Milt Kahl

A profile of the acclaimed animator and director Brad Bird featured on the Incredibles 2 Blu-Ray.

By the mid-1980s, the fabled animation studios of Walt Disney had fallen on hard times. The artists were polarized between newcomers hungry to innovate and old timers not yet ready to relinquish control. These conditions produced a series of box-office flops and pessimistic forecasts: maybe the best days of animation were over. Maybe the public didn't care. Only a miracle or a magic spell could produce a happy ending. Waking Sleeping Beauty is no fairy tale. It's the true story of how Disney regained its magic with a staggering output of hits - "Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast ," "Aladdin," "The Lion King," and more - over a 10-year period.

Documentary focusing on the making-of the 1940n adaptation of Pinocchio by the Disney studio, often considered the artistic pinnacle of the Disney feature.

A look at the first years of Pixar Animation Studios - from the success of "Toy Story" and Pixar's promotion of talented people, to the building of its East Bay campus, the company's relationship with Disney, and its remarkable initial string of eight hits. The contributions of John Lasseter, Ed Catmull and Steve Jobs are profiled. The decline of two-dimensional animation is chronicled as three-dimensional animation rises. Hard work and creativity seem to share the screen in equal proportions.

Film critic Joel Siegel gets together with a group of animators, directors and producers to discuss and pay tribute to their mentors and Walt Disney's core group of animators, The Nine Old Men

The making of Cinderella (1950).

Six more animated stories from the Disney studios. 'Three Blind Mousketeers' follows the misadventures of the outrageous trio. In 'Three Little Pigs', the Big Bad Wolf is doing his best to cunningly snare the guileless little pigs, while in 'Three Little Wolves' he goes one step further and decides to disguise and train his own offspring to lure them into his fold. 'Funny Little Bunnies' explores the mystery of the Easter Bunny. 'Lambert the Sheepish Lion' is a lovable, shy lion who plucks up the courage to protect his adopted family of ewes and rams. 'Ferdinand the Bull' gets in a scrape at a Madrid bullring when he gets stung by a bee and the crowd mistake him for a fighting bull.

This charming collection features 7 classic Disney cartoons from the 30's and 40's. "The Cookie Carnival" The other unrelated christmas short is "Ferdinand the Bull" The delights are "Santas Workshop" (1932) where its Christmas Eve and Santa and his elves are preparing the toys for Santa to deliver. "The Night Before Christmas" (1933) where we see Santa deliver the presents to a house and the toys come alive in this enchanting animation. "Pluto's Christmas Tree" where Mickey's newly decorated christmas tree is infested with those mischevious chipmunks Chip 'n' Dale. "On Ice" (1935) where Mickey shows off for Minnie during some ice skating, but must rescue Donald when he's nearly blown over a frozen waterfall. Meanwhile, Goofy tries a new form of ice fishing. "Donalds Snow Fight" (1942)

The making of this classic Disney masterpiece about the life of a young faun. Includes archive footage of Walt Disney and his team of animators.

With examples from Disney feature-length films, Walt Disney gives a behind-the-scenes look at the improvements in animation made by his studio's in-house training and research that studied real-life motion and made technical innovations.