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Disney anthology television series

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 and Disney+ from 2020 to 2023, but is still advertised during or after the program.

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 the network 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. In 2020, the series returned with movies from the Disney+ library. The show has had only two hosts, founder and former president, Walt Disney, and former chairman and C.E.O., Michael Eisner.

The show is the second longest-running prime-time program on U.S. television, behind Hallmark Hall of Fame.

Titles

 * Walt Disney's Disneyland (1954–1958; ABC )
 * Walt Disney Presents (1958–1961; ABC )
 * Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (1961–1969; NBC )
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (first era; 1969–1979; NBC )
 * Disney's Wonderful World (1979–1981; NBC )
 * Walt Disney (1981–1983; CBS )
 * The Disney Sunday Movie (1986–1988; ABC; )
 * The Magical World of Disney (1988–1991; NBC )
 * The Magical World of Disney on Disney Channel (1996–2001; Disney Channel)
 * The Magical World of Disney Junior (2012–2021; Disney Junior)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (second era; 1991–1997; CBS)
 * The Wonderful World of Disney (third era; 1997–present; ABC )
 * The Wonderful World of Disney: Presented by Disney+ (2020–2023; ABC & Disney+) (currently used in promos)

History
The anthology series was an outgrowth of Walt Disney looking for funding for Disneyland with his brother Roy Disney approaching all the big-three networks with American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres taking the deal for programming for ABC.

Walt Disney's Disneyland (1954–1958)
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, 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. 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.

Walt Disney Presents (1958–1961)
In 1958, the series was retitled Walt Disney Presents 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 70 mm, so, in the introduction, he explained the difference between 35 mm and 70 mm and held up a card with both sizes on it. 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. 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. 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. 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 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, 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). 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. 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.

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).

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 pm 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 pm Eastern Time starting on December 7; prior to this, 60 Minutes had aired at 6:00 pm 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), NBC cancelled Disney in 1981. 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, 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 pm 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 pm and 8:30 pm 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 pm; 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. 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.

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. Many names were considered to serve as presenter for the revived show, including Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Cary Grant, Tom Hanks, Walter Cronkite, Roy E. Disney (who closely resembled his uncle), and even Mickey Mouse. 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. Senator Bill Bradley, to help him improve his on-camera performance.

The Disney Sunday Movie initially aired as ABC's lead-off program on Sundays, running from 7:00 to 9:00 pm Eastern Time. 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), 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". A handful of Disney Channel original films made their network television debuts during these iteration as well, 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 series movie produced a spin-off, originally to be called Karate Kid for ABC's 1987 season.

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 the network 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.

The Magical World of Disney (1988–1990)
In early 1988, NBC decided to renew its association with the company after it cut ties to the anthology series seven years earlier; the network 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 pm Eastern Time; Michael Eisner also returned as its presenter. During this period, the show attempted to reintroduce the rotating format the show started out with in 1954. 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.

In the 1989–1990 season, during which the company 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 the company 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 pm 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 the previous year, ABC gave the series a regular slot in the schedule. Disney CEO Eisner formed Disney Telefilms by 1995 to supply original films to the series and program together with ABC. It led the network's Sunday night lineup at the 7:00 p.m. Eastern time slot, resulting in the displacement of Sunday mainstay America's Funniest Home Videos, which had occupied the slot since 1992. On September 28, 1997, the all-new The 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.

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 8:00 pm 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.

At this point, the series began to shift focus toward Disney theatrical films, relying less on original television films; however, the series aired three Disney Channel Original Movies (2002's Cadet Kelly, 2008's Camp Rock and 2011's Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, currently the only Disney Channel television films to have aired on a non-Disney Channel-branded network domestically) during its ABC run. The second ABC revival also included some family-oriented films produced by studios other than Disney under the Wonderful World banner, such as The Sound of Music from 20th Century Fox (which is presently owned by Disney, now known as 20th Century Studios).

Revival, and Presented by Disney+ (2015–present)
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. It was then shown on February 21, 2016, with the special Disneyland 60, which honored Disneyland's 60th anniversary; on November 24, 2016, for their Magical Holiday Celebration, filmed at Walt Disney World; and on December 11, 2016, for the network television premiere of Frozen. 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. The cast also included John Stamos as Chef Louis and Graham Phillips as Prince Eric. 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. 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.

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. A fifth week was later added, featuring the 2010 Disney/Pixar film, Toy Story 3, marking ten years since its theatrical release. 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.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier aired on January 12, 2021. The 2015 live action film Cinderella aired on January 19, 2021.

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.

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. 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.

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.

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. It continued at least until 2003.

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. The channel also premiered its first Disney Junior Original Movie, Lucky Duck during Magical World on June 20, 2014.

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.

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 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. 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.

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).

