I have noticed months back how the audio master for 'The Klondike Kid', a Mickey title from United Artists, has been screwed with.

The fanfare in the beginning of the audio track is constantly warping in pitch, although I am not sure if this is a scanning issue; the earlier "Walt Disney Treasures" sets that include this short try to alleviate this problem. Soon after that, there appears to be an abrupt splice after the cymbal crash, heading straight into what appears to be music refilmed from the opening of 'The Delivery Boy'.

The next sound effect is another cymbal crash, which sounds as if it was naturally a part of the film's soundtrack all along as it heads straight with the visuals into the short itself.

I am curious to see if this peculiarity is present on the original release materials; a 35mm nitrate or a 16mm printdown with from any of those elements has yet to show up from any collection, private or public.

Does David Gerstein have any word on this case? Strange occurrences have happened with other Mickey titles from later within this period such as 'Mickey's Steamroller' and 'Puppy Love'.

I see what you mean, kazblox. This is another short that I'd like to see (and hear) the original titles for.

Have you been following Erik's channel on YouTube? He's uncovered and shared the original title music for "The Steeple-Chase" and "Mickey's Steam-Roller" (among many other rarities).

Pardon my post; the audio masters for 'Mickey's Service Station' was always intact. What I meant to say was that 'Mickey's Steamroller' lost it's title music cues.

Anyways, yes, I have seen what Erik has done to uncover. What I'm interested in is how these cues got spliced out; perhaps there were special occasions where the Mickey titles got certain reissues for select reasons after the early United Artists era and before the later non-theatrical reissues.

To slightly move the discussion off-topic, I have also noticed that the negatives to 'The Castaway' have an abrupt splice in the picture element during the last few frames of the end iris as Mickey Mouse waves goodbye as he heads towards the river.

Whether this is a result of editing done during the earliest reissues of these titles, which did something similar, I would not know. I am sure that Disney did not splice onto any masters during the United Artists era reissues, from what I can presume; but the prints for 'Frolicking Fish' used in 'More Silly Symphonies' say otherwise. Although, I am not sure whether the scan came from a separate positive or archival print.

I once saw a 35mm print of Puppy Love. There was dead silence over the (burlap/musical note) titles.

Exactly; furthering my point; the audio tracks were spliced out at some point. For any reason given, I don't know. It is no longer the time where we can answer the people responsible for handling the nitrate negatives during this reissue period.

Other investigations I want to sort out; 'Mickey's Good Deed' and 'Touchdown Mickey'. Titles in the United Artists era that are missing the headshots, including their respective audio tracks, leaving only the title cues intact.

Judging from the only surviving print I know of the theatrical version of 'Building a Building', thanks to Erik, they did exist at some point in their masters, but were also spliced out for various unknown reasons. The rest being the other title cues missing from the masters of the Columbia and later United Artists Mickey titles as stated before.

There are some false cases such as 'Mickey's Orphans' and 'The Chain Gang'; their title cues exist in the audio masters, but the early Treasures sets do not include them. "Complete Pluto", a later Treasures set, does include 'The Chain Gang' intact for example.

Going even more offtopic; I've heard of researchers such as Thomas Stathes saying that 'The Mad Doctor' never got a reissue; however, several prints I've seen show that '40's reissues of that Mickey title alone did circulate at some point, for a very brief time.

What happened to each short probably has its own unique history.

Remember that cartoons were not only reissued theatrically, but distributed for home and TV use. There were many silent, shortened and foreign versions of cartoons prepared for different markets at different times. There are likely cases where something was deleted, but at the time was preserved in a previous print, but at a later date, the version with the unique footage or audio may have been destroyed because it was believed to be a duplicate.

What happened to each short probably has its own unique history.

Remember that cartoons were not only reissued theatrically, but distributed for home and TV use. There were many silent, shortened and foreign versions of cartoons prepared for different markets at different times. There are likely cases where something was deleted, but at the time was preserved in a previous print, but at a later date, the version with the unique footage or audio may have been destroyed because it was believed to be a duplicate.

