This leads to my next point: The history offered on animation DVDs can be voluminous but by no means all-inclusive. I have yet to see the DVD which offers added features such as "Production Nightmares," "Personality Conflicts, Squabbles and Resignations," "Obscenity-Laden Budget Meetings" and "Behind-The-Scenes Marketing and Tie-In Negotiations." In other words, the history we get from DVDs is likely to be sanitized, rather like a hi-tech version of The Reluctant Dragon (made while the Disney studio was gripped by a rancorous strike) since no production is without its problems. There are features on some DVDs that highlight deleted scenes, but we are far more likely to see what was done successfully than see the painful mistakes and failures along the way. I, for one, believe that these conflicts, difficulties and pitfalls are an inherent part of a film's history and a direct influence on its final form.

The Collector's Editon of A Bug's Life offers an in-depth look at the animation process for students of the art form. © Disney Enterprises, Inc./Pixar Animation Studios. All rights reserved.

It must also be noted that some DVDs fare better than others where added features are concerned. Some, such as the recent release of Fritz The Cat, offer virtually nothing; a pity, since the mercurial Mr. Bakshi and many among his crew are still alive to tell the tale. Other DVDs feature endless trailers, sing-alongs that will please no one above the age of four, and interactive games that are scant competition for Xbox. March of 2000 saw a slew of angry customers besiege Disney following the release of Tarzan on DVD: The Mouse made it impossible to skip through previews that were basically shills for other Disney features (and the Disney Website). Only after four minutes of promotional material were viewers finally allowed to control their menus. According to an article by Greg Sandoval of CNET News (3/2/2000), "A Disney executive, who asked to remain anonymous, acknowledged that the film didn't include a menu option for the ads and that the company has received complaints about it. However, the executive defended the ads as a benefit to consumers." (This, it will be recalled, is the same company that released Toy Story: The Ultimate Toy Box, one of the most comprehensive historical documents on the making of an animated film; tant mieux, tant pis.)

The DVD, then, may not be a perfect tool for historians, but it is an awesome one nonetheless. A budding animation writer currently in college has countless methods of research available to him or her that the seminal animation historians of the late 1960s did not. The Digital Versatile Disc has, perhaps unwittingly, become one of them. Many children may watch these added features and decide to become animators or voice artists but if we are fortunate, there is a young Thucydides out there tonight watching the Collector's Edition of A Bug's Life. He swears to himself that someday he'll visit that studio, meet those people and find answers to questions that remain after watching how the film was created. Perhaps even as I write he is thinking up those unique inquiries that children frequently floor us with, elated by the fantasy of talking with John Lasseter himself as rows of animators puzzle out fractals in the background and voice actors arrive for another session of recording.

And he will feel perfectly at home. After all, he has been there before, without leaving the comforts of his own living room.

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.