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. 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 1969, 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 1969 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 the 1989–90 season of The Magical World of Disney and the 1991–96 run on The Disney Channel.
 * 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 1990 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 1997 to 2000, an orchestral medley of "When You Wish Upon a Star" and "A Whole New World" (the latter used in the movie Aladdin) were used; also used occasionally was the Louis Armstrong hit "What a Wonderful World". This theme is still used currently 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 Disney logo, 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 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 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. 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. 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. Starting on July 9, 2005, 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.

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. 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.

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. However, CTV doesn't use the intro or a host for the series, and only airs the movies.

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).

Episodes

 * List of Walt Disney anthology television series episodes (seasons 1–29) (1954–1983)
 * List of Walt Disney anthology television series episodes (seasons 30–present) (1983–present)

Won

 * 1) Best Individual Program of the Year (Operation Undersea, 1955)
 * 2) Best Television Film Editing (Lynn Harrison, Grant K. Smith, Operation Undersea, 1955)
 * 3) Best Action or Adventure Series (1956)
 * 4) Best Producer – Film Series (Walt Disney, 1956)
 * 5) Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming (1963)
 * 6) Outstanding Program Achievements in Entertainment (Walt Disney, 1965)
 * 7) Special Classification of Outstanding Program and Individual Achievement – Programs (Ron Miller, executive producer, 1971)
 * 8) Outstanding Main Title Design (1998)

Nominated

 * 1) Best Television Film Editing (Chester W. Schaeffer, "Davy Crockett: Indian Fighter", 1955)
 * 2) Best Single Program of the Year ("Davy Crockett and River Pirates", 1956)
 * 3) Best Musical Contribution for Television (Oliver Wallace, 1957)
 * 4) Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Children's Programming (1962)
 * 5) Outstanding Program Achievements in the Fields of Variety and Music – Variety (1962)
 * 6) Outstanding Children's Program (Walt Disney, Ron Miller, Further Adventures of Gallagher, 1966)
 * 7) Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming – Programs (Ron Miller, executive producer, 1969)
 * 8) Outstanding Achievement in Children's Programming – Programs (Ron Miller, executive producer, 1970)
 * 9) Special Classification of Outstanding Program and Individual Achievement – General Programming (Ron Miller, producer, 1972)
 * 10) Special Classification of Outstanding Program Achievement (Ron Miller, executive producer, 1977)
 * 11) Outstanding Children's Program (The Art of Disney Animation, 1981)

Home media
Several home media releases have included episodes of the anthology series.
 * On Vacation with Mickey Mouse and Friends
 * Kids Is Kids
 * The Adventures of Chip 'N' Dale
 * At Home with Donald Duck
 * Disney's Halloween Treat
 * A Disney Christmas Gift
 * Winnie the Pooh and Friends
 * Bambi Platinum Edition
 * Tricks of Our Trade (excerpt)
 * Alice in Wonderland Masterpiece Edition
 * One Hour in Wonderland (complete episode)
 * Operation Wonderland Featurette
 * The Fred Waring Show (first half)
 * 1954 Introduction
 * 1964 Introduction
 * Alice in Wonderland Special Un-Anniversary Edition
 * One Hour in Wonderland (complete episode)
 * Operation Wonderland Featurette
 * The Fred Waring Show (first half)
 * 1954 Introduction
 * 1964 Introduction
 * Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition
 * One Hour in Wonderland (complete episode)
 * Operation Wonderland Featurette
 * The Fred Waring Show (first half)
 * 1954 Introduction
 * 1959 Introduction
 * 1964 Introduction
 * Peter Pan Special Edition
 * The Peter Pan Story Featurette
 * Peter Pan Platinum Edition
 * The Peter Pan Story Featurette
 * Dumbo 60th Anniversary Edition
 * Walt Disney Introduction
 * Dumbo Big Top Edition
 * Walt Disney Introduction
 * Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Platinum Edition
 * Tricks of Our Trade (two excerpts)
 * The Silly Symphony Story (excerpt)
 * Pete's Dragon Gold Collection/High Flying Edition
 * The Plausible Impossible (excerpt)
 * The Aristocats Special Edition
 * The Great Cat Family
 * Disneyland, USA
 * The Disneyland Story
 * Disneyland After Dark
 * Disneyland 10th Anniversary
 * Behind the Scenes at the Walt Disney Studios
 * The Story of the Animated Drawing
 * The Plausible Impossible
 * Tricks of Our Trade
 * Tomorrow Land
 * Man in Space
 * Man and the Moon
 * Mars and Beyond
 * Our Friend the Atom
 * The Complete Pluto, Volume 1
 * A Story of Dogs (featuring excerpt from "Pluto's Picture Book")
 * The Chronological Donald, Volume Two
 * A Day in the Life of Donald Duck
 * Your Host, Walt Disney
 * I Captured the King of the Leprechauns
 * Backstage Party
 * Where Do the Stories Come From
 * The Fourth Anniversary Show
 * Disneyland 10th Anniversary
 * True Life Adventures (4 volumes)
 * Disneyland: Secrets, Stories and Magic
 * The Golden Horseshoe Revue
 * Disneyland Goes To the World's Fair
 * Disneyland Around the Seasons
 * So Dear to My Heart
 * So Dear to My Heart (introduction)
 * 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
 * Monsters of the Deep (excerpt)
 * Lady and the Tramp Platinum Edition
 * A Story of Dogs ("making-of" segment and excerpt)
 * A Cavalcade of Songs (3-minute-long excerpt)
 * Old Yeller
 * Best Doggone Dog in the West
 * Darby O'Gill and the Little People
 * I Captured The King of the Leprechauns
 * Johnny Tremain
 * The Liberty Story (first half)
 * Johnny Tremain, Part One (excerpt)
 * Johnny Tremain, Part Two (excerpt)
 * Sleeping Beauty Special Edition
 * An Adventure in Art (segment: "Four Artists Paint One Tree")
 * The Peter Tchaikovsky Story (Life of Tchaikovsky segment only)
 * Sleeping Beauty Platinum Edition
 * An Adventure in Art (segment: "4 Artists Paint 1 Tree")
 * The Peter Tchaikovsky Story (complete episode – two versions)
 * Pollyanna
 * Pollyanna, Part One (introduction)
 * Pollyanna, Part Two (introduction)
 * Pollyanna, Part Three (introduction)
 * Swiss Family Robinson
 * Escape to Paradise/Water Birds (first half)
 * The Parent Trap
 * The Title Makers (first half)
 * The Sword in the Stone Gold Collection
 * All About Magic (complete episode)
 * The Sword in the Stone 45th Anniversary Edition
 * All About Magic (excerpt)
 * A Goofy Movie Gold Collection
 * The Goofy Success Story (complete episode without the Disneyland intro)
 * Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
 * 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.

