Category Archives: Site Updates

News relating to updates that have been made to Song of the South.net

Song of the South Turns 76: 19 Years Until Public Domain!

Song of the South officially turns 76 years old today. The controversial film debuted on November 12, 1946 in Atlanta, Georgia at the Fox Theater. It won 2 Academy Awards: Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah won Best Song, and an honorary Oscar was presented to James Baskett for his portrayal of Uncle Remus. Many photos from the world premier can be found in the Photos section. Lots of memorabilia, radio programs, music and more from the 1946 premier can also be found on the 1946 Campaign page.

There is not much else to report at this point; Song of the South still remains unavailable to watch on Disney+, and Disney is still planning to revamp Splash Mountain to remove all references to the film and its iconic characters including Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer Bear.

Back in August, several fans nominated Song of the South to be added to the National Film Registry (as we do every year), and we should have the results around mid-December. If Song of the South didn’t make it, we’ll do it all again next year!

If you’re looking to watch the movie and are tired of waiting for Disney to officially release it (which will likely never happen under Disney’s current regime), head on over to Archive.org. Or, if you’re looking for a physical copy, many fan-made DVDs and Blu-rays can be found all over the web. It’s pretty clear that Disney has lost control over third parties distributing this historic film, despite their best efforts to censor and suppress. And the film’s copyright is still set to expire in 2041… so only 19 years to go!

I’m still actively collecting memorabilia from the movie, and more items will be added into the Memorabilia Museum in the coming months. I have at least 30-40 new items sitting on my scanner just waiting to be scanned and added to the database. It’s still amazing to me after all these years of collecting how much more is still out there just waiting to be discovered (especially items that were released in non-U.S. countries). Walt Disney truly did distribute this movie far and wide! A far cry from today.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, Christmas season and New Year’s!

Sincerely,
Christian

Song of the South’s 75th Anniversary Is Here!

With little fanfare, Walt Disney’s Academy Award-winning film Song of the South has officially turned 75. The controversial film debuted on November 12, 1946 in Atlanta, Georgia at the Fox Theater. Many photos from the world premier can be found in the Photos section. Lots of memorabilia, radio programs, music and more from the 1946 premier can also be found on the 1946 Campaign page.

For those looking for an official Disney release on DVD, Blu-ray or Disney+, the reality is that may never happen. Over the past couple of years, Disney leadership has made it abundantly clear that they want to bury this film—from announcing that Song of the South would not appear on Disney+ to announcing their plans to re-theme Splash Mountain. Fortunately, fan-made DVDs and Blu-rays have become much more common and can generally be found by just doing a simple search on your favorite search engine. Also, the film is available to stream (and download) in its entirety on Archive.org.

At least one fan, COOLection TV, has even posted a special 75th anniversary tribute to Song of the South:

With information on this film and the film itself now available everywhere despite Disney’s best efforts to stifle their company’s history, I would say we’ve accomplished what I set out to do 21 years ago when I created SongoftheSouth.net – provide the most information available on this movie. So what’s next for SongoftheSouth.net? I will still continue to provide news updates on Song of the South and Splash Mountain, and I’m still collecting memorabilia (now over 600 items!)

Stay tuned for more SongoftheSouth.net updates in 2022! I hope everyone is keeping well and has a great upcoming holiday season.

Major Updates for Song of the South Memorabilia Museum

The Song of the South Memorabilia Museum has received some much needed attention! This is the single biggest update to the museum since I migrated it to a database in 2009. Here are what’s been going on behind the scenes:

