A Disney Halloween
(1983 Disney Channel TV Special Recreation)
Background
As a child of the 80s, I grew up during a wonderful period of cable TV when The Disney Channel was its best — no commercial interruptions, marvelous interstitial materials, in-depth updates on various company projects, programing you now have to spend hundreds of dollars on DVD’s to get and terrific holiday specials that perfectly put you in the mood for season.
One of these much-beloved specials is an extended/revised version of VHS that came out in 1982. A Disney Halloween premiered on the Disney Channel during its 1983 inaugural year and became a holiday tradition for over a decade afterwards. Technically defined as a “clip show” this special combined most of Disney spookiest animation moments.
In the years since its retirement, it lived on as recorded video on those antiquated and almost nearly extinct VCRs and over the process of time has degraded to the point of being nearly unwatchable. Fast-forward a few decades and thanks to technological advancements coupled with Disney’s own restoration efforts on individual films we now have the ability to recreate this much-beloved holiday special.
The 2014 Restoration
What you see is a frame-for-frame exact replica of the Halloween special created in 1983. Utilizing 26 individual resources, a completely restored original soundtrack, and 113 edits (22 for the opening/closing titles alone) the special was completely re-build from the ground up. Unfortunately, I was unable to find better footage of the Magic Mirror segments so you will see some variations in quality. Furthermore, in order to retain its original aspect ratio is presented here in “Full Screen” format.