title: Disney anthology television series


text:
Lieutenancy areas of Scotland

The lieutenancy areas of Scotland are the areas used for the ceremonial lord-lieutenants, the monarch's representatives, in Scotland. The lord-lieutenants' titles chosen by the monarch and his legal advisers are mainly based on placenames of the traditional counties of Scotland. In 1794, permanent lieutenancies were established by Royal Warrant. By the Militia Act 1797 (37 Geo.3, C.103), the lieutenants appointed "for the Counties, Stewartries, Cities, and Places" were given powers to raise and command County Militia Units.

While in their lieutenancies, lord lieutenants are among the few individuals in Scotland officially permitted to fly a banner of the Royal Arms of Scotland, the "Lion Rampant" as it is more commonly known.

Lieutenancy areas are different from the current local government council areas and their committee areas. They also differ from other subdivisions of Scotland including sheriffdoms and former regions and districts.

The Lord Provosts of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow also act ex officio as lord-lieutenants. This is a unique right in the United Kingdom: all other lord-lieutenants are appointed by the monarch, rather than being elected politicians.

Definition of the areas
Each Lord-Lieutenant of a county holding office immediately prior to the local government reorganisation of Scotland on 16 May 1975 was appointed to an area (usually the traditional county area or something very similar to it) within the regions and districts which were established on that date. The lieutenancy areas were not given names in the 1975 order transferring the lieutenancies. When local government was reorganised again on 1 April 1996, the lieutenancy areas remained essentially the same, with minor border adjustments in some based on new council area boundaries. The order transferring the lieutenancies in 1996 gave each lieutenancy a name, usually taken from the names of the pre-1975 counties which roughly correspond to the lieutenancy areas. Some lieutenancy names differ though, with the pre-1975 county of Peeblesshire now corresponding to a lieutenancy of Tweeddale.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lieutenancy areas of Scotland


text:
Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a 1971 American musical fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson and songs written by the Sherman Brothers. It was produced by Bill Walsh for Walt Disney Productions. It is based upon the books The Magic Bedknob (1943) and Bonfires and Broomsticks (1947) by English children's author Mary Norton. The film, which combines live action and animation, stars Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, and Roy Snart.

During the early 1960s, Bedknobs and Broomsticks entered development when the negotiations for the film rights to Mary Poppins (1964) were placed on hold. When the rights were acquired, the film was shelved repeatedly due to the similarities with Mary Poppins until it was revived in 1969. Originally at a length of 139 minutes, Bedknobs and Broomsticks was edited down to almost two hours prior to its premiere at Radio City Music Hall.

The film was released on December 13, 1971 to mixed reviews from film critics, some of whom praised the live-action/animated sequence. The film received five Academy Awards nominations, winning one for Best Special Visual Effects. This was the last film released prior to the death of Walt Disney's surviving brother, Roy O. Disney, who died one week later. It is also the last theatrical film Reginald Owen appeared in before his death the following year in 1972; his last two acting credits were for television. It is also the last film work of screenwriter Don DaGradi before his retirement in 1970 and death on August 4, 1991.

In 1996, the film was restored with most of the deleted material re-inserted back into the film. A stage musical adaptation of the film had its world premiere at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne on 14 August 2021 before embarking on a UK and Ireland tour until May 2022.