  1. Redesigned interface — As you may have noticed, the entire web site has be redesigned from the ground up, including the memorabilia section. The museum is now more mobile-friendly and adaptable to any size screen, so no more squinting on your phone or tablet!
  2. Suggested Values added — About 17 years ago I planned to publish a Song of the South memorabilia price guide book, but that proved to be too impractical. So, I’ve added this information to the database, free of charge and available to everyone. The suggested value ranges for each item are based on nearly 25 years of collecting Song of the South memorabilia; I hope you find it useful.
  3. Advanced Search added — As the museum has grown so much in the past 20 years, I’ve added the ability for you to perform your own custom searches with the new Advanced Search feature.
  4. 20 New Items added — A lot of new memorabilia and extra photos to existing items have been added (the database now has over 850 photos!) Visit the New Additions page to see what’s new.
  5. Books & Print section split up — At nearly 200 items, the Books & Print section has proven to be the largest memorabilia category, so I have split it out into 2 separate sections: 1) Story Books for books, and 2) Periodicals for comic books, magazines, etc.
  6. Database Code Updates — Under the hood, I’ve updated all of the PHP and MySQL code to improve security and version compatibility, which should hopefully help future proof the database for several years to come.

I hope you like the improvements! If you enjoy this website and would like to support my efforts, I’ve added links in my Store and on individual memorabilia pages to relevant products you can purchase for yourself. Clicking on these links and purchasing items through them will benefit the both of us. Thank you for your support!

SongoftheSouth.net Turns 20! Site Renovation In Progress

SongoftheSouth.net turns 20 years old this year! I originally launched this site in 2000, and it didn’t always used to be this big. It was originally only intended to showcase my humble memorabilia collection, but I decided to expand the web site because there wasn’t a lot of information out on the Internet back then about this movie. Oh, how times have changed…

As part of my “20 year celebration”, I’m in the process of completely renovating the entire web site. Under the hood, some of this website’s code was literally 20 years old… that’s ancient for a website! I’m doing away with all remnants of HTML 3.2 and 4.01, nested tables, and all those other messy hacks left over from before the days of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Wanna see what this site used to look like? Head over to my Old Sites page for all the gory details.

In this new world of web design, I’m replacing all site code with pure HTML5, CSS3 and responsive design for mobile devices. I’ve also completed the transition to SSL (using https:// rather than the insecure http://). This has all been quite the learning experience, and I feel that I’ve merely scratched the surface.

I’m also going through all my old content and updating links where I can, and pruning dead links to sites long gone (another side effect of having such a long-running site… apparently I’ve outlived a lot of other sites out there!)

Anyways, I hope you like it! Feedback is always welcome. This is a work in progress, so pages are being updated one at a time. There are well over 100 pages on this site, so I expect it to take several more weeks at least!

Be on the lookout for more updates and improvements in the near future!

Today Marks Song of the South’s 73rd Anniversary

Today marks the 73rd anniversary of Song of the South’s worldwide premier at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia.

Today also marks the premier of the new Disney+ streaming video service, which will reportedly not be offering Song of the South among its available movies. The movie has never been commercially released by Disney on VHS or DVD in the United States, and despite a recent call from Disney Legend Whoopi Goldberg to bring back and discuss this film, Disney has continued to sideskirt releasing the film, while profiting off of the movie through Splash Mountain merchandise, collectibles, and the Academy Award-winning song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.”

It’s hard to believe that my website will be 20 years old next year, but my mission remains the same: provide as much information to the public on this movie as I can in the absence of Disney. If you want to help preserve this movie (after all, whether you love or hate the film, it’s part of cinematic history), be sure to check out our Facebook page, and sign the petition if you haven’t already done so. The biggest way you can help is to spread the word about this movie. You might be surprised how many people don’t even know this film exists (and I’m afraid that might be what Disney wants).

Movie Turns 72; 500th Memorabilia Item Added

Song of the South has officially turned 72 today! It premiered at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia on November 12, 1946. Song of the South has never been released commercially in the United States, so if you want Disney to know you want this film released, please be sure to sign the Song of the South Petition.

Also of note, the 500th memorabilia item has been added to the Song of the South Memorabilia Museum! Recently, I found a third party to assist me with purchasing Song of the South & Brer Rabbit (“Rabito”) memorabilia from Argentina, and it’s turning out to be bigger than I thought. It seems that Disney released dozens of books and comics in this country in the 1950’s through 1970’s.

