This week on the Video Store Podcast I am picking four Disney tapes you might have turned to when the big animated titles were already gone at the store. These were the ones that less visited shelf of the Disney section. You might not have planned on renting them, but once you did, they stayed with you. They would sometime sit untouched for weeks, but occasionally a family would rent one and their kids would fall in love with them. That meant they would return to the rent them again in the future.

A Dream Called Walt Disney World from 1981 is the first tape on the pile. It is a friendly tour of the resort at a moment when the whole property still felt wide open. You get long looks at early Magic Kingdom walkways and enough hotel footage to remind you of how new everything once was. The narration has that calm voice that Disney liked to use in this era. It is the kind of tape you might put on after a long day just to let the music and visuals calm you down. I used to rewind certain parts just to capture moments again and again, although I guess a lot of us did that.

Next is Walt Disney World EPCOT Center A Souvenir Program from 1983. This one always felt a little more polished. It has that nice steady tour feeling. The camera moves through Future World and World Showcase at a relaxed pace and gives you plenty of time to look at the early design work. You get glimpses of shops, shows, and attractions that changed only a few years later. People would keep this one longer than they were supposed to because its pacing calmed their kids down. Although I think the adults also liked it.

The third pick is Where the Toys Come From from 1984. It is different from the others, but it showed up in the same section since it wasn’t a “Disney Classic.” Theodore Thomas directed it and his father was one of Disney’s Nine Old Men, which gives it a little history under the surface. It is a small story told. Not a lot of noise, not a lot of movement, just a pleasant mix of travel and simple moments with the toys.

The last tape is Disneyland Fun from 1990. While we kept it in the children’s section, that did not stop older viewers from giving it a try. It is part of the Sing Along Songs line and it moves through the park with a sense of energy that fits the late eighties/early nineties. A few numbers were filmed just for this release, which gives it a couple of moments that never showed up anywhere else (Haunted Mansion!). The crowds and costumes look exactly like what you saw if you visited around that time. We played it at Suncoast often and I bought my own copy after seeing it the firs time.

These tapes were steady choices when everything else was checked out. They sat there waiting for someone to notice them and they did their job without much fuss. They made a quiet night at home feel a little brighter with Disney Magic.

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