Plot
In August 1940, during the Blitz, three orphaned children named Charlie, Carrie, and Paul Rawlins are evacuated from London to Pepperinge Eye near the Dorset coast where they are placed in the reluctant care of Miss Eglantine Price, who agrees to the arrangement temporarily. The children attempt to run back to London, but after observing Miss Price attempting to fly on a broomstick, they change their minds. Miss Price reveals she is learning witchcraft through a correspondence school with hopes of using her spells in the British war effort against the Nazis, and offers the children a transportation spell in exchange for their silence. She casts the spell on a bedknob, and adds only Paul can work the spell, as he is the one who handed the bedknob to her. Later, Miss Price receives a letter from her school announcing its closure, thus preventing her from learning the final spell. She convinces Paul to use the enchanted bed to return the group to London, and locate Professor Emelius Browne.

Browne turns out to be a charismatic street magician who created the course from an old book as a joke, only to be shocked to learn the spells work. He gives the book to Miss Price, who is distraught to discover the final spell, Substitutiary Locomotion, is missing. The group travels to Portobello Road to locate the old bookseller who gave Browne the book, revealing that the spell is engraved on the Star of Astaroth, a medallion that belonged to a sorcerer of that name. The bookseller explains that Astaroth experimented with his magic on animals, giving them anthropomorphism. They later killed him, took the medallion, and fled to a remote island called Naboombu. A 17th-century lascar had claimed to have traveled to Naboombu, but the bookseller never found it. Paul confirms its existence by revealing a storybook he found in Mr. Browne's playroom.

The group travels to Naboombu and lands in a lagoon; there, the bed goes underwater, where Mr. Browne and Miss Price enter a dance contest and win first prize. Just then, the bed is fished out of the sea by a bear, who informs the group that humans are not allowed on the island by royal decree. They are brought before the island's ruler King Leonidas, who is wearing the Star of Astaroth. Leonidas invites Mr. Browne to act as a referee in a football match. The chaotic match ends in Leonidas' self-proclaimed victory, but Mr. Browne swaps the medallion with his referee whistle as he leaves, and the group escapes.

Back home, Miss Price exercises Substitutiary Locomotion, which imbues inanimate objects with life, but they quickly go out of control. When Miss Price is informed that the children can be moved to another home, she decides to let them stay, realizing she has come to care for them and vice versa. The children declare they want Mr. Browne to be their father, but Mr. Browne, wary of commitment, bids goodbye to the group and attempts to take a train back to London. Reaching the railway station, he finds there are no more trains until the morning so intends to sleep on the platform's bench. A platoon of Nazi German commandos land on the coast via U-boat intending to launch a raid on the town and invade Miss Price's house to use as their headquarters, imprisoning her and the children in the local museum. At the train station, Mr. Browne fends off two Germans cutting phone lines and heads back to Miss Price's house where he manages to perform magic for the first time and turns himself into a white rabbit so he can disguise himself to avoid the Germans. He finds Miss Price and the children at the museum and inspires Miss Price to use Substitutiary Locomotion to enchant the museum's exhibits into an army. The army of knights' armor and military uniforms chases the Germans away but as the Germans retreat, they destroy Miss Price's workshop, ending her career as a witch. Though disappointed her career is over, she is happy she played a small part in the war effort.

Shortly afterwards, Miss Price has officially adopted and committed herself to raising the children. Mr. Browne has enlisted in the army and departs with the local Home Guard escorting him, but promises that he will return and shares a kiss with Miss Price. Paul reveals he still has the enchanted bedknob, hinting they can continue on with their adventures.

