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Disney's Wonderful World (19791981)

In September 1979, the studio agreed to the network's request for changes to the program. The
show shortened its title to Disney's Wonderful World, and updated the opening sequence with a
computer-generated logo and disco-flavored theme song, but largely kept the same format. The
problems for the show continued, as a result of the ratings strength of 60 Minutes; compounded
by low ratings, increasingly less original material, and frequent[citation needed] pre-emptions
(primarily due to sporting events such as NFL game telecasts), NBC cancelled Disney in 1981.

Walt Disney (19811983)


Following NBC's announcement that it would drop the anthology series, CBS picked up the
program and began airing it on Saturday evenings at 8:00 p.m. Eastern in September 1981.
Despite more elaborate credit sequence and another title change, to simply Walt Disney, the
series' format remained unchanged. It lasted two years on CBS, its end coinciding with the
launch of the studio's cable television network, The Disney Channel. While ratings were a factor,
the final decision to end the show came from Walt Disney Productions' then-CEO E. Cardon
Walker, who felt that having both the show and the new channel active would result in
cannibalization of viewership.[8]

The Wonderful World of Disney (19831988)


This version of The Wonderful World of Disney debuted in October 1983. It aired on CBS until
January 1986, but continued on The Disney Channel until September 1988.

The Disney Sunday Movie (19861988)


After the studio which was rechristened as The Walt Disney Company in 1986 underwent a
change in management, Disney sought to bring back some sort of programming to broadcast
television. Their efforts led to the premiere of The Disney Sunday Movie, which debuted on
February 2, 1986 on ABC. Many names were considered to serve as presenter for the revived
show, including Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, Cary Grant, Tom Hanks,[8] Walter Cronkite,
Roy E. Disney (who closely resembled his uncle), and even Mickey Mouse.[9] The studio finally
decided to have Michael Eisner, the company's recently hired CEO, host the series. Although he
was not a performer, after filming a test video with his wife Jane and a member of his executive
team (which required multiple takes), studio management believed he could do the hosting job.
Eisner hired Michael Kay, a director of political commercials for then-U.S. Senator Bill Bradley,
to help him improve his on-camera performance.[9]
The Disney Sunday Movie initially aired as ABC's lead-off program on Sunday nights, running
from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. By this point, the format was similar to a movie-of-theweek, offering more original programming in the form of family-oriented television films from
the studio that made up much of the material. A larger selection of theatrical library films than
the previous Disney anthology programs had in the last few years of its original run were also
shown (including another animated canon entry, 1973's Robin Hood), but with the advent of
cable television and home video, these presentations were not as popular.

The program's ratings were never strong as the established 60 Minutes and scripted mystery
series Murder, She Wrote on CBS, both of which Disney was competing with for viewers,
remained the leading prime time programs on Sunday nights. In 1987, The Disney Sunday Movie
was reduced from two hours to one. The move did not help drive ratings, and the network
decided not to renew its contract with Disney, and pick up a fourth season of the second iteration
of the anthology series.

The Magical World of Disney (19882002)


In the spring of 1988, NBC decided to renew its association with the company after it cut ties to
the anthology series eight years earlier; the network brought the series, now named The Magical
World of Disney, to serve as the lead-in of its Sunday lineup in September 1988. As the program
had done during its last season as The Disney Sunday Movie, The Magical World of Disney ran
for one hour, airing at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time; Michael Eisner also returned as its presenter.
After two seasons experiencing the same lackluster ratings as it had accrued during the tail end
of its initial NBC run and its subsequent runs on CBS and ABC, Disney elected to move The
Magical World of Disney off of broadcast television and began airing the anthology on The
Disney Channel in the same timeslot it had been airing for the past decade starting in
September 1990, expanding back to a two-hour format. Since The Disney Channel operated as a
premium channel at the time, films presented on the series were usually presented without
commercial interruption. The Magical World of Disney originally aired on the cable channel as a
weekly Sunday-only program for its first 5 years; however in September 1996, as part of the
first phase of a programming revamp that culminated in its formal conversion into a commercialfree basic cable channel in April 1997, The Disney Channel expanded the Magical World brand
to encompass its Monday through Saturday prime-time film block, maintaining its 7:00 p.m.
Eastern time slot.

