Sleeping Beauty

**Sleeping Beauty** is a UK VHS. This was Distributed by Disney Videos.

## Plot

The classic Walt Disney version of the Brothers Grimm fairytale. Thanks to a curse visited upon her by the evil fairy Maleficent, Princess Aurora falls into a deep and endless sleep on her 16th birthday. Only a kiss from Prince Phillip can wake her, and three good fairies set out to engineer that event.
Disney's 1959 *Sleeping Beauty* was the studio's most ambitious effort to date, a lavish spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapted from the music of Tchaikovsky. In the 14th century, the malevolent Maleficent (not dissimilar to the wicked queen in Disney's *Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs*) taunts a king that his infant Aurora will fatally prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her sixteenth birthday. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Fortunately, some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna and Merryweather are on hand to assist. It's not really all that much about the title character--how interesting can someone in the middle of a long nap be, anyway? Instead, those fairies carry the day, as well as, of course, good Prince Phillip, whose battle with the malevolent Maleficent in the guise of a dragon has been co-opted by any number of animated films since. See it in its original glory here, alongside Malificent's castle, which, filled with warthogs and demonic imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain creepy grandeur.

## Notes

* **Voices**: Mary Costa as Princess Aurora/Briar Rose, Eleanor Audley as Maleficent, Verna Felton as Flora, Barbara Jo Allen as Fauna, Barbara Luddy as Merryweather, Rosa Crosby as Queen Leah, Bill Shirley as Prince Phillip, Taylor Holmes as King Stefan, Bill Thompson as King Hubert, Dallas McKennon as The Owl, Marvin Miller as the Storyteller, Bill Amsbery as Maleficent's Goon #1, Candy Candido as Maleficent's Goon #2, and Pinto Colvig as Maleficent's Goon #3
* Release Date: January 1996
* Distributed by Disney Videos

## Opening Previews (UK)

1. Blue Warning Screen (1995-1997)
2. Closed Captions Screens (1995-1997)
3. Video Piracy Warning (Sleeping Beauty)
4. Coming Soon from Disney Videos
5. Pocahontas trailer (Coming Soon in Spring 1996)
6. Coming to a Cinema Near You (1995-1996)
7. Toy Story teaser trailer (UK pitch) (Coming to Life Soon)
8. Available Now on Disney Videos
9. The Lion King trailer (Now Available to Own on Video)
10. The Fox and the Hound trailer (Now Available on Video)
11. Coming Soon from Disney Videos (again)
12. The New Adventures of Timon and Pumbaa trailer (V1) (Coming Soon to Video)
13. Stay Tuned (1995-1996)
14. Disney Videos logo (1995)
15. Walt Disney Pictures logo (1985-2006)
16. Start of Sleeping Beauty (1959)

## Closing Previews (UK)

1. End of Sleeping Beauty (1959)
2. The End A Walt Disney Production (Sleeping Beauty, 1959)
3. Walt Disney Pictures logo (1985-2006) (silent)
4. Also Available from Disney Videos
5. Walt Disney Classics 1995 promo with clips of "Mary Poppins", "Alice in Wonderland", "Dumbo", "Robin Hood" and "The Sword in the Stone".
6. Disney Videos 1996 promo with clips of "Aladdin's Arabian Adventures", "Winnie the Pooh", "Disney's Sing-Along Songs", "The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Early Adventures" and "Disney's Storybook Favourites". (Which one is missing from your collection?)
7. Coming Soon from Disney Videos
8. Mickey's Fun Songs promo with clips of "Let's Go to the Circus" and "Campout at Walt Disney World".
9. Available Now from Disney Interactive
10. Disney's Animated Storybook - The Lion King advert (Available Now for Your Home Computer)