D23 just interviewed Karen Weissman (Restoration & Preservation Manager at The Walt Disney Studios) about the restored shorts on their podcast. 

In the interview, she mentions that the team had tracked down and restored the original titles for Bone Trouble. She also brings up "correcting" some mistakes that were present for a single frame, like blackening one of Mickey's ears or adding a grasshopper's missing leg.

Have a listen!

It'd be better to stick to the Disney Treasures. At least you'll get all of them.

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Be on the lookout for the next batch this week starting September 5th:

All Wet (1927).

Trolley Troubles (1927).

Bone Trouble (1940).

Merbabies (1938).

Mickey's Kangaroo (1935).

Playful Pluto (1934).

Pluto Junior (1942).

The Barn Dance (1929).

Looks like its just the Oswalds today. I recall the original announcement saying “September 5th-8th”, so I guess we’ll expect more of the listed shorts over the next few days. TROLLEY AND WET have newly recreated titles that keep in line with the Treasures versions, same scores too. They look good given the materials used

Looks like its just the Oswalds today. I recall the original announcement saying “September 5th-8th”, so I guess we’ll expect more of the listed shorts over the next few days. TROLLEY AND WET have newly recreated titles that keep in line with the Treasures versions, same scores too. They look good given the materials used

I recall looking at the September schedule and noticed that the silent and sounds shorts won't be released on the same day. Nice to know that the Oswald restorations are decent.

Like we were promised, BONE TROUBLE had its original title cards restored. It features the diagonal, front-facing Pluto headshot, plus the "Pluto the Pup" name title from Pluto's Quin-puplets.

THE BARN DANCE sucked though. The opening titles were not only recreated, but the original music cue was replaced/dubbed, and the picture was partially zoomed in. The Treasures DVD had original titles and cues, plus was wide enough to show the frame's rounded corners.

The Treasures DVD had original titles

I think the original titles were cleverly recreated there as well, nevertheless.

I don't have access to these right now to know what you're mean by the "zoom," but I'm guessing you're talking about how they cropped the film to demonstrate the Movietone ratio that the film was supposed to have on release. Some will disagree on this decision; I know that Steve's goal for Flips were to use the full frame whenever possible.

I will say though that the decision to use the title cue for MICKEY'S ORPHANS stikes as odd, considering that they fixed the issue with the subtle revisionism on the previous restoration they did for THE SKELTON DANCE years back. Did the track come from a master from that timeframe? 🤔

I have to say something.

I can remember a time not too long ago when news that a theatrical short was having its original release titles reinstated was a cause for much praise and discussion. Now it goes by with nary a peep.

'Bone Trouble' has long been one of my favorite of the Disney shorts, mainly due to its incredible music score. Seeing it on the Treasures sets I was always a bit wistful at the fact that it alone among the early Plutos had generic reissue title cards. I was most keen to see the first official Pluto short with the original character headshot as well as the RKO Radio credit line, to say nothing of the main title card in that streamline, slightly abstract style Disney was known for at that time.

Yet this raises quite a few questions. Where was this original version hiding? The titles did look a bit soft compared to the body of the short, so was a 1940 release print found in the Disney archives that was mated to the original negative? Did some collector step forward in support of the 'Disney 100' recognitions? I think this is the first time (at least since the 'The Band Concert') where Disney has genuinely restored one of their shorts to its premiere configuration (in contrast to the B&W Mickeys that recreated the look but still left off references to United Artists and Columbia Pictures among other nuances); are they planning more such restorations? I for one would love to see a short like 'Symphony Hour' or 'How to Play Football' done in the same manner.

I’ve wondered for a while why Disney had not put any effort in locating and restoring lost titles for their shorts and features the same way Warner’s does. Especially since many of them exist in private collections and appeared on older vhs and laserdisc collections.

I expected the titles of Bone Trouble to be of lesser quality, since it would have come from something other than the camera negative. Ever since HD, the quality difference between a restored title and the corresponding short is much more apparent.

Yes! I was very excited to learn that this short had its orginal titles restored too. Honestly this little nugget is my favourite official thing to come from the Disney 100 Celebrations this year.

Last year I did a little research into Disney 16mm reissues for home use and it was kind of sad to see 1950's ads listing collections of cartoons which we know once had unique title art which were replaced with very generic cards. A collection called "Disney Parade 1" (which was available by 1956) listed CLOCK CLEANERS, BONE TROUBLE and DONALD AND PLUTO (While Parades 2 and 3 listed the majority of other colour cartoons which ended up with the generic white typeface cards).

I'm very pleased that the effort was made to restore BONE TROUBLE here, as it's been very rare to see for nearly 70 years! If you listen to the podcast which ToonStar 95 kindly linked above, some info is given about this (from around the 11:24 mark) the audio's not that clear, but it seems the titles no longer existed at Disney, but there was money in the restoration budget to track them down (where from, is not mentioned).

