home release put a stop to most of those films and cartoons until Derann entered the picture?

Look forward to chatting,

Lincoln

[Ed Gordon]

Here is a list of all (63) Disney releases for the 1980's. You can check Super8DataBase to see what made it to Super 8. I did not see a way to find only Disney films feature films in the database, but I am not that familiar with it to know.



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...980%E2%80%9319 89)

[Osi Osgood]

Fox and the Hound was a feature offered by Derann and elsewhere. Italy had a myriad of pirate/bootleg Disney's from the 80's. I know that Disney had some assorted titles that ended up as Super 8 optical sound features. Two of which I should have bought when they were offered to me, were "Splash", and one of they're better efforts from the late 80's, "The Journey of Natty Gann", a live action adventure film that takes place in the depression era.

[Rob Young]

Pretty much spot on, Lincoln.

Walt Disney Home Movies pulled the plug on super 8 releases in, I think, 1982. They were already releasing limited titles on VHS and Betamax for rental. The news that they would no longer be releasing the popular 200ft extracts came quite suddenly as I recall, but not entirely surprising. Like most other distributers, they saw video as the future.

There was just time to order a million copies of Mickey Mouse, The first 50 years and Match of The Century from the labs, to ensure we'd all have brand new copies available to buy for the next few decades...just kidding!

Derann triumphed in the early 90's by persuading Disney to let them release their features on super 8, a market Disney I think had long since thought of as gone. Starting, of course, with The Little Mermaid. Who Framed Roger Rabbit also made a super 8 release from Derann. I don't think we missed out on too much as I regard the 80's animation output from Disney pretty disappointing (The Black Cauldron, anyone?) Of course, The Little Mermaid turned that around. Disney seemed to be concentrating on it's more grown up live action releases in the 80's, released by Touchstone Pictures, or in other words, Disney, but without the implication. Like Osi, I've seen a few of these as optical prints that escaped from somewhere.

In 1981 I was 10 years old an already an avid super 8 nut. When I saw The Fox and the Hound at the cinema, I was so depressed to think that it would have made a great couple of 200ft versions, but that those days were over. My go to film shop was moving to video and he never stocked any super 8 versions of The Fox and the Hound, so I assumed it wasn't to be.

About 3 or 4 years later, I started buying film making magazines and re-discovered Derann and the plentiful second hand dealers still making a healthy go with super 8. It's only then I discovered that WDHM had, in fact, released two 200ft extracts. Imagine how ecstatic I was! Happy days...

[Osi Osgood]

The Fox and the Hound was released by someone other than just Derann. It didn't quite have the same quality as the Derann release though, but it was the first Disney animated feature that I ever once owned.

[Rob Young]

Yes, a lot of the animated features were also released in Italy. But quality was dubious and non had rights from Disney.

Don’t know who did the non Derann Fox and the Hound. Osi, it sounds like the quality was acceptable?

[Douglas Meltzer]

Rob,

I was also surprised to find that Disney had put out the two Fox & the Hound extracts. They are both nicely done.

[Osi Osgood]

A lot of them were printed on a good, largely low fade film stock. Yes the "bootleg" so to speak, Fox and Hound, was and is on LPP film stock, but I remember that two of the reels we're slightly over exposed in some sections. I think there was a bootleg of "Little Mermaid". Might have been the same super 8 supplier. I once owned a print of Snow White, before the Derann came out, but I have almost never seen such a Gawd-awful print quality in my life! Thank you Derann for your excellent prints of this title! I only wish the deal with Derann would have survived just one year longer to include a scope feature of "Atlantis" 😔

[Larry Arpin]

Osi-I have a print of Snow White that's not Derann. Did yours have a clump of hair towards the end, I believe it was where the dwarfs were dancing with Snow White. It's not that bad and I've watched it a few times since. Also the price was considerably less than a Derann. I also have 101 Dalmatians with German titles which is comparable to Derann.

[Osi Osgood]

I think that's the one, Larry! My greatest optical sound Disney features that I passed on? .... "Flight of the Navigator". When I saw it on Dave Thomas's Film list, I had never seen it and didn't give it a second thought. DAMN!! The only hope that I have is that, since it was listed, no doubt someone bought it, and so, someday, perhaps, it will pop up on ebay or otherwise.