List of Walt Disney Classics video releases

This list covers all the Walt Disney Classics (or "Black Diamond") titles released from 1984 to 1994 and strangely, 1996.

Walt Disney Home Video - The Classics (1984-1988)
The original logo from the series was nicknamed the Cheesy Black Diamond.

December 1984
Disney was initially reluctant to release any of their animated classics that had only seen theatrical release on video, as it might put them at risk of losing reissue revenue. Robin Hood was picked as the first Classics release because the film itself was considered weaker in terms of story and animation compared to the other titles. Its disappointing performance in its 1982 reissue was also cited.

October 1986
Every pre-May 1986 title in the series was re-issued to coincide with the video release of “Sleeping Beauty”. However, the only Oct. 1986 re-issue titles that had additional changes to their print masters were titles originally released before July 1985.

Walt Disney Classics (1988-1994, 1996)
When Disney updated the logo from this series in 1988, starting with “Cinderella”, the logo was basically Sorcerer Mickey at the beginning and then the Shiny Black Diamond with the yellow text saying “Walt Disney” on the top and “CLASSICS” on the bottom. The prototype shiny black-blue background variation appeared on the 1988 release of “Cinderella”, and later, select September 1992 titles, including the demo VHS and regular laserdisc versions of “The Rescuers”.

In 1989, starting with “Bambi”, an official variation of the new logo was created, only with the background being plain normal blue. Then in 1992, starting with “101 Dalmatians”, a third variation of the logo was created, with the color slightly tinted to blue and clean audio.

Starting with “The Rescuers”, a fourth variation of the logo was created, with enhanced bass heavy audio.

August 1990
To coincide the video release of the new batch of Sing-Along Songs titles, “The Little Mermaid” was re-issued with the oversized Betamax-style horizontal sticker-label variation in place of the standard vertical ink-label.

September 1990
This month of 1990 was the final time that Disney had released their titles on Betamax.

October 1992
This batch of titles was released with prototype variations of the Proof of Purchase tab labels.

November 1992
July-October 1992 titles, as well as a September 1991 title, in the series were re-issued in this month of 1992 with regular Proof of Purchase tab labels printed above the back covers. The earliest copies of this batch of titles were printed a day after the original video release date of “Beauty and the Beast”, which was also the second video release date of “The Great Mouse Detective”. Copies of these issues printed after April 1993 do not include any inserts inside the cases at all.

February 1996
Strangely enough, the earliest copies of the 1996 VHS release of “Pocahontas” that were printed between late November-mid December 1995 started with the fourth variation of the 1988/1989 Walt Disney Classics logo. On copies printed after mid December 1995, this logo was later replaced with the correct logo, which is the 1994 Masterpiece Collection logo.