It's quite rare for a short to be restored with original titles by the Disney company nowadays and so BONE TROUBLE came as a nice surprise. I've seen a restoration of the BAND CONCERT with recreated UA titles, are you refering to that or have I missed a more recent restoration with the real titles? David Gerstein has confirmed that the original titles are held in a collection at the Library of Congress so we do know they're out there.

BTW I totally agree with you and would love to see more original titles tracked down and restored.

I've seen a restoration of the BAND CONCERT with recreated UA titles, are you refering to that or have I missed a more recent restoration with the real titles? David Gerstein has confirmed that the original titles are held in a collection at the Library of Congress so we do know they're out there.

I was under the impression that 'Band Concert' had its titles restored back around the time of the first Treasures set (if not earlier for one of Mickey's anniversaries) with no need for recreations.

I don't have Disney+; I do Disney Treasures. Are the restorations like Warner on HBO Max?

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The color quality is a mixed bag. The cartoons from waves 5-6 are a significant improvement, actually boasting restoration. (I hope to see more titles from these waves for this reason).
For the titles from the other waves, the Treasures have better quality. Most have a tint, ranging from yellow to a slight green.
Disney is getting back on track with doing proper restorations though.

It's quite rare for a short to be restored with original titles by the Disney company nowadays and so BONE TROUBLE came as a nice surprise. I've seen a restoration of the BAND CONCERT with recreated UA titles, are you refering to that or have I missed a more recent restoration with the real titles? David Gerstein has confirmed that the original titles are held in a collection at the Library of Congress so we do know they're out there.

Do they match the actual original titles? ("Joseph M. Schenk Presents Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse in Technicolor")

I was under the impression that 'Band Concert' had its titles restored back around the time of the first Treasures set (if not earlier for one of Mickey's anniversaries) with no need for recreations.

I don't have the disc to hand to check, but I'm pretty sure that BAND CONCERT still has the reissue titles on the Treasures release (red burlap background and standard white text).

Frames from the actual original title (surviving in LoC and shared by David Gerstein) use the grey UA titles. The actual title card is pretty plain – a gray background with the text "THE BAND CONCERT" all in one line in red. You can see it here:
https://d23.com/our-mouse-tro-takes-the-baton/ 

A fairly recent version of the short recreates the UA era style, but seems to have been created without having seen the actual original surviving titles. The "Joseph M. Schenk Presents" text (which Bobby mentioned) is missing and the title card itself uses a grey background with large green text for "THE BAND CONCERT" with each word on its own line. You can see them in this video:


The video above is from 2015 so it's possible the original titles have been reinstated since then (I don't have Disney +), if so it'd be good news to me!


To add to the confusion, there's another relatively recent version of this cartoon with different titles again. The 'Have a Laugh' version has a title card which uses art from the short. It's a close up of Mickey's music stand, with "THE BAND CONCERT" replacing "Selections from Zampa" (it's the same green typography as the other version, but carefully distored to match the perspective). You can see it here:

The final batch drops tomorrow:

When the Cat’s Away (1929)

Fiddling Around (1930)

Camping Out (1934)

Wynken, Blynken and Nod (1938)

Old Macdonald Duck (1941)

Inferior Decorator (1948)

Chips Ahoy (1956)

When the Cat's Away, which had its original and silent main titles on the Treasures DVD, had its titles recreated with "Minnie's Yoo Hoo" tacked to both ends. Fiddling Around's titles were also faked despite its original titles existing.

At least Chips Ahoy has its original RKO logo cue back.

CHIPS AHOY was also censored, to remove the cigar gag. I was told that it wouldn't be beneath Disney to censor some of them for Disney+, but considering the Pansy character in BARNYARD OLYMPICS and Kat Nipp drinking his jug in WHEN THE CAT'S AWAY was cleared, I'm befuddled, and why would they add the cartoon if it would be censored? Mixed bag of titles, and the little things that matter in these things have strange errors

Posting my whole opinion about Disney would probably get me banned.

The Make Mine Music blu-ray release brought back the trend of putting altered content in retail. A practice that had been discontinued in the late DVD and early blu-ray era came back in full force, worse than in the early 2000s (Melody Time and Make Mine Music censored DVDs). Now, putting edited content on blu-ray and streaming is commonplace. The company is in an unprecedented low standard content-wise, but unfortunately not anywhere near bankruptcy ($).

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And yet it was okay of you doing that unnecessary crack at the end....

Honestly, I'm a bit flabbergasted that they censored a brief smoking scene in the short. That is not what I considered restoring. Would it hurt them if they kept a warning disclaimer on the shorts main page instead of editing it?