That could explain why The Castaway was missing a couple of seconds when it was put out on a Walt Disney Treasures DVD, could it? (The original press release for Mickey Mouse in Black and White: Volume Two suggested that there would be "alternate versions" of both Pioneer Days and that short, but they aren't present on the final product)

Getting back on topic a little, I noticed that not only are many of the Columbia shorts on Mickey Mouse in Black and White (the first volume) - and most likely the LaserDisc set that volume stemmed from - missing their original title cues (in most instances, these are substituted with the opening music for Mickey's Nightmare) and for some reason preceded by a Mickey headshot, but this headshot is accompanied by a fanfare. What's the story behind this mysterious fanfare?

That's the fanfare used in the black and white Buena Vista reissues for the Mickey titles. Now that you think of it, all the missing cues from the first sets of Volume 1 of the Black and White might be editing errors that were done when recreating the titles. It was likely an automated process done by a computer program or script that outputted project files to be used in an editor.

To add one last note before I go on the verge of the state of the topic; late 40's reissue prints of 'Wild Waves' and 'The Chain Gang' contain a splice at the very beginning within their audio master tracks.

There is a recovered Cinephone disk documented online of 'Wild Waves', likely struck from the masters of original release materials; does it have this error?

Strangely, the title music for "Wild Waves" is heard on "Fiddling Around", only it doesn't have the splice you mentioned. Similarly, I heard a splice-less version of the "Chain Gang" music on "Mickey Steps Out".

The opening music in 'Fiddling Around' was not refilmed; it was done in a completely different session. The same sheet for the specific rendition of "Minnie's Yoo Hoo" in 'Wild Waves' is used, hence the similarities, but there are now a few additional notes.

Disney only started refilming prerecorded tracks for title cues in the early 40's as a common practice.

To slightly move the discussion off-topic; 'The Castaway' has an abrupt splice in the picture element during the last few frames of the end iris.

How fitting.

All known elements I know of 'Mickey's Service Station' that were struck after the reissues are missing 3 frames of the end iris. As shown on Erik's own 16mm dupe struck from the original release material, these frames are intact!

As WaltWiz said, back when the second Treasues set of B&W Mickeys was due for release, alternative versions of Pioneer Days and The Castaway were listed as bonus features on the official website, but, disappointingly, these didn't actually make it to the released discs. David Gerstein informed me on the old forums that some scenes were timed differently in the two versions.

This is a total guess on my part, but it's possible these alternate versions were made very early on when these cartoons were made. There is an anecdote in The Illusion of Life that reveals that Walt was unhappy with The Castaway when it was completed.

BTW, I'm impressed by the in-depth observations and comparisons here.

Sharing my comments about the titles to 'The Steeple-Chase' here:

Hypothetically, as observed from my point of view, Disney always looked in the reel to find any exact legal licensing claims for bookkeeping purposes.

Reissues of any Pat Powers titles had all Cinephone references obscured, presumably and most likely due to legal complications.

Reissues of titles made during the Disney's license agreement with R.C.A. Victor, starting with 'Santa's Workshop' have "R.C.A. Photophone" credited as is. Reissues of titles starting with 'Mickey's Mechanical Man' credit either "R.C.A. Victor System" or "R.C.A. Victor 'High Fidelity' Sound System". See below for my explanation on that peculiarity.

In a strange case, the reissue titles for 'The Steeple-Chase' describe "R.C.A. Photophone" as the sound system being used, yet the original release materials evidently had the blurb crediting R.C.A's "Victor" system instead, once again likely introduced in 'Mickey's Mechanical Man'. Why?

Perhaps Disney lost the picture element to the original release titles for this short as well before the reissues were made in the late '40's? They, other than making an educated guess, would be the only way to exactly identify such a claim or byline being used.

I am assuming reissues in this case, where the original credits were already missing, credited "R.C.A. Photophone" as a fallback guess, as the surviving audio track element materials for 'The Steeple-Chase' are variable area.

Also, on a separate note; reissues of the earlier Mickey titles with the "R.C.A. Victor 'High Fidelity' Sound System" blurb write it in shorthand as "R.C.A. Victor System", as the opening titles in the original release materials also referred to it the same way. The end titles do write out the full line, but whoever was examining the materials did not bother to check.

I'll make a correction on a false statement: 'Fiddling Around' was indeed reissued under it's copyrighted title. 'Just Mickey' appears to have stayed specific to internal filmography listings.

On an off-topic note, look! 3 cels used for the non-theatrical reissues of three black and white Mickey titles.

https://comics.ha.com/it...eryView-Thumbnail-071515