Cast

 * Angela Lansbury as Miss Eglantine Price. Miss Price is initially a somewhat reclusive woman, reluctant to take in children from London as she believes they will get in the way of her witchcraft, which she prefers to keep secret but hopes to use to bring the nascent World War II to an end. However, she bonds with the children and falls in love with Mr. Browne during their journey. She becomes the adoptive mother to the Rawlins siblings at the end of the film.
 * David Tomlinson as Mr. Emelius Browne. Introduced as "Professor Browne", the title by which Miss Price knows him, he is running a Correspondence College of Witchcraft based on what he believes to be "nonsense words" found in an old book. When Miss Price and the children find him in London, he is revealed to be a street performer and con artist, and not a very good one. He is, however, a smooth talker, which proves useful on the group's adventures, and believes in doing everything "with a flair". As the adventures unfold, he finds himself developing an attachment to Miss Price and the children, a feeling he struggles with; Browne becomes the adoptive father to the Rawlins siblings at the end of the film and enlists himself in the military, while promising his new family that he'll return.
 * Roddy McDowall as Mr. Rowan Jelk, the local clergyman. Deleted scenes reveal Mr. Jelk to be interested in marrying Miss Price, largely for her property.
 * Sam Jaffe as Bookman, a mysterious criminal also in pursuit of the Substitutiary Locomotion spell. It is implied that there is some history and bad blood between him and Mr. Browne.
 * John Ericson as Colonel Heller, leader of the German raiding party which comes ashore at Pepperinge Eye.
 * Bruce Forsyth as Swinburne, a spiv and associate of the Bookman's who acts as his muscle.
 * Cindy O'Callaghan as Carrie Rawlins. Slightly younger than Charlie, she takes on a motherly attitude toward her brothers, especially Paul. She is the first to encourage a friendly relationship between Miss Price and the children.
 * Roy Snart as Paul Rawlins. Paul is about six; his possession of the bedknob and the Isle of Naboombu children's book lead to the group's adventures as well as the eventual solution to the quest for the Substitutiary Locomotion spell. Paul is prone to blurting out whatever is on his mind, which occasionally leads to trouble.
 * Ian Weighill as Charles "Charlie" Rawlins. Charlie is the eldest of the orphaned Rawlins children; eleven, going on twelve, according to Carrie, an age which Miss Price calls "The Age of Not Believing". Accordingly, he is initially cynical and disbelieving of Miss Price's magical efforts, but comes around as time goes on; it is at his initial suggestion that Ms. Price uses the Substitutiary Locomotion spell on the museum artifacts.
 * Tessie O'Shea as Mrs. Jessica "Jessie" Hobday, the local postmistress of Pepperinge Eye and chairman of the War Activities Committee.
 * Arthur Gould-Porter as Captain Ainsley Greer, a British Army captain who comes from HQ in London to inspect the Home Guard and becomes lost in the area. He is constantly running into locals who suspect him of being a Nazi in disguise.
 * Reginald Owen as Major General Sir Brian Teagler, commander of the local Home Guard.
 * Cyril Delevanti as Elderly Farmer
 * Hank Worden as Old Home Guardsman (uncredited)

Voices

 * Bob Holt as Codfish, a denizen of the Naboombu lagoon who judges the underwater dance contest.
 * Lennie Weinrib as King Leonidas, a lion who is the ruler of the Isle of Naboombu. He is a devoted soccer player with a fearsome temper, as well as a notorious cheat who is known to make up the rules as he goes along, according to Paul's book. Leonidas' voice is based on Robert Newton's interpretation of Long John Silver from Disney's live-action adaptation of Treasure Island.
 * Weinrib also voices Secretary Bird, a prim and proper type who is King Leonidas's secretary, and often bears the brunt of the King's outbursts.
 * Dallas McKennon as Bear, a brown bear who is a sailor and fisherman on the Isle of Naboombu. He is the one who pulls the bed, with Miss Price's group on it, out of the lagoon with his fishing pole, and takes them to see the King after warning them of his temper.

Production
English author Mary Norton published her first children's book, The Magic Bed-Knob, in 1943. In August 1945, Walt Disney purchased the film rights to the book. Norton then published Bonfires and Broomsticks in 1947, and the two children's books were then combined into Bed-Knob and Broomstick in 1957. In 1961, Disney was in negotiations for the film rights to Mary Poppins with P. L. Travers; a film adaptation of Bedknobs and Broomsticks was suggested as an alternative project in case the rights were refused. During the meantime, Disney instructed Robert and Richard Sherman to begin development on the project. Sometime later, the Sherman Brothers held a story conference with producer Bill Walsh and screenwriter Don DaGradi, in which the Shermans sang a demo version of the song "Eglantine". During the conference, Disney fell asleep in his chair, a moment DaGradi later immortalized in a sketch. Richard Sherman explained, "[Disney] might have been tired that day..." When Disney purchased the rights to Mary Poppins, the Bedknobs project was shelved.

In April 1966, the project (re-titled as The Magic Bedpost) was placed back into development, with the Sherman Brothers and Irwin Kostal set to resume their musical collaboration. However, the project was shelved again due to the similarities with Mary Poppins (1964). As the Sherman brothers' contract with the Disney studios was set to expire in 1968, they were contacted by Bill Walsh in their office to start work on the film. Then, Walsh, DaGradi, and the Sherman brothers re-assembled to work on the storyline for several months. Although there was no plan to place the film into production at the time, Walsh promised the Shermans that he would call them back to the studio and finish the project. He eventually did in November 1969. Throughout 1970 and 1971, the Sherman brothers reworked their musical compositions for the film. The song "The Beautiful Briny" was originally written for Mary Poppins, for a sequence where Mary sends the Banks children to several exotic locations by spinning a compass, but the sequence was deleted. The song was ultimately used in Bedknobs and Broomsticks instead.

Casting
Leslie Caron, Lynn Redgrave, Judy Carne, and Julie Andrews were all considered for the role of Eglantine Price. Andrews was initially offered the part, but hesitated, afraid of being typecast. Walsh later contacted Angela Lansbury, who signed onto the role on Halloween: October 31, 1969. Shortly after, Andrews, feeling she owed Disney for her film career, contacted Walsh to accept the role only to learn that Lansbury had been cast. Although Peter Ustinov was considered, Ron Moody was originally slated as Emelius Brown, but he refused to star in the film unless he received top billing which the studio would not allow. He was ultimately replaced with David Tomlinson.

