Treasures from the Disney Vault, March 2018

Every three months on TCM, we get another installment of Treausres from the Disney Vault. The amusement park ride that was part of the original agreement was discontinued, and as I understand it there's no more TCM Cruise stopping at Disney's private island, but at least we still get some C-grade material from Disney, most of which I hadn't heard of before, much less seen. Anyhow, those Disney movies will be running tonight in prime time.

Looking at tonight's schedule, there doesn't seem to be any overriding theme that I can think of, except that none of the features seems to be set in the present day. There's the 19th century and earlier. Actually, no, I take that back; The Journey of Natty Gann is set in the Depression. The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (midnight tonight or late evening in more westerly time zones) has as its plot summary a family performing at the 1880 Democratic National Convention? Bizarre and with a Disney take on it, sounds positively awful.

There's some stuff from the British Isles further back which sounds more interesting. The Sword and the Rose (in the 8:00 to 10:00 slot) involves Britons in 15th century France, while Rob Roy (4:15 AM) is based on known material.

There's no Disneyland episode, although I don't know how much original stuff there was on Disneyland. By the time I was a kid in the late 1970s, the Wonderful World of Disney was running their old movies. The original idea for Treasures from the Disney Vault suggested we'd get the old nature documentaries too, and there are none of those this time around.

TCM has also screwed up the schedule by not listing the proper airing times for some of the shorts. I've complained about this a lot when they run blocks of two-reelers, but this time it's the same complaint I made a few month's back with the new Saturday morning lineup. It looks as though the night kicks off with a short The Golden Touch about King Midas, followed by The Sword and the Rose in that 8:00 to 10:00 slot, but both are listed as being on at 8:00 PM. Irritating.