Disney's filmreel bumpers

I have triggered nostalgia in you just by that photo. I personally love the "filmreel" bumpers, and how Disney got there was a pretty unusual journey. They had been using the "flashbang" bumpers (so named because the text would dramatically zoom out and flash in the middle of the screen, likely scaring many kids) since 1994. Beginning in 1996 (with the acquisition of ABC, and the subsequent promotion of ABC programming on their tapes), they began to use an intro promoting "something new and exciting from Disney" on many of their Disney-branded tapes, as well as custom bumpers that didn't have anything to do with the flashbangs. By 1998, with the advent of DVD, they hurriedly added a new set of bumpers to reflect both DVD and video rental, with these bumpers having text in a vaguely-similar font zooming into the screen, with "Great Ovation" (a piece of library music Disney'd been using as their Feature Presentation music for years) playing. Much less scary, but they were only temporary. A quick fix while they got new bumpers prepared. During this interim period (stretching from 1998 to late 1999/early 2000), Disney was clearly experimenting with their bumpers. Several major VHS releases from this period, including Mulan, Pinocchio and Inspector Gadget, used custom bumpers with new voiceovers. Most interesting, however, was The Lion King II, which used bumpers that were obviously a testbed for things to come; they weren't used on any other releases, but the blue-and-yellow color scheme and some of the fonts were in place. However, these ones were designed with a very 90s "hip" aesthetic, and also involved editing footage from the films and tapes being previewed, which was likely why these bumpers were only used that once.

It wasn't until early 2000 the filmreels debuted; the Feature Presentation bumper debuted by itself on the 2000 VHS re-release of Toy Story (which otherwise used the "something new and exciting" bumpers; to go along with this, Beau Weaver did the voice for the FP bumper, which he wouldn't do again), and the other bumpers debuted a week later on the VHS release of Miramax's An Ideal Husband. These bumpers were the pinnacle of VHS bumpers used by Disney. They weren't scary, but they were slick -- their design was simply yet visually-pleasing, and the music (created by Musikverneugen, the firm responsible for the Intel Inside jingle and the 2009 Scripps news music package) was short, yet bizarrely catchy (consisting of a flat yet deep-sounding synth piece with computerized beeping and a woosh noise). I'd liken it to water, almost, in terms of vision and sound. But very calm water. They were so good, Disney actually began using them internationally.

These bumpers were used on almost all VHS and DVD releases from Disney and their associated labels from 2000 to 2006. I say almost because there were some stragglers. Dimension VHS tapes, for whatever reason, stuck with the flashbangs and zoom-ins well into 2003; the only exceptions before then were the first two Spy Kids movies, The Others, and one version of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (specifically a version released later in 2002 with the previews for other Kevin Smith films; another print released earlier in the year had more previews for other films and used the flashbangs). Why exactly this was, I can't tell you. Playhouse Disney and preschool tapes used a set of "handprint" bumpers, while kid-aimed action releases from Buena Vista and Miramax (primarily Pokemon, Marvel and Power Rangers) used the "soundbar" bumpers. Some other releases also used custom bumpers, but they were few and far between.

As the years went on, they had to make changes to the bumpers to reflect how DVD outpaced VHS (and how Disney eventually gave up on VHS altogether). Similarly, they also had to change the "Now Available on CD and Cassette" bumper to be only CD -- and in this and many of the other later bumpers (some of which were rarely used), it became obvious they were "add-ons" to the original set, as the animation and font used for the text, or the arrangement of the text, was "botched" because of the haste in making them, or in fitting the text around the bumper's template.

The filmreels' journey largely came to an end in 2006, when Disney introduced new "colored" bumpers on their DVDs (the widescreen DVD of Cars had modified filmreels that hinted at the animation to be used in the new bumpers); however, Disney continued to use a "Sneak Peeks" menu themed after these bumpers well into 2008 for some reason (2009-10 releases had the layout but began customizing them for the release). I love the filmreels not only from nostalgia, but from them being visually-pleasing and nice to look and listen to.

However, the filmreel compilation videos on YouTube are universally horrible, because of the people who create them using obvious screen capture software (resulting in crappy framerates), butchered audio, a complete sense of disorganization, and oftentimes fake bumpers (created by them or others). Thus, I did it myself with multiple goals: the highest-quality footage available, no fakes or international bumpers (the latter was left out because it'd be difficult to find the source footage), and all organized. I did it, and I also made sure to turn off the comments to prevent it from being flooded with idiocy by many of the same people who created these kinds of compilations to start. You can see it here. Thanks for reading.