The three Rawlins children—Charlie, Carrie, and Paul—were played by Ian Weighill, Cindy O'Callaghan, and Roy Snart respectively. Weighill had previously dropped out of school and began his acting career in an uncredited role as a schoolboy in David Copperfield (1969). He auditioned before Disney talent scouts for one of the child roles in Bedknobs and Broomsticks in London, and was cast as Charlie. Prior to Bedknobs, Snart was a child actor appearing in numerous commercials, and was cast as Paul for his "impish, cheeky look". For the part of Carrie, O'Callaghan had previously acted in television commercials and later made her stage debut in a production of Peter Pan at the Scala Theatre. There, she caught the attention of Disney's talent scouts.

Filming
Filming took place at the Disney studios in Burbank, California, from early March to June 10, 1970. The coastal scenes featuring German soldiers were shot on location at a nearby California beach. Additional scenes were shot on location in Corfe Castle in Dorset, England. Filming lasted fifty-seven days while the animation and special effects required five months each to complete.

For the Naboombu soccer sequence, the sodium vapor process was used, which was developed by Petro Vlahos in the 1960s. Animator and director Ward Kimball served as the animation director over the sequence. Directing animator Milt Kahl had designed the characters, but he was angered over the inconsistencies in the character animation. This prompted Kimball to send a memo dated on September 17, 1970, to adhere to animation cohesiveness to the animation staff. Because of the heavy special effects, the entire film had to be storyboarded in advance, shot for shot, which Lansbury later said resulted in her acting being "very by the numbers".

Release
Bedknobs and Broomsticks had an original runtime of 141 minutes, and was scheduled to premiere at Radio City Music Hall. However, in order to accommodate for the theater's elaborate stage show, the film had to be trimmed down to under two hours, and 23 minutes were ultimately removed from the film. The removed scenes included a minor subplot involving Roddy McDowall's character (which was reduced to one minute) and three entire musical sequences, titled "A Step in the Right Direction", "With a Flair", and "Nobody's Problems". Additionally, almost three minutes were removed from the "Portobello Road" sequence, and the song "Eglantine" was also shortened.

When the film was reissued theatrically on April 13, 1979, an additional twenty minutes of footage were deleted.

1996 restoration
Intrigued with Lansbury's song, "A Step in the Right Direction" on the original soundtrack album, Scott MacQueen, then-senior manager of Disney's library restoration, set out to restore the film in conjunction with the film's 25th anniversary. Most of the deleted film material was found, but some segments of "Portobello Road" had to be reconstructed from work prints with digital re-coloration to match the film quality of the main content. The footage for "A Step in the Right Direction" was unrecoverable, but the sequence was reconstructed for inclusion as a supplemental feature on home media releases of the film by linking the original music track up to existing production stills. The edit included several newly discovered songs, including "Nobody's Problems", performed by Lansbury. The number had been cut before the premiere of the film. Lansbury had only made a demo recording, singing with a solo piano because the orchestrations would have been added when the picture was scored. When the song was cut, the orchestrations had not yet been added; therefore, it was finally orchestrated and put together when it was placed back into the film.

The soundtrack for some of the spoken tracks was unrecoverable. Therefore, Lansbury and McDowall re-dubbed their parts, while other actors made ADR dubs for those who were unavailable. Voice actor Jeff Bennett recorded ADR for Mr. Browne, as health issues prevented Tomlinson from participating in recording.

The restored version of the film premiered on September 27, 1996, at the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California, where it was attended by Lansbury, the Sherman Brothers, Ward Kimball, and special effects artist Danny Lee. It was later broadcast on Disney Channel on August 9, 1998.

Home media
In 1980, Disney partnered with Fotomat Corporation on a trial distribution deal, in which Bedknobs and Broomsticks was released on VHS and LaserDisc on March 4, 1980. By October 1982, Disney partnered with RCA to release nine of their films on the CED videodisc format, and Bedknobs and Broomsticks was re-released later that year. The film was issued on VHS on October 23, 1989. It was released on VHS as an installment in the Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection on October 28, 1994.

The restored version of the film was released on laserdisc in 1997, then a subsequent VHS and DVD release with this version followed on March 20, 2001, as part of the Walt Disney Gold Classic Collection, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the film. The reconstruction additionally marked the first time the film was presented in stereophonic sound. Along with the film, the DVD included a twenty-minute making-of featurette with the Sherman brothers, a recording session with David Tomlinson singing the ending of "Portebello Road", a scrapbook containing thirteen pages of concept art, publicity, and merchandising stills, and a Film Facts supplement about the film's production history.

