Epic Win: Disney Read Along Books
Submitted by TJ
The Disney Read Along book series taught a lot of us how to read. I loved that Tinker Bell’s chime signaled the reader to turn the page, (way better than Bob Seger… JK! LOL!).
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I had the Mulan one of these
awww… me too lol
When we did “Oliver!” as our musical my senior year of high school, I dug out the “Oliver and Company” tape, and blared Billy Joel’s “Why Should I Worry” whenever I had a theater event. It was at the end of the tape, after the book.
“The Fox and the Hound” had “When You’re the Best of Friends” on it.
I wonder if my Mom still has these squirrelled away somewhere. God, I hope so.
I had the Little Mermaid and The Beauty and the Beast (in Spanish) they were awesome. I never saw those movies when I was a kid but I loved listening to these tapes
“When you hear this sound….. brrrrrring! turn the page.”
When you hear yourself talk cover your lips with duck tape.
Bah….you guys totally missed the ones on record! (Though the tapes were cool.)
I had these on the old 45s too. Loved them!
Mine were mostly LPs. My sister and I would listen to them together.
My mom transferred the 45’s onto tape. One of them skipped during the process; I just remember Alice repeating, “I’ve had quite enough of Wonderland for now—nough of Wonderland for now—nough of Wonde—BRRRRRING!”
Me too! I’m glad I’m not the only uber-nostalgic one on here ‘=)
Oh man I had a few of these as a kid and I loved them. I wonder where they went I wanna go use them again…
those were cool and fun. I had a few on tape and records. they should bring those back on CD
I had the Little Mermaid one, and my bro had the Aladdin one. I liked that they had a song from the movie at the end of the story.
Books with a tape were so neat. It was like a super special thing, that you were doing two things at once.
My mom once bought a whole big bag of these tapes without books at a yard sale, I used to listen to them every night as I went to sleep.
Oh, I loved these! I used to put the 101 Dalmatians tape in my cassette Walkman and listen to it as I went to sleep. Same story on both sides!
I had a Little Mermaid one and a Pinocchio one. I adored the mermaid, but the freaky talking puppet… Not so much.
aaaw I rmemember that!! my brothers used to put tape on the casset to record over it.
Oh my gosh! I loved these! We had the Aladdin one! I still have the tape.
Heck yes! I had the Aristocats one (wow did I have a little kid crush on Thomas O’Malley, lol) I also remember listening to the Ernest goes to camp read along. xp
these are so awesome!!!
Sorry, but I actually READ to my children. Tapes are for lazy, over-busy or illiterate parents.
and most Disney stories were poorly distorted tales that resembled nothing of the original tales and in some cases were mockeries. Disney was not allowed in my home until after Eisner was gone.
I read the classic tales to my kids and they loved them.
Alright, settle down spaz.
Oh, please.
My mother took me to the library every week. She read to me every evening before I went to bed. She ALSO bought me these tapes and left me to my own devices with them. There’s a difference when you’re a small child between reading with your parents and following along with an audio track on your own. True, the books in the Disney Read Along series may have distorted the original tales and folklore that informed the animated versions on which they were modelled, but they *did* instill (in me, at least) a greater compunction to seek out other things to read on my own.
I’m glad that my mother (who, by the way, was neither lazy, over-busy, nor illiterate) saw the benefit in buying me these tapes, and didn’t adopt a holier-than-thou-I-shall-be-the-only-one-who-reads-to-my-children attitude, as you appear to have done.
Get off your high horse, SKat! Tapes were/are not for “lazy, over-busy, or illiterate parents” as you postulate. My parents read to me and my younger sister, and they also let us entertain ourselves with these tapes. We also read the classic tales (abridged at first, and later, unabridged versions.) I do agree with you that Disney tales, popular though they may be, are often distorted, but that’s really neither here nor there. If you can’t say anything nice about the Epic Win without cutting down those of us that loved these bits of nostalgia, then please don’t say anything at all.
