D-TV


D-TV is a music video television series produced by Charles Braverman and edited by Ted Herrmann. Premiering on May 5, 1984, on the Disney Channel, the series combined both classic and contemporary popular music with various footage of vintage animated shorts and feature films from Disney Company">The Walt Disney Company">Disney Company, created out of the trend of music videos on cable channel MTV, which inspired the name of this series.

Content

Most songs used in the series were contemporary hits, though older songs like Sheb Wooley's "The Purple People Eater" were also featured. These music videos were shown as filler material on the Disney Channel, as well as being the focus of several television specials. Home video collections were also released on VHS, Beta, CED Videodisc, and Laserdisc formats. After the first run of D-TV, in 1989, a second series was produced known as DTV².

Theme music

The main title music, known as "RPM", was created in 1981 by a recording company called Network Music. When the segments were shown individually on television, the title music used was from "Sunset Boulevard", also by Network Music. In the show's opening, a cheese-like Moon zooms out to reveal a black background with blue musical notes. A silhouette of Mickey Mouse's head rises from the Moon, and it exits below the screen. The letter D and the letters TV appear and zoom out to attach to the head. Finally, after a few seconds, the screen zooms into the silhouette of the head, which reveals several vintage Disney cartoon clips.

''DTV''

Many songs listed above were released on VHS, in five separate volumes. The first three volumes, entitled "Pop & Rock", "Rock, Rhythm & Blues", and "Golden Oldies", were released in late 1984, as part of Walt Disney Home Video's "Wrapped and Ready to Give" holiday promotion. In the Summer of 1985, two more volumes, "Love Songs" and "Groovin' For a '60s Afternoon", were released.

Television specials

Disney aired three DTV television specials on NBC in 1986 and 1987: DTV Valentine, DTV Doggone Valentine, and DTV Monster Hits.

''DTV Valentine''

DTV Valentine focused on love and romance music.

Songs

DTV Doggone Valentine focused on love songs with a tribute to Disney's dog and cat characters.

Songs

DTV Monster Hits was focused on Halloween-themed music and footage. It was also referred to as Disney's DTV Monster Hits by the show's narrator, Gary Owens. By this time, Hans Conried had died and the Magic Mirror, now credited at the end of the show as Man in the Magic Mirror, was played by Jeffrey Jones.

Songs