Rare Disney animation!

[Nelson]

Has there been any kind of Disney animation that you have wanted to see but you only heard about?

The rarest of the rare of Disney animation would be the OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT one reelers.If you never seen an Oswald cartoon, then you are really missing out on some of the funniest silent cartoons ever produced from the 1920s out of any cartoon studio from that era.I do own a decent amount of the silent Disney/Oswald cartoons on video and in a couple of weeks, I'll be getting good collection of the silent Oswald shorts complete with original Universal/Disney titles...Something that's very rare to see if your a collector of film.

I often get ask from cartoon fans if the Disney company will ever release(a la the Disney Treasures) a collection of Walt's silent film work onto video.

Possible.

I can see the company releasing the "Alice Comedies" and the "Laugh O'Grams" but not the Oswald cartoons and I'll explain why.Disney was hired by cartoon producer Charles Mintz and Universal to animate a series featuring a rabbit but when Disney lost the Oswald series from Mintz as the character was owned and created by Universal, not Walt.

Disney never had the rights to the Rabbit character thus having Walter Lantz(Woody Woodpecker's creator) given the Oswald series and Lantz was most closely associated with the character then Walt was.Universal controls and has the master film elements of the silent Oswald shorts, while the Disney archives has at least seven Oswald titles in their vaults.The only way that Disney could show the Oswald cartoons, as they would have to get permisson(and to pay a very big price) from Universal and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[Disney Guru]

I have seen some before!

My family has a friend that owns a Video Warehouse that I used to work for him and he had an oirigional film reel that had an Oswald cartoon on it! I saw it once and I lovd it!

[snowbot]

Dave Smith, founder of the Disney Archives and current Archives Director, has been kind enough to help me out with some pointers on pursuing a Disney career. Anyway, I couldn't help but ask him if Walt's Laugh-o-grams, Alice shorts, and Oswald cartoons will ever be released to the public. Here is what he said:

Keith:

The problem with the silent films is that Disney does not own the rights to them. Many of the Alice Comedies were copyrighted by various entities, eventually ending up with RKO. Universal has the copyright to the Oswalds.

Dave

So there ya go!