The Typography of Disney Animation Logos #7: End of the Silver Age

And now we head towards the end of what is mostly called The Silver Age…

1. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Pinocchio
2. Fantasia
3. Dumbo and Bambi
4. Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, and Make Mine Music
5. Fun & Fancy Free, Melody Time, and The Adventures of the Ichabod and Mr. Toad
6. From Cinderella to Lady and the Tramp
   
7. Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians, and The Sword in the Stone
8. The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, and Robin Hood
9. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, and The Fox and the Hound
10. The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, and Oliver & Company
11. From The Little Mermaid to Aladdin
12. From The Lion King to Hercules
13. From Tarzan to Atlantis: The Lost Empire
14. From Lilo & Stitch to Chicken Little
15. From Meet The Robinsons to Now…

In the last part, we ended with a feature film shot in a widescreen format… We begin again with another film shot that way, this time one shot in 70mm Technirama: Sleeping Beauty.

SLEEPING BEAUTY

The Film Proper…

Aligning perfectly with the film’s French tapestry and manuscript-inspired art direction, Sleeping Beauty‘s title card goes all out. The “S” and “B” are given these detailed rectangles that are common place in old books, like the ones you see in the opening book reels of classic Disney animated features. The rest of the letterforms complement this.

The Theatrical Releases…

Most of the film’s posters never really incorporated the manuscript flourishes seen in the title card, but they did keep the general idea with the font itself…

A real change of pace came for the film’s 1970 re-release. Perhaps in an attempt to emulate the success of Fantasia‘s psychedelic re-release, Disney gave Sleeping Beauty a trippy poster, to go alongside a more conventional one.

The font on the left evokes fantasy to me, more so than tapestries and manuscripts. The one on the right is a common late 60s/early 70s font that you’d see in print or on album covers. Both fonts suit the era, and the posters they were made for. For its 1979 re-release, it appears that the psychedelic fiery Maleficent design was used again.

For its final major theatrical re-issue in 1986, a simpler route was taken with the font, but the results are nonetheless lavish and match up with the film nicely. The mood of the poster is much more, like, heavenly. Like the film’s final seconds.

It is interesting to note that Disney went for different audiences with Sleeping Beauty‘s re-issues. Sleeping Beauty was a crushing flop for the studio upon its initial release in 1959, so it makes sense that the 1970 re-release tried to aim for the “cool” crowd that helped Fantasia – a similar, money-losing endeavor – finally break even. When that supposedly didn’t work out, Disney aimed the 1979 re-issue at a fantasy crowd, perhaps because of the boom in that genre that was re-ignited by Star Wars? The 1986 re-issue aimed… For dating adults… Note the “Share it with someone you love” tagline on the poster. This approach in turn, in perhaps an unintentional way, paved the way for the method Disney used to market their Renaissance features like Beauty and the Beast. Instead of aiming for just families, which Disney had been mostly aiming for since Walt’s death, Disney animated features were mass audience pictures again. Sleeping Beauty broke even on both the 1979 and 1986 re-issues.

A restoration was done in the early 1990s, for a planned re-issue in spring 1993. A trailer for this re-release appears on the video release of Beauty and the Beast, which uses the same font from the 1986 re-issue. However, Disney cancelled it, probably because the restored version of Pinocchio flopped in the summer of 1992 and also because the film was released on video in late 1986, so Disney just chose to re-release Snow White again instead. This, however, didn’t stop them from releasing the restored version theatrically… Albeit as a limited release sometime in 1995. A poster was made for it, too, with a font you’ve never seen used for the movie since…

What’s pictured above is an international poster, but this font was indeed used in the US, for a pretty epic trailer was made for this re-issue. That’s as far as I know about this re-release. I was 3 in 1995, so I wouldn’t know much beyond that. Anyone who was there… If you’re able to fill me in, please let know!

So that ends the theatrical history of Sleeping Beauty. It’s interesting to note that Sleeping Beauty‘s theatrical life didn’t quite end after its initial video release in 1986, not the case with many a Disney animated feature…

Home Video…

Sleeping Beauty‘s home video debut came just mere months after its spring 1986 theatrical re-release, but instead of being modeled after the re-release’s “date movie” campaign, the video cover went back to the original poster, font and all! I decided to show the LaserDisc sleeve – released a little later – because you get the more of the artwork with that one.

For the second video release in 1997, we got a more stylized and simplified variation of this idea. The font’s a little bolder this time.

Disney then changed direction and introduced a very cool, fantasy-like new font for the movie for its 2003 DVD release, and even re-used it for the film’s Blu-ray premiere in 2008.

For the 2014 Diamond Edition release, the title went all-caps for a further simplified font that still evoked the aesthetics of the movie. The vertical positioning is used in a much more creative way here than on many other Diamond Edition covers.