The Wonderful World of Disney (1991present)


The Wonderful World of Disney returned in 1991 on CBS and later moved to ABC in 1997. It led
the network's Sunday night lineup, resulting in the displacement of Sunday mainstay America's
Funniest Home Videos, which had occupied the 7:00 p.m. Eastern time slot since 1992. This
incarnation also replaced The ABC Sunday Night Movie, which initially continued to air
alongside Wonderful World during the 199798 season, before that program was cancelled. The
1997 revival of the rechristened Wonderful World followed the same format as the Disney
Sunday Movie, shifting its format more similarly to the Hallmark Hall of Fame to expand focus
on original made-for-TV films (such as the 2005 television adaptation of Once Upon a
Mattress), which the series had began to incorporate more of during its second run on NBC,
although it continued to feature periodic broadcasts of various theatrical films.
In 2002, a Spanish language version of the program premiered on Telemundo (which,
incidentally, was acquired by the English version's former home, NBC, that same year) as El
Maravilloso el Mundo de Disney, with more of a focus on Disney theatrical films than the
English broadcasts at the time.

In September 2003, The Wonderful World of Disney moved to Saturday nights at 8:00 p.m.
Eastern, with the previous Sunday time slot being ceded to AFV (which moved back to Sundays
that season) and drama series in the 8:00 p.m. hour. There were rare exceptions to the program's
format during this time; for example, a Little House on the Prairie miniseries ran for several
weeks in 2004 under the Wonderful World of Disney banner. For most of its second run on ABC,
the program aired throughout the television season, with the exception of the 200506 season
(when it aired during the midseason only), and in 2007 and 2008 (when it was relegated to the
summer months), with a broader array of films occupying the network's Saturday prime time slot
at other times, when sports programming did not air.
At this point, the series began to shift focus toward Disney theatrical films, relying less on
original television films; however, the series aired two Disney Channel Original Movies (2003's
Cadet Kelly and 2008's Camp Rock, currently the only Disney Channel television films to have
aired on non-Disney Channel-branded network domestically) during its ABC run. The second
ABC revival also included some family-oriented films produced by studios other than Disney
under the Wonderful World banner, such as 20th Century Fox's The Sound of Music and Warner
Bros.' Harry Potter film series, as well as television films such as Princess of Thieves (from
Granada Productions) and the 2001 remake of Brian's Song (from Columbia-TriStar Television,
now Sony Pictures Television).

The Magical World of Disney Junior (2012present)


This version of the series (started on March 23, 2012 on the newly launched digital cable channel
Disney Junior) is called The Magical World of Disney Junior. The program focused more on
animated and select live-action films from the Disney library, selected to appeal primarily to the
channel's target audience of preschoolers ages 2- to 6-years-old.[10]

Reruns
Around the same time that the 1980s incarnations aired on ABC and NBC, reruns of older
episodes of the Disney anthology series, airing under the Wonderful World of Disney banner,
were syndicated to broadcast television stations throughout the United States[11][12] as well as in
various international markets. In Australia, the program aired on Network Seven on Saturday
evenings at 6:30 p.m., before it was dropped in 1994 due to Optus Vision (later Foxtel)'s launch
of a domestic version of The Disney Channel, with Saturday Disney replacing it as the channel's
main block of Disney films.
Reruns of the shows were a staple of The Disney Channel for several years under the title Walt
Disney Presents (which used the same title sequence as the 1980s CBS incarnation), when it was
an outlet for vintage Disney cartoons, television series and films, basically serving the same
function that the anthology series served in the days before cable. The original opening titles
were restored to the episodes in 1997. Reruns of the anthology series were discontinued when the
channel purged all vintage material with the removal of its Vault Disney late-night block on
September 16, 2002.[13] However, a few select episodes are available on VHS or DVD (some of
which are exclusive to the Disney Movie Club), with the possibility of additional future releases.

Recently, live-action Disney films from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s have aired on Turner Classic
Movies, without commercial interruption, and presented uncut and with letterboxing.
All of the episodes and existing material used on the series up to 1996 are listed in the Bill Cotter
book The Wonderful World of Disney Television, which was released in 1997 by Hyperion
Books (which is owned by The Walt Disney Company).[3]

Theme music
The program has utilized numerous theme songs, most frequently using various arrangements of
"When You Wish upon a Star" from the 1940 animated film Pinocchio; the iteration of the theme
used since 1997 uses an orchestral medley of "When You Wish Upon a Star" and A Whole New
World from the 1992 animated film Aladdin. From 1961 to 1969, the show used an original song
as its theme, "The Wonderful World of Color," written by Richard M. Sherman and Robert B.
Sherman and composed by Buddy Baker, which emphasized the use of color with its lyrics.
From 1969 to 1979, The Wonderful World of Disney used an orchestral medley of various Disney
songs.

International broadcasts
In Brazil, The Magical World of Disney aired on Sistema Brasileiro de Televiso (SBT), under
the title Cine Disney. The ABC run of the program under The Wonderful World of Disney title
originally aired in that country under the title O Maravilhoso Mundo de Disney on the Brazilian
version of Disney Channel; the program moved to SBT as Mundo Disney in 2015.

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