“A warm sunset can turn into a chilling twilight”
In 1981, CBS’ Walt Disney Presents presented A Disney Halloween. The original version was hosted by the Magic Mirror from Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. There have been numerous version over the years. In one version, Disney CEO Michael Eisner welcoming viewers and introducing Mickey and Minnie Mouse in their Halloween costumes. It also features Goofy in his costume….as Michael Eisner. From there, the special goes into a number of segments and skits focusing on some of Disney’s scarier moments.
The episode is divided into two segments. The first segment features cartoon shorts and segments lifted from numerous Disney productions including The Sword In The Stone and Fantasia.
The second segment is hosted by the Magic Mirror from Snow White. The mirror introduces segments featuring some of Disney’s popular villains including Captain Hook, Maleficent, and Cruella De Vil.
The show ends with two Disney shorts that I’ve covered in posts earlier this month: Lonesome Ghosts and Trick Or Treat. The episode is bookended by a colorized version of The Skeleton Dance that is interlaced with images from different films and shots from Disney them parks.
The special has been released a few times over the years on television and has been repackaged and reused for other specials such as Disney’s Halloween Treat. Unfortunately it isn’t available yet on Disney+, but you can find it in its various forms (and of varying video quality) on YouTube.
Did you see this special in any of its forms while growing up? Let me know in the comments. Also, thank you for checking out my post. Tomorrow I’ll be taking a look at one of Disney’s famous scary theme park rides!
Ken's Alternate Universe! 
It should be noted there are a few errors.
First, the show you are describing is the 90 minute version that debuted on The Disney Channel in 1983.
Second, Michael Eisner didn’t even come to Disney until 1984 and he didn’t begin his hosting segments until 1986. As for Halloween content, my research so far shows his Halloween intro likely appeared as early as 1992, possibly no earlier than 1991.
Third, the original 1981 version was only one hour, contained only had 5 segments, in this order: Sleepy Hollow, Snow White, Trick or Treat, Sleeping Beauty, and Lonesome Ghosts. It was hosted by the Magic Mirror and aired as part of CBS’ Walt Disney Presents.
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Noted and changed. Thanks. There seems to be a lot of misinformation about this show on the web. It’s probably due to the fact that it was repackaged so many times.
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Welcome but your blog is about the 1983 version not the 1981 version lol so you may want to note that as well. Also it was Walt Disney not Walt Disney Presents, may apologies on that confusion.
Yes it gets confusing with the many times its been repackaged and sometimes with alternate titles. To clear up any more confusion here are the other shows that are similar but different from each other in ways:
Disney’s Halloween Hall’O’Fame (1977) – Had both a shortened, syndicated/Disney Channel version and a full original network broadcast version. Lonesome Ghosts did not appear in the syndicated version.
A Disney Halloween (1981) on CBS with 5 segments; Magic Mirror hosted. The ONLY way this is getting on the net is if someone taped it to a Betamax tape because VHS recorders weren’t available yet. 60 minutes on Walt Disney Presents.
A Disney Halloween Treat (1982). 60 minute version, many segments. Hosted by a pumpkin puppet (likely because Hans Conried, who had voiced the Magic Mirror since 1950, died this year). Also on “Walt Disney” on CBS. Contained Headless Horseman segment. However, it has an alternate version, “Disney’s Scary Tales of Halloween” which omits the Headless Horseman segment and was aired in later years, usually with the syndicated version of Hall O Fame. To make matters worse as far as I can tell, both Treat and Scary Tales also had syndicated and network versions. However, it should be noted Scary Tales the Halloween shows are NOT the same as the Scary Tales VHS/Laserdiscs and the awesome Japanese laserdiscs.
A Disney Halloween (1983). 90 minute version, it is exclusive to The Disney Channel. However, as it omits Headless Horseman it adds Night on Bald Mountain. It’s pretty much a mashup of previous shows but with new content BUT it includes segments from the 1977 special, “Disney’s Greatest Villains,” which also had its own alternate version: the 1983 UK video release which included villains from live action films as Something Wicked this Way Comes, Dragon Slayer, The Black Hole and 20,000 Leagues under the Sea and the 1983 version was hosted by Shere Khan and Ka while the 1977 version by Hans Conried’s Magic Mirror. Disney’s Greatest Villains is an update to 1956’s Our Unsung Villains which featured villains from Song of the South.
Hope this helps. I have committed lots of time to correcting ALL the Disney Halloween specials throughout Wikipedia as the Disney Fandom wiki is locked for editing due to this misinformation. So I completely recommend starting at this wikipedia page and browsing through “See Also” for all of the neat Halloween specials, although for some reason they omitted the 1987 special DTV’s Monster Hits with Jeffrey Jones as the Magic Mirror: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Hall_o%27_Fame
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