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Disney's Magic English is a series of educational videos produced in the late 90s intended to teach English to children through the use of clips from Disney movies and shorts.

In its initial run, 13 episodes/issues (From "Hello!" to "My Body") were made and put on VHS. Later in the early 2000s 13 additional episodes (From "Party Time" to "Fairyland") were made along with the DVD releases that would come bundled with additional content, like magazines and interactive DVD games.

After this re-release, 6 additional episodes were made (From "The City" to "Villains") ending the series with 32 episodes total.

Each episode talks about a specific topic, using scenes from Disney movies and shorts to introduce concepts. After one segment of that comes the Play Time segment - encouraging the viewer to interact by repeating phrases, answering questions and singing songs. This is followed up by a short segment called "Gag" which just shows a random funny scene from any Disney movie or short related to the main topic. After this it's back to the main segment, and the cycle repeats until the Three Final Play Time segments which serve as a recap of what was learned during the episode.

The original songs used throughout the series were provided by the French division of the Walt Disney Company.

Movies seen in the videos[]

Episodes[]

VHS Initial Release[]

  • Hello!
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Happy Houses
  • Animal Friends
  • It's Delicious
  • Happy Birthday
  • Tick Tock Time
  • Night and Day
  • Let's Play
  • Numbers
  • At Home
  • My Body

DVD Era[]

  • Party Time
  • Cooking
  • The Forest
  • The Sea
  • Let's Travel
  • Colours
  • Wild Animals
  • Funny Faces
  • Country Life
  • Music
  • Mountains
  • Changing Seasons
  • Fairyland

Bonus Episodes[]

  • The City
  • Wild West
  • Everyday Life
  • Big and Small
  • Faraway Places
  • Villains

Trivia[]

  • The music videos are similar to Disney Sing Along Songs, and the games have a unique version of Disney Scene It?, because it features all the characters in archive footage.
  • A couple segments have oddities, mistakes and peculiarities that break the usual formula and can only be seen once in an episode - a good example of this is Happy Houses - not only does it have two singalong Play Time segments as opposed to just one as it is traditionally, it also has a pitch shifting mistake in one of the Play Time transitions, and features an unique style of editing for one of the final Play Times that is never seen again.
  • Sometimes the more graphically stylized Play Time segments that are usually at the end of an episode can also be used earlier in the episode (in fact this can be seen in the very first episode) and some "repeat" Play Times can turn into "answer" ones.
  • Sometimes in the DVD Translation sections of the magazines, showing full transcripts of the episodes, you may encounter typos, or even misprints altogether, often happening with the final three Play Times, using the wrong graphic.
  • In some regions, the DVDs and magazines would be split into two - Showtime and Playtime respectively. They'd still be numbered separately, essentially doubling the amount of DVDs and magazines.
  • It is unknown if magazines for episodes 27 to 32 were made.
  • Disney films that were still brand new at the time such as Lilo and Stitch wouldn't be used in the main videos as they were all already produced, but you will find scenes from those newer films in the bonus material.
  • All DVDs feature a singalong song (ABC Sing!) about the alphabet featuring Pixar characters.
  • Most if not all scenes shown in the DVD bonus features have its audio completely remade, with different sound effects and music.
  • Notoriously, clips from any Winnie the Pooh media are completely absent from Disney's Magic English, despite the fact an older Disney video series, likely a precursor to Magic English, made use of Winnie the Pooh clips very often.
  • At one point in Brazilian Disney Junior (Still named Playhouse Disney at the time) some of the live action hosts would sometimes showcase themselves playing the bonus games from the Magic English DVDs.

Theme Song Lyrics[]

Chorus:

Magic English, Magic English

Look and speak and sing and play, hey!

Magic English, Magic English,

Have fun with Disney every day, Have fun with Disney every day!

Verse 1 (Changes depending on the localization)

Come along and discover English

Listen well, watch carefully

You can sing, you can play

And you can have fun with Disney!

Verse 2 (Changes depending on the localization)

Look! When you see "Play Time", it's your turn to play!

Play Time! When you see this, it's your turn to sing!

Play Time! When you see this, it's your turn to repeat!

Play Time! When you see this, it's your turn to answer!

Final chorus

Magic English, Magic English

Have fun with Disney every day, have fun with Disney every day

Have fun with Disney every day!

VHS/DVD Covers[]

Watch Videos

Magazines[]

The magazines (or "booklets") were bonus side materials that would ship with the DVD releases. They usually have simple games, activities and curiosities regarding the English language, as well as a full transcript of the videos.

Play & Learn[]

They're usually pretty simple logic games, though sometimes can also be board games, taking up two pages.

Activities[]

Recipes and DIY arts and crafts tutorials related to the theme of the issues.

Aladdin's Discoveries[]

A section dedicated to fun facts and trivia about several aspects of the English language, including figures of speech, slang terms, regional differences (British English vs American English) and more.

Mickey's Quiz[]

Two pages following odd situations starring usually Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Ferdie and Morty, as well as other children, sometimes saying incorrect things, scrambled phrases, and you have to correctly answer each question related to the situation happening.

Donald's Tips[]

A section more focused on grammar exercises and how to word specific phrases, also includes a glossary of words used frequently throughout the issue.

DVD Translation[]

Full transcripts of what's said in the videos themselves.

Goofy's Story[]

Usually put in the magazine as the back cover, Goofy's Story is a single page comic following Goofy's misadventures.

All pages include translations of the English text (written upside down) into whichever language you chose.

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