A new edition called Bedknobs and Broomsticks: Enchanted Musical Edition was released on DVD on September 8, 2009. This new single-disc edition retained the restored version of the film and most of the bonus features from the 2001 DVD release. The film was released on Special Edition Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD on August 12, 2014, in its original 117-minute version, with the deleted scenes used in the previous reconstructed version presented in a separate section on the Blu-ray disc.

Box office
By January 1974, the film had grossed $8.25 million in box office rentals from the United States and Canada, with its final domestic rentals totaling $8.5 million. The 1979 re-release increased its North American rentals to $11.4 million.

Critical reaction
Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film is a "tricky, cheerful, aggressively friendly Walt Disney fantasy for children who still find enchantment for pop-up books, plush animals by Steiff and dreams of independent flight." He further highlighted the Naboombu live-action/animated sequence as "the best of Disney, going back all the way to the first Silly Symphonies". Variety wrote that "what it may lack in the charm of [Mary Poppins] it more than measures in inventiveness. Indeed, it is doubtful if special effects or animation have been ever bettered or used to greater advantage. Alone they are a reason for seeing the film", and the reviewer praised the Naboombu sequence as containing "not only sheer delights but technical masterpieces." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film two-and-a-half stars out of four, claiming that, while the film has the "same technical skill and professional polish" as Mary Poppins, "[i]t doesn't have much of a heart, though, and toward the end you wonder why the Poppins team thought kids would like it much." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave Bedknobs two stars out of four, calling the film "a mishmash of story ideas and film styles". He further added that the live action/animated sequence was "one bright spot in the story", but felt "the difference between scenes of sea horses and storm troopers is so great that probably no story could manage it. Bedknobs tries and fails."

Pauline Kael, reviewing for The New Yorker, panned the film, writing that there is "no logic in the style of the movie, and the story dribbles on for so long that it exhausts the viewer before that final magical battle begins." She concluded her review by stating: "This whole production is a mixture of wizardry and ineptitude; the picture has enjoyable moments but it's as uncertain of itself as the title indicates." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was "pleasant enough and harmless enough. It is also long (almost two hours) and slow. The songs are perfunctory (nothing supercalifragi-whatever) and the visual trickeries, splendid as they are, are sputtery to get the picture truly airborne. By the standards Disney has set for itself, it's a disappointing endeavor."

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 67% based on 36 reviews, with an average score of 6.1/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Bedknobs and Broomsticks often feels like a pale imitation of a certain magical guardian and her wards, but a spoonful of Angela Lansbury's witty star power helps the derivativeness go down." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 59 out of 100 based on 11 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Accolades
At the 44th Academy Awards, the film was nominated in five categories: Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Scoring: Adaptation and Original Song Score, Best Song Original for the Picture, and Best Special Visual Effects, winning the latter award.

Music
The musical score for Bedknobs and Broomsticks was composed and adapted by Irwin Kostal, with all songs written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. This was the Shermans' third collaboration with Kostal, with the others being Mary Poppins (1964), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), Charlotte's Web (1973), and The Magic of Lassie (1978). A soundtrack album was released by Buena Vista Records in 1971. While the film was released in mono sound, the musical score was recorded in stereo, and the soundtrack album was released in stereo. An expanded soundtrack album was released on CD on August 13, 2002.

"The Age of Not Believing" received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. "With a Flair", "Don't Let Me Down", and "Nobody's Problems" are only present in the reconstructed version of the film. "Solid Citizen" was replaced by the soccer match. Parts of "Fundamental Element" were incorporated into "Don't Let Me Down".

The songs include:

Stage musical adaptation
There is a stage musical adaptation of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, which features the songs from the film by the Sherman Brothers, with additional music and lyrics by Neil Bartram, and a book by Brian Hill. The original production, which was directed by Candice Edmunds and Jamie Harrison, opened at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle, in August 2021, before embarking on a UK and Ireland tour until May 2022. It was produced by Michael Harrison, by special arrangement with Disney Theatrical Productions.

