Disney films I didn't see until I was Older

Cafe Society
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1

When I was little we used to go to see the Disney films in the theaters. But it was an earlier time, before VHS or DVDs, when even people who showed sound films at picnics and the like rarely got hold of Disney films, and Disney didn’t often show the movies on TV. There were re-releases, of course, but they didn’t want to saturate the market.

So, although I saw several animated films and live films, there were a lot of them I didn’t see until college or grad school or even later.

Films I saw

Sleeping Beauty (one of the first I saw)
101 Dalmations
Dumbo
Pinocchio
Sword in the Stone
Jungle Book
Lady and the Tramp
Snow White
Mary Poppins

…and a lot of live action films, many of them forgotten today – Blackbeard’s Ghost, Perri, and so on. (Although I did see 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Swiss Family Robinson, and In Search of the Castaways, too)

Films I didn’t see, but knew from records, story books, comics, etc.

Peter Pan
Alice in Wonderland
Fantasia
Bambi
Song of the South (I actually saw this in the theater – probably one of its last US releases.)
Der Fuehrer’s Face (Disney’s keeping this one bottled up – I saw a bootleg VHS)
Davy Crockett (Yeah, I know it’s TV, but it was also released as a feature, and I didn’t see it until much later)
Mickey and the Beanstalk

I’ve seen them all multiple times now, and own most of them on DVD, but it took an awful long time before I finally saw Bambi and Song of the South.

2

When I was a kid, I only knew The Sword in the Stone from the wizard’s duel segment in a Disney TV special (possibly Disney’s Halloween Treat?). And I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the entire film versions of Fantasia or The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad.

There are live-action Disney films that I didn’t see until I was an adult. Candleshoe (with Oscar-winners Jodie Foster, David Niven and Helen Hayes) comes to mind.

3

Guess I’m old… almost every Disney film I ever saw was as an adult. But every once in a while I’ll find some obscure Disney made-for-TV short and say… hey, that seems familiar!

(Like Spin & Marty… two boys who go to camp at a ranch… I kept thinking “Did I see this on the Mickey Mouse Club in the mid-50s?.. YES! I remember this part!”)

4

One set that I’m glad I picked up on DVD was the special edition of Man Into Space (It came in a metal container, so you knew it was special)

It was a three-episode series made in the 1950s for the Disneyland TV show that ran on ABC. Even though they only broadcast in black and white in those days, Disney foresightedly filmed it in color. It featured Willy Ley, Werner von Braun, and others presenting their concepts of space flight and the future of space. Very well and convincingly made, but we took a very different route ultimately. I saw some of the sanimated segments on TV from time to time, but I didn’t see all of these until I picked up the DVD set.

Similarly, I didn’t realize that I never saw the complete opening to The Mickey Mouse Club until I got the DVD set. They re-ran TMMC on independent stations when I was a kid, but the opening was abbreviated. I didn’t realize that a longer opening existed until I heard the opening song on a Disney CD and realized it was a LOT longer than the opening I’d seen as a kid. At that point I sought out the “Mouseketeers” DVD set (It came in a metal box, too) and finally saw it in its entirety. And in color, too.

(Fun fact: The opening to TMMC features the first time Scrooge McDuck appeared as an animated character, long before the short “Uncle Scrooge and Money”, and AGES before “DuckTales”)

(Another Fun Fact – a lot of TV series had longer, more elaborate openings when first broadcast than you saw in syndication. “I Love Lucy” had amazing animated cartoon openings originally. Look them up on YouTube)

5

I’ve still not seen most of them.

I’ve only seen in full Robin Hood, The Sword in the Stone, Fantasia, and The Black Cauldron (which I saw in the theater when I was like 6).

I wanted to see them all when I was a kid, but I just never did, and I got over it. Now I have little to no interest in seeing any of them.

6

I also saw Song of the South in theaters. I was quite young, so I suspect it was the 1980 re-release, timed for the 100th anniversary of the original books. There was also a 1987 re-release, for the film’s 40th anniversary, which was the last time Disney let this one out of the vaults.

7

I saw the stage show of “The Lion King” in London’s West End in 2008 before I actually saw the movie itself.

I had the chance when it was originally in theaters- the group of friends I was with split- some saw "The Lion King’, and the rest of us saw “Speed”.

I saw most of the older ones as a kid- my dad was a Disney animation fiend, so every time one came out in the theaters, off we went! It was that 1980-2011 gap when I only saw a handful of Disney movies in the theaters (Aladdin, Wall-E, The Incredibles) and a few more on tape (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story, Lilo & Stitch).

It took having kids of my own to catch up on the back catalog, but now I’m mostly caught up, with a few of them (Cars, Bolt, Up, Planes, Wreck it Ralph 1 and 2) have been repeated multiple times.

8

I saw Fantasia for the first time as an older teen. I went to see a lot of the newer films when they came out, either because I was taking kids I babysat, or going with my son, or going with friends, because it got good reviews, and everything else playing was crap. So I saw Beauty and the Beast when it was new, and all the Pixar films I’ve seen were as an adult. My first was Cars, on a TV in the hospital when my son was in overnight with croup.

