UltimateDisney.com reports that Disney is launching a new line of hour-long DVDs that will contain some of their more-popular or better-known short cartoons. The dedicated collector will have acquired virtually all of these films already through the studio’s ‘Walt Disney Treasures‘ series, but the truly hardcore collector may want to get these new discs anyway, in the hope that they will contain better transfers of the original films.
No, I have not yet decided whether I am a merely dedicated collector or one of the truly hardcore ones; either way, I do have at least one version of each of these films already, so I will probably give this new series a pass. Still, even as a relatively disinterested observer, I must register a complaint.
The second disc in the series is called Three Little Pigs, and in addition to the Oscar-winning 1933 classic for which it is named, the disc will reportedly also include The Big Bad Wolf (1934), Three Little Wolves (1936), Chicken Little (1943), Lambert the Sheepish Lion (1952) and Three Blind Mouseketeers (1936).
Notice anything missing?
The original Three Little Pigs was so popular that Disney made three sequels to it. Two of them — The Big Bad Wolf and Three Little Wolves — are apparently going to be included on this disc, which makes obvious sense. But where is the third sequel, The Practical Pig (1939)?
This isn’t the first time that Disney has played coy with The Practical Pig. The original Silly Symphonies set, released just over seven years ago, prominently listed the first three films on its menu screen — but the fourth film was relegated to Easter-egg status. True, it was included somewhere on the disc, so I can’t really complain about that. But why not group it with the others?
The ironic thing, from my highly personal point of view, is that The Practical Pig is the only one of these sequels that I can remember seeing on TV when I was a kid. So it seems odd that it would now be kept in such obscurity, if not excluded altogether, on DVD.
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