title: Bedknobs and Broomsticks


text: User talk:165.139.22.67

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Talk:World of Darkness

Up date
Why does the incorrect spelling of "vicissitude" lead to this page?--142.58.126.15 (talk) 04:20, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Could some version of the WoD cover be uploaded as an image for this article under fair use? The current image is somewhat puzzling as it appears under the section detailing the history of the rulebooks but seems to have more to do with in game lore than anything else. A precedent seems to exist: I checked two other rpg pages (Dungeons and Dragons and Warhammer 40k) and those both had copyrighted covers. Anyway, just putting it out there for any autoconfirmed users who come by. HeathrowArchives (talk) 08:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
 * The other world of darkness sections have their rulebooks up too. I think it would be fine. Most wiki articles about books have a picture of the cover on them. Svenxix (talk) 01:56, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Should it be mentioned that the World of Darkness is now switching over to a PDF/POD system? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Reflections of Memory (talk • contribs) 02:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Since this is a role playing game, shouldn't this have an RPG info box on it? In reality WoD covers more than just pen and paper role playing so it might be better to include the info boxes in each of the sub pages, but that would get a little redundant. Svenxix (talk) 02:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I know that White Wolf is now referring to their older material as "Classic World of Darkness", but "Old World of Darkness" still seems to be much more commonly used among the fan community. 67.60.251.221 (talk) 04:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Well if you can find some place that references it, go for it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 32.144.170.174 (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Referencing Other Rule Systems
I'm a new editor, so please forgive me if I inadvertantly break etiquette. As I read through this page, I noticed the explanation of the rules for the nWoD make many references or comparisons to the system for the oWoD. This implies a familiarity with those systems on the part of the reader. Should this section be edited to eliminate the assumption of that familiarity? Or should it be perhaps edited to include a brief comparison between the two systems as a separate paragraph or section?Lotus Watcher (talk) 17:46, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Chronicles of Darkness
The New World of Darkness is undergoing an official rebranding, now becoming the Chronicles of Darkness. Please update accordingly. 200.199.220.74 (talk) 13:17, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Umbra
Umbra (World of Darkness) redirects here (the article, not this talk page), but is not explained here. I undid the redirect recently, only for my change to be reverted; the reason given for that being that the Umbra article had been supposedly “merged and redirected after community discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Umbra (World of Darkness)”. If it had been actually “merged”, then Umbra would be explained in this (World of Darkness) article. However, after performing “find on this page” on this article, the word “Umbra” does not even appear once; I don’t consider that properly merged. Umbra is mentioned several times in the article Werewolf: The Apocalypse as an element in the plot, but is not explained (I going to fix that shortly). I strongly think that if an in-universe concept is going to be mentioned in the plot summary, then that concept must be given an explanation; either as its own article if there is a lot that needs explaining, or as a concise explanation within the article that it is mentioned. ZFT (talk) 18:21, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:World of Darkness


text:
Russian Communist Workers' Party of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Russian Communist Workers' Party of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (RCWP-CPSU; Российская коммунистическая рабочая партия в составе Коммунистической партии Советского Союза; РКРП-КПСС; Rossiyskaya kommunisticheskaya rabochaya partiya v sostave Kommunisticheskoy partii Sovetskogo Soyuza, RKRP-KPSS) is an anti-revisionist Marxist–Leninist communist party in Russia. It is considered the republican branch of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (2001).

The RCWP-CPSU is led by Viktor Tyulkin, who was co-chairman with Anatolii Kriuchkov until the latter died in 2005). It publishes a newspaper called Trudovaja Rossija (Трудовая Россия; Working People's Russia) and the journal Sovetskij Sojuz (Советский Союз; Soviet Union).

The RCWP-CPSU claims to have supported all the biggest occupations and strikes in Russia. It has links to the Russian trade union Zashchita. As of 2007, it claims about 50,000 members. The Revolutionary Communist Youth League (Bolshevik) (RCYL(B)), the youth organization of the RCWP-CPSU, is considered one of the most active communist youth organizations in Russia.

History
The party was established in October 2001 under the name Russian Communist Workers' Party – Revolutionary Party of Communists (Российская Коммунистическая Рабочая Партия – Революционная Партия Коммунистов; abbreviated РКРП-РПК, ) through the unification of the Russian Communist Workers' Party, the Russian Party of Communists and the Union of Communists with the aim of resurrecting socialism and the Soviet Union.

In the 1999 Duma election, the party won 2.2% of the total vote, getting 1,481,890 votes overall. The RCWP-CPSU considers the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF) to be reformist, but for the occasion of the 2003 Duma election the party leaders decided to make an agreement with the CPRF in order not to disperse the communist vote.

In 2007, the party was de-registered by the Justice Ministry. In 2010, the RCWP-CPSU co-founded Russian registered political party Russian United Labour Front (ROT Front), which is led by Viktor Tyulkin. In April 2012, the party took its current name.

During the protests following the 2020 Belarusian presidential election, RCWP called on the workers of Belarus not to allow the protests turn into a "Belarusian Maidan on the model of Kiev," referring to 2013–14 Euromaidan protests in Ukraine.

In 2021, Stepan Malentsov was elected the new First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Workers' Party (RCWP-CPSU) as it was decided at the XII (XXII) Congress that took place in Moscow.

Positions on the Ukraine Invasion
The party supported the recognition of the Donetsk People's Republic and the Luhansk People's Republic by Russia, stating that it is a decision taken "much later than it should have been, but better late than never."

RCWP opposed the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine by announcing: "we have no doubts that the true aims of the Russian state in this war are quite imperialistic — to strengthen the position of imperialist Russia in world market competition..." and the party called for an end to "fratricidal conflicts." Later the party said the war had a 'positive component', assessing Russia's actions during the invasion of Ukraine as a fight against fascism and protection of the people of Donbass, yet it still defined the invasion as being imperialism on the part of the Russian Federation.

In 2022, the youth wing of the RCWP split from the party due to its support for the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.