Since the 1980s, Walt Disney Productions has slowly entered into the home video industry with their selected classics and recent live action films on VHS and laserdisc. One of their strategies at that time is to re-release their classic animated features in every 7 years and then to video shortly after. But when The Black Cauldron became a critical and financial failure in 1985, they decided to not release any new animated features to video after their initial theatrical run to play it safe financially while they do allow their new Walt Disney Pictures live action films to be released on video in the same year on theatrical release. But in 1990, that all changed when The Little Mermaid became their biggest box office and critical success in decades, as new cartoon movies finally debut on video right after theaters. 

However, one of the Walt Disney Company’s most infamous home video strategies is the Moratorium as they handpick their best filmography in limited collections. They release their animated feature films for a limited time until they were no longer available for sale. Disney called it the Disney vault. One of the problems of the strategy is that they only release the original theatrical versions of their 1985-1994 movies once. They did produce and use the original theatrical master to be modified for home video aspect ratio. Many of them had the original Walt Disney pictures logo from the time it was released. However, that doesn’t apply to The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and company because they were never released to video until the 1990s in an alternate theatrical rerelease master with newer film studio logos and poor restoration work done. This is an example of logo plastering and it is still happening to this day. Worst of all, their new dvd and Blu-ray masters were more appalling than the vhs masters. There were lack of grain, without details visible, making characters more plastic than they are from the original print. Sadly those bad masters are even on Disney+. They did not get to put back the original 1985 version of the Walt Disney pictures logo for Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and company for American audiences to remind people when these films were made. Like did they use the different interpositive telecines that we didn’t ask for on the films. As with all of their animated classics they did use some films from the  original theatrical masters and perform 4k scans and they do look great. But the one released 1989-2006 never used the theatrical versions again as they uplifted the logos to represent the brand.

But there is hope. So far I had discovered the rare France vhs of Oliver and company with the original opening and closing of the film with the 1985 Disney logo visible and now it is available online. But still the logo from these two movies need to be put back into the original version of the movie especially in widescreen or open matte. I’m asking Walt Disney Enterprises to please perform a new expensive 4K scan of your original theatrical master of your movies The Great Mouse Detective and Oliver and Company from start to finish with no cuts or skips to show us exactly what these movies look like from theatrical releases. No DNR, no AI, no laziness and no excuses. You need to go back to your studio archives and vault to access the original theatrical 35mm lpp film stocks to do a new master and restore these movies in 4K. This is 2024 now, not the 20th century anymore. Your best financial days are behind you. Please put Oliver and Detective on Sony’s new Blu-ray releases and Disney+. We are tired of your incoherent business practices. We want the original theatrical versions of those movies with the 1985 Walt Disney pictures logo that no one knows what it looked like today.