Intro to The Disney Disc of Mystery and Magic

From 1984, this was one of the handful of 'interactive' discs made for RCA's SJT-400 model CED videodisc player which had chapter search and auto-pause capability similar to laserdiscs. It's played here straight through on a different model player at least for the first 12 minutes- the time limit wouldn't let me go much further, and trust me, the entire thing is pretty hard to take.

Watch the introductory stuff here to see how it worked- it's the only consumer title I know of that actually shows someone working a videodisc player onscreen (skip to 4:39 to see it if the first segment is too painful for you to watch). Basically each chapter was a 'room' where you found clues to solve the mystery, and some were accompanied by stuff like demonstrations of how to do magic tricks or as shown here how to dance. Other than the occasional clips from cartoons, this doesn't have a whole lot to do with Disney and I'm sure nobody there remembers it now.

The weirdness with the sound in the last segment has to do with the 'dual-audio' mode- the handful of discs that used this actually had the 2nd channel recorded out-of-phase. The later players switched into dual-audio mode automatically, but the one I used to transfer this can stay in stereo mode through these, allowing you to hear it raw. When played on a Pro-Logic system, the 2nd track comes from the surround speakers.

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