I saw Jungle Book with some kids I babysat, and I probably saw it as a kid myself, but I don’t remember it. It’s highly unlikely my parents passed an opportunity to drop me off at a movie for a couple of hours, so any Disney film that was either new or rereleased between 1969 (when I was 2) and 1981 (when I no longer qualified for a child’s ticket), I saw as a child.

9

I saw almost every major Disney film in a theater, until the late 1960’s.I remember how terrifying Fantasia was, I must have been five or six. I remember being extremely offended at Jungle Book because I loved Kipling, and felt it was being horribly debased – have not altered that view. I was eleven when it was released. After that horrible experience I avoided Disney for decades. Even when my daughter was young in the 1990’s we usually found other films to watch. Recently, out of boredom, I have watched a few – I liked Moana, and Lilo & Stitch.

10

Most of the Disney films I saw, I saw in childhood. However, I saw “Mulan” as an adult. It’s one of my favorites - and “I’ll Make a Man out of You” is my favorite Disney animated feature song.

11

We didn’t go to the movies when I was a kid. I guess we couldn’t afford it. I think The Wonderful World of Disney came on Sunday nights and we were always at church. And I don’t have kids so I don’t think I’ve ever seen an entire Disney movie. I’ve seen clips and such over the years so I’m familiar with a lot of them (especially the old ones) but can’t think of any I’ve actually watched all the way through.

12

When I was ~6 years old my parents had, for a fleetingly short time, a working satellite dish. Remember those giant like 12 foot wide fugly things? Yeah. One of those. The Disney Channel was one of the channels they received. However, after a few months they quit paying for the service, removed the huge dish, and that was it until I was an adult and got my own DishTV service in my 30’s. So, I may have seen a few Disney movies during that short time we had The Disney Channel but the only one I actually remember watching as a kid, and this is because I sought it out, was Robin Hood. Every other Disney movie I’ve ever seen has been as an adult.

Even though I subscribe to Disney+ “Disney movies” aren’t really my thing, but I do like Moana and Lilo & Stitch. And of course I still love Robin Hood. My kids were never Disney fans and neither was/is my wife so they just weren’t part of my family milieu.

Actually, scratch that. I remember watching The Little Mermaid in theaters. Google tells me that would have been the winter of 1989, when I was 8 years old. It’s the first movie I remember watching in theaters. I’ve not seen it since. That movie theater is now a medical office – same building – where my wife’s PCP practices out of.

Edit: scratch that (again). I saw the Lion King in theaters. My aunt was having a baby shower, my mom suggested they have the shower at our house, so my dad took me and my brother to the movies. We saw The Lion King.

13

I was an adult before Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, or The Little Mermaid were made.

Snow White and Fantasia were re-released while I was in college. (And at least one other, whose name escapes me at the moment.)

I have seen many clips from Pinocchio, but I don’t think I have ever watched the whole film in one sitting. I have, however, seen two non-Disney versions, with live actors and bad CGI.

14

Did you see del Toro’s Pinocchio? I liked it. It was darker than Disney but not nearly as dark as the original story.

15

Haven’t seen that one.

I saw the 1996 version.
Jonathan Taylor Thomas as Pinocchio. Meh.
Martin Landau as Geppetto. Not bad.
Bebe Neuwirth and Rob Schnieder as human versions of the Cat and the Fox. Quite good!

I also saw the 2002 version with Roberto Benigni. He was annoying, but then again, the character is supposed to be annoying. Overall, I liked it.

16

I saw the 1987 theatrical release, only time I ever saw it. I was 9.

17

My grandmother, a movie freak, hauled me along to many shows, from the time I was 5 - 6 years old, around 1949, and through the 1950’s. We went to the first-run theaters in Baltimore, like the Mayfair, where we saw Bambi, Pinocchio, and Dumbo, and perhaps even a re-release of Fantasia. We went to D.C. on the train to see a movie (sorry, all blurry) and she even took me to see grown-up stuff, like Damnyankees! In the late '50’s a local TV station ran full-length movies, 4 or 5 a night, all night long, and we would set our alarms and meet in the TV room for a good one.

Getting off the track, here. Disneyland reared it’s lovely head, and I’m pretty sure everything in Walt’s catalog eventually found it’s way to the screen, including The Three Caballeros, which I came here to mention. This is a terrific piece from 1944 that (I believe) was commissioned by the US gov’t to convince Latin America that we were all together against the axis. I understand it was a hit down south, and it turned me into a lover of Latin music. Thank you, Donal’,Panchito, and Joe (Jose) Carioca. Cartoon and live-action mix, and wait 'till you see and hear “Bahia”.

Dan

18

It was a big kerfuffle for all us to agree on Disney movies as kids. We usually ended up with live action nature/animal type things

I never saw most of the animated things til my kids saw them from our VCR or DVD player.

So my answer would be I was adult when I saw most Disney movies.

I have to say my favorites are Disney/Pixar movies.

19

There was a theatrical release of Song of the South around 1972. I was working as an (underaged) usher at a theater that was showing it and saw it way too many times.

20

I only just saw Lilo & Stitch a few weeks ago. It came out when I was just past the age where it becomes uncool for young adults to enjoy Disney movies. I finally got around to it because several of my Pacific Islander coworkers absolutely love the movie for how it portrays Islander culture and wear Stitch pins and buttons on their work aprons.

I thought it was a very fun and cute movie, and I was surprised by how many voice actors of the early 2000s I recognized when I heard them talking.