The 500th item is a book from Argentina entitled “Rabito Pierde Y Gana” which translates to “Brer Rabbit Loses and Wins”. Usually I’m able to guess the synopsis of the story because it was also released in the United States, but in this case the story was completely unique and I’d never seen it before. Granted, there are pictures so I could get a very rough idea of what the story is about, but I wanted to get more detail. Now, I could type the entire book into Google Translate, but I decided to try the Google Translate app on my phone. All I can say is… WOW! I was able to point my phone’s camera right at the book and it translated it in real-time. While the translation was very rough, it was enough for me to get the gist and give more detail in my synopsis than I could have done just based on the pictures alone. Pretty cool! I expect to do the same for any other unique stories in foreign languages I happen to come across.

Expect more items to be added to the museum in the coming months! And as always, if you find a piece of memorabilia I’m looking for (please see the Wanted section), let me know!

Song of the South’s 71st Anniversary and Other Site News

Today marks the 71st anniversary of Song of the South. The movie premiered at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia on November 12, 1946. There hasn’t been much news on the movie front, so if you hear anything please let me know! Take a step back in time and view photos of the movie’s premier, or check out the memorabilia section.

Other SongoftheSouth.net Site News

I’m continuing to collect Song of the South memorabilia and have at least 10-15 new items waiting to be posted to the Memorabilia section. Most are from other countries including Spain, Australia, and Italy. I’ve been collecting this memorabilia since 1998, and I’m continually amazed at how much I’m still discovering! This just goes to show how widely publicized and promoted this movie from the 1940’s through 1970’s.

I’m also working on a “newest additions” page/area where you can see the latest items added to the memorabilia database, and a search page, so you don’t have to scroll through every category. The database is getting that big! Also, a couple of visitors have noted that the Miscellany section is empty. I apologize for that, but I’m still trying to figure out what I’ll be putting in there. Items will be added soon!

I’ve also started playing around with HTML5. My web site has adapted over the years as screen resolutions have increased (my original site was designed for 640×480 screens and was written in HTML 3.3!) and now that demographics have shown a major shift towards mobile devices and tablets, I’m working on making this site more mobile friendly. I have a lot of work and testing to do, and I don’t have a ton of spare time but I hope to make it a reality in the coming years.

Thanks for visiting! I’m always open to suggestions, so if you have an idea on how to make the site better, please feel free to reach out to me.

New Song of the South YouTube Channel

I have created a new YouTube Channel for Song of the South! No, I won’t be posting the movie (other people have that covered already) — my focus will primarily be posting rare audio recordings and other material that wouldn’t otherwise be available to the public.

My first video features the rare 1946 Radio Transcription Record (South 3), featuring a 15-minute radio show with Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers, Walt Disney, James Baskett (Uncle Remus & Brer Fox), Luana Patten (Ginny), Bobby Driscoll (Johnny), Nick Stewart (Brer Bear), Johnny Lee (Brer Rabbit), and Clarence Nash (Donald Duck):

I’ve had this record in my memorabilia collection for years, but up until now I had never been able to play it. 16″ transcription records were made primarily for radio stations. They’re much bigger than standard 12″ LPs and therefore won’t fit on most standard record players. They’re also fairly rare, because they were often destroyed after use!

Until now, this recording was nowhere to be found on the Internet. So of course it was my duty to fix that! I either needed to locate someone with a transcription turntable, or purchase one for myself. I decided to go the purchase route, and I’m glad I did. The plinth (wood base) is custom built, and the turntable is a vintage 1950’s era Rek-O-Kut model CVS-12 (variable speed 25-100 RPM). The tone arm is model S-120 and the cartridge is a GE VRII with dual heads so I can play both transcription and 78rpm records. Special thanks to Oleg for building it!

This is only the beginning. Look for more rare audio recordings in the future!

