As it pertains to a large conglomerate, Disney preservation can go one of two ways. The Walt Disney Company will preserve a work in pristine condition, if they consider it financially viable. They will not preserve a work if they think the public won’t care either way. Of course, for newer works, this isn’t a problem. If a Disney+ original is taken down, a stray pirate will have already spread it around like wildfire. It’s more of a problem if the work predates our current streaming status quo. It’s even worse when the work in question never even had a chance to break out of jail, into public eyes.
Luckily, when executives sit on their laurels, random and brave strangers on the Internet pick up the slack. When it comes to Disney preservation, there is only such a thing as sneaky tactics.
Recently, an anonymous user leaked a boatload of previously-invisible Disney TV content.
For now, a clandestine archive of them exists here. I haven’t seen all of them. Still, I see this as nothing but a win. Company culture forces us to be oblivious to good ideas that they decide not to move forward with. It also forces people to be blind to the creative process. Unless a company decides to let us see a sliver of the behind-the-scenes process, the public usually just assumes they know a thing or two.
What’s the point of repeating a widespread sentiment? I want more of this. But, I also want more than this. I invite any covert Disney employees to scour the archives while their floor manager isn’t looking. Also, it’d be cool if people demanded a complete shift in how we approached this whole “unfinished, unfit for public consumption” business. You should demand a company release more of their vault. I argue that there should be a public, one-stop archive of Disney stuff that they might not consider worth paying for.
This goes beyond the pilots we managed to see. There’s a wealth of esoteric archival content that we can’t view or have to view in poor quality. I reckon it’s far past time to change that.
Featured image (c) Disney
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