Perhaps the Signature Edition, whenever that comes out (maybe this fall? In time for the Maleficent sequel?), will follow a similar route? Maybe not? One thing is for certain, though. Sleeping Beauty‘s many releases had distinct and appealing fonts. Even the fonts that didn’t quite match the movie’s aesthetics still worked.

ONE HUNDRED AND ONE DALMATIANS

The Film Proper…

You know, it’s funny… Disney has never referred to One Hundred and One Dalmatians on most media these days with its actual. The film title always had it spelled out. In a way, this title differentiates it nicely from the 1996 remake, which is indeed titled 101 Dalmatians. Anyways, this is a great title card… Fun cursive matching up with the more jagged and modern art direction of the cast, strewn all around the title card. It’s just one piece of what could possibly be the best Disney opening credits of all time. The rest of that opening credits sequence is chock full of groovy, almost neon-like cursive.

The Theatrical Releases…

The original release poster is decidedly simpler, and the only time a poster for this movie used the full title. Perhaps because of that “ONEderful” pun.

The 1969 re-release swapped that pun for “arf” puns. Here, the “101” title is introduced and it sticks… The same font and idea are used for the 1979 re-release, pictured on the far right.

All of these posters are a break away from what we were used to up until this point, because One Hundred and One Dalmatians was a thoroughly modern Disney animated feature. While some previous animated films, such as Dumbo and Bambi, were set in modern day, Dalmatians was very contemporary in look, feel, and tone. The posters and the fonts reflect that nicely.

The 1985 re-release introduced a serif version of “101”, but kept “Dalmatians” in sans-serif. This poster would be re-used for the 1991 re-release.

This one’s very nice, it sets the template for the majority of the home media covers, where the “101” is big and can be centered with the word “Dalmatians” as one whole four-sided shape format.

Home Video…

One Hundred and One Dalmatians debuted on video shortly after its final re-release, in spring 1992. The logo goes back to the 1969 poster…

The 1999 video release, however, aligns more with the 1985 poster…

The serif text for “101” was so tall on this cover, they couldn’t use it for the spine, so they settled with a completely different text. Actually, that font looks like the one used for the 1996 remake. The same cover was used for the film’s limited issue DVD release from the same year.

The Platinum Edition came in 2008, the font isn’t too far removed from the 1999 spine artwork and the 1996 remake. They re-used it for the 2015 Diamond Edition. Whichever video release you’re looking at, the font for “101” is usually fun and bouncy. Not too many different fonts were used for this particular film, maybe because “101” isn’t something you need to mess around with too much. I do, however, kinda hope to see a video release for this movie that actually works off of the typography in the title card and opening credits… Though that’s probably a pipe dream!

THE SWORD IN THE STONE

The Film Proper…

This one’s quite a lot like Sleeping Beauty‘s title card, right down the blue color scheme. Though it doesn’t have any manuscript-like flourishes, the title is still nice to look at and matches the medieval England setting quite nicely. I particularly the old English “THE”. That typeface is used throughout the rest of the credits…

The Theatrical Releases…

The original release poster uses a similarly stylized font, but one that’s definitely less medieval-looking, save for the two “the”s and “in”. “Sword” and “Stone” look a lot bouncier and fun.

The same poster scheme and font were used for the 1972 re-release…

The 1983 re-release, which paired the movie up with the then-new featurette Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore, went for a different font altogether.

A little more formal here. All capital letters, but those 80s outlines look very nice. I also want to show the logo used for an international re-release that occurred sometime in the mid-to-late 80s…

Very spiraly “S”s there… This one really works, too, at least the type is played with so that it, again, has like a medieval/fantasy look.

Home Video…

The original 1986 video release of The Sword in the Stone, along with the 1989 cover (both from the Classics line), the 1994 Masterpiece Collection edition, AND the 2001 Gold Classic Collection edition use the original poster logo.

In 2008, they made a new logo for the feature.

While I’m not sure about the type here, it at least looks nice and the shield-like thing it’s placed within looks nice. The cover definitely gives off more of a big fantasy vibe than your usual cover for this film, and like the original 1986 release, the sword is OUT of the stone!

The next type – made for the 2013 Blu-ray release – fares better, though by contrast, the Blu-ray itself uses a very poor transfer for the movie itself. The font is also all-caps this time, but I quite like the lettering. It’s minimal compared to some other logos for the film, but it still looks very fantasy/medieval-like. I particularly like what they did with the “R” in “Sword”, and how it goes off into a swoosh that extends to the “O” before it. Almost looks like a scimitar or pirate sword.

I guess you can get a lot of mileage out of medieval-type logos, if you’re Disney.