Memorabilia Corner: Featuring Song of the South Memorabilia

It’s hard to believe that I started collecting Song of the South memorabilia over 20 years ago. And next year will mark 20 years since I stood up my first Song of the South memorabilia web site on Tripod (remember them?) featuring my modest collection of 15 books and records.

A lot has changed since 1998. My Song of the South memorabilia collection is now approaching 500 unique items, and I think it’s time to feature some of these items from time to time in this new blog series I’m going to call “Memorabilia Corner” for now. Whether you’re a Disneyana collector or just looking to rekindle a fond childhood memory, I hope you enjoy!

Capitol Records’ Tales of Uncle Remus (CC-40) (1947)

For my first article, it’s only fitting that we feature the first piece of memorabilia I ever collected (and what subsequently got me to start collecting.) From 1946: Capitol Records’ “Tales of Uncle Remus” (CC-40) is a set of three 78 RPM records featuring the original cast from Song of the South, and the music of Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers. This was a very popular set, and if you’re looking for one they can often be found for under $30 on sites like eBay.

Don’t have a record player that plays 78 RPM? No problem! Thanks to YouTube, you can hear the album for yourself.

Sides 1-3:

Sides 4-6:

This set is the single most reissued Song of the South album I know of. Are you ready for this? In addition to originally releasing the album as CC-40, they also reissued it under the following albums (click on the links for more info on each):

  • c.1948: Tales of Uncle Remus (DC-116) – A reissue on “Superflex” (a trademark for their unbreakable 78 RPM records)
  • c. 1948: Tales of Uncle Remus (DCN-116) – Identical to DC-116 except it’s a box set instead of the book-style binding of the original.
  • 1949: Tales of Uncle Remus (CCF-3008) – 45 RPM set, highly popular due to its ability to play in modern record players. This one has so many different record labels that it will need its own article someday!
  • 1962: Tales of Uncle Remus (J-3265) – Reissued as a 33 1/3 album
  • 1975: Tales of Uncle Remus (L 6986) – Final release on 33 1/3 album in partnership with ZIV International/Wonderland Records. This is probably the least desirable of the above examples, as they decided to remove the story of Brer Rabbit Runs Away to make room for “Tickety Tock” on Side B.

Brer Rabbit Runs Away (CAS-3108)

In addition to the above albums, they also released each story separately on both 78RPM and 45 RPM records. These are neat to find with their original sleeves as they have unique artwork I haven’t found on any other piece of memorabilia:

These were released in the United States, New Zealand and Australia. They were likely released in other countries as well, but those remain to be discovered!

I hope you have enjoyed the first article. If there’s a particular piece of memorabilia you’d like to see me cover in a future article, please contact me and let me know! And, if you happen to have a piece of memorabilia that’s on my Wanted List, I am very interested in hearing from you as well. Until then… Keep Collecting!

Song of the South Turns 70 – And Other News

November 12th marked the 70th anniversary of Song of the South. The movie premiered at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia in 1946. I’m unaware of any related collectibles being released for the anniversary, so if you come across anything please let me know.

One reader also pointed out that the Song of the South Petition had been closed at Change.org. This is normal (they close petitions after a certain amount of time.) I have since reopened it so additional signatures can be added. We’re up over 2,000 signatures now; please spread the word.

I missed this back in July when it was published, but I’d like to feature this now: an excellent article over at MoviePilot.com written by Kyle Blanchette on why “Song of the South” Should Be Released Now. If you haven’t read it already, I would highly recommend doing so!

You probably noticed that the site isn’t getting updated as often as it used to. It’s hard to believe that I created this site over 15 years ago! Sadly I don’t have as much time as I used to as a young twenty-something, so my attention has shifted to other aspects of my life. That’s not to say I’m not listening though! Please always feel free to contact me with any Song of the South news or release rumors you might have.

That being said, there’s a couple of potentially interesting news items in the works, so please check back in the coming months! I promise I’ll update the site as soon as I have more info.