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 and
American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres taking the
deal for programming for ABC.
''Walt Disney's Disneyland'' (1954–1959) 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 rejected 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 Disney'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 would 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 on 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 characters. 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 and early 1955 and were followed up by two dramatized installments the following year. The television 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, 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 Disney's latest animated feature,
Sleeping Beauty, was one of the first stereo
simulcasts on television; in this case it was three channel stereo. FM radio stations across the country carried the left channel at the same time as ABC broadcast the television program 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 six channels (70 mm. version) mixed down into three for the broadcast. Walt Disney 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 Disney 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 sing 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 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
The Huntley–Brinkley Report anchor
Chet Huntley with film and television star
Dick Van Dyke, the introductions that Disney had already filmed before his death continued to air for the remainder of the season. After that, the studio decided that Disney's persona as host was such a key part of the show's appeal to viewers that the host segment was removed. The final episode featuring Disney'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 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 multi-episode 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. 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 cancel the anthology series,
CBS acquired the program and began airing it on Saturdays at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time, in September 1981. Despite a more elaborate credit sequence and another title change, to simply
Walt Disney, the series' format remained unchanged. During the 1981–1982 season, the series had a full season's worth of material again, but little of it was new. Among the little that actually was new were a handful of pilots based on
Pollyanna,
Escape to Witch Mountain, and
The Apple Dumpling Gang, but only the last of the three pilots was sold and became the half-hour sitcom
Gun Shy the following season, one of the studio's first entries in that genre but only lasted six episodes. The 1982–1983 season had enough material to fill the time slot, but almost all of it was pre-existing material, the lone exception being the celebrity-laden opening ceremony of
Epcot on October 23. The timeslot for the program was also competitive to NBC, which aired the sitcoms ''
Diff'rent Strokes and Silver Spoons at 8:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. up against it, causing some children and family to watch these programs instead. 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 returned for summer reruns on May 3, it was still on Tuesday at 8:00 p.m.; its final network broadcast was on September 24, ending an uninterrupted 29-year run on all three networks. 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 American network television 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 renamed as the Walt Disney Company in 1986) underwent a change in management, Disney decided to revive 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, 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. 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". but the program did not present any film made by Disney's
Touchstone subsidiary, as such films were not considered appropriate for children. However,
Splash, Too, a sequel to
the 1984 film, aired on the series over two weeks in May 1988. The series had increased Disney Park attendance and ABC's Sunday night ratings for the evening by an average 27% for the rest of the season. Disney, wanting to make it a regular viewing habit, gave ABC additional films from its library, including
Old Yeller,
The Apple Dumpling Gang and
Candleshoe for the normal rerun mid-year period.
The Last Electric Knight movie produced a spin-off series called
Sidekicks (originally to be called
Karate Kid) for ABC's 1987 season. It also introduced new versions of Walt Disney-era movies and television 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 Disney was negotiating with
Jim Henson to acquire
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 on May 16, 1990, ten days after the special aired, and Disney only acquired the Muppets more than a decade later. After two seasons experiencing low 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 previous few years, 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 five years; but in December 1996, as part of the first phase of a programming revamp that culminated in its formal conversion into a commercial-free basic cable channel in April 1997, the Disney Channel expanded the
Magical World brand to encompass its Monday through Saturday primetime film block, maintaining its 7:00 p.m. Eastern time slot.
The Wonderful World of Disney (1991–present) The Wonderful World of Disney returned in 1991 as an umbrella title for Disney specials airing on major networks (CBS airings used the historical title
The Wonderful World of Disney for the first few years, while other networks broadcast the show with another title,
A Disney Special). During this time, one of the telefilms shown under the banner was spun off into its own series,
The 100 Lives of Black Jack Savage, a collaboration with
Stephen J. Cannell Productions. In 1997, just two years after Disney acquired the network, ABC gave the series a regular slot on its schedule. and program together with ABC. resulting in the replacement of Sunday mainstay ''
America's Funniest Home Videos, which had occupied the slot since 1992. On September 28, 1997, the all-new Wonderful World of Disney
premiered with the network television premiere of Toy Story''. On October 5, 1997, Disney Telefilms' first production,
Toothless, debuted on the series. In addition to the planned 16 original Disney telemovies, ABC and Disney added a few direct-to-video movies and films from other sources. 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, 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 revive 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 five days later.
Home Alone aired on December 24, 2022. In early 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 three weeks in June (when the
NBA Finals were not being played) in a two-hour block, it would also air on Sunday nights in the fall of that year with a three-hour block due to the impact of the
2023 Hollywood labor disputes. In May 2024, it was announced that the program would return the following month with a showing of
Inside Out to promote
Inside Out 2, and that the program would air weekly on Sunday nights as part of ABC's 2024–25 schedule. ==
The Magical World of Toons ==