My parents read to me, but I also got books on tape from time to time – most of mine were Charlie Brown ones. We had a considerable collection of books with an accompanying LP as well (e.g. Pete’s Dragon, It’s a Small World, Disney’s Robin Hood).
loved these! listening and following along in the book helped me learn to read early.
My folks read to me a lot, I read to myself way more, and as a special treat once in a while my folks would give me one of the Disney books on record. With tinkerbell telling me when to turn the page! Now my son is getting a healthy dose of original stories and myths, Disney stories based on myths, and once in a while as a treat a Disney movie. And occsionally when we visit my folks … one of the old Disney records. And it’s all good!
I remember having a bunch of these when I was kid. I had a numbers-counting one, featuring various characters, Bambi, Snow White, and several others. I remember having The Jungle Book, but it wasn’t like the others. It was more like a comic book/graphic novel, with very little to no narration. You could easily listen to the tape by itself, which I often did. A lot of times the books went missing but I listened to the tapes.
I remember listening to Radio Disney a few years back and they used to have (don’t know if they still do) a segment called “Circle Time” where they played one of these read-along tapes or CDs. The DJ would tell the listeners if they had their books they could follow along. I remember them playing Mulan, with Grandma Fa as the narrator.
Even to this day I can recite the introduction, word-for-word.
*Ahem*:
This is the story of [insert movie title here]. You can read along with me in your book. You will know it is time to turn the page, when you hear the chimes ring, like this: [chimes ring]. Let’s begin now.
I still have mine, left them at my Mom’s house for my nieces and nephews. They were purchased for me at Costco in the early 90’s and they still work (pack of books and cassette tapes). My set was missing 2 tapes though, had extra books.
I’m dating myself here, but I had a load of these on 45s. The funny thing was that the 45s had to played at 33, and we were forever forgetting to adjust the player speed correctly. Most of mine were in Dutch and I can still sort of sing the Winnie-the-Pooh song in Dutch despite not having heard it since the late 70s. Oh, and despite listening to these records over and over again I could still read two languages by the age of 3 (in fact, I don’t remember not being able to read), so they had no detrimental effect on my literacy skills.
I HAVE SO MANY OF THESE
hi – anyone know where i can buy one of these?
we had SO many of these. the books eventually fell apart, but we’ve still got a bunch of the tapes.
And it wasn’t Disney I don’t think, but I had The Rocketeer, and it was my favorite of all time. :3
I got a whole collection of these for a birthday. I loved them SO MUCH! I think the Aladdin one was my favorite. I also had a non disney one that I memorized enough to wow my parents with my reading skills. (I pretty much recited The Nutcracker to them, turning the page when I remembered a ding.) I am positive that I couldn’t do anything like that anymore.
I had a major thing for the infamous 1979 Disney flop ‘The Black Hole’ and my mom bought me all the official books and coloring books and the read-along record/book. It was actually pretty dark material for a 5 year old, I don’t think my mom ever really payed much attention to what the movie was about (many philosophical themes such as God, life after death, man vs the power of the unknown, etc etc).
BTW,the evil red robot in the film ‘Maximillion’ scared the hell out of me as it did many other kids as I learned from IMDB research
I had a whole set of these! It had something like 16-20 books and cassettes in a clam shell case. Fond childhood memories. I remember laying on my bedroom floor and listening to a slue of them for hours on end, but they not only were read, but the tapes also had music. The tape with the Rescuers when you first meet Penny on the bog boat, that music always gave me the willies! This is a definite Epic Win!
I had the Star Wars read-along, several A-teams, a MASK, Indianna Jones and the Temple of Doom but never a Disney Read-Along. These must have been such a god-send to my parents, since it freed them up from actually having to read me a bed-time story.
I had so many of those… I wonder where they went.
had a whole set of these too (L)
These were my gateway to reading without them i wouldnt be the nerd i am today
I had The Jungle Book one. You know how there was a ‘turn page’ noise? The noise for this one went ‘Brrrr-Ooo-Ooo-Ooo.’
I had a pop-up version of the Snow White Read a-long. I miss that old thing. It really got me reading more, though.