Last month, The Walt Disney Company officially closed its $71.3 billion acquisition of large chunks of 21st Century Fox. Specifically, Disney acquired multiple movie studios from Fox, including Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, and multiple television studios, including 20th Century Fox Television.
That means Disney is the new owner of M*A*S*H, AfterMASH, and the unsold sitcom pilot “W*A*L*T*E*R” starring Gary Burghoff.
Nothing should change for M*A*S*H. Presumably, Disney will honor all existing contracts and licensing agreements. M*A*S*H is still available on DVD, still streaming on Hulu, and still airing on multiple cable channels in the United States. I assume all international deals remain in effect as well.
Will Disney decide to release M*A*S*H on Blu-ray at some point in the future? It’s possible but unlikely. Classic TV shows don’t sell well on Blu-ray. Will Disney do anything with AfterMASH. Again, anything’s possible, but I doubt it.
I’m not keen on the idea of my favorite TV show now being a Disney property.
https://i.postimg.cc/jjqNq7kN/disneymash.jpg
Nor my two favorite movies, for that matter.
https://i.postimg.cc/ZY7H8Z1F/disneyfatso.png
https://i.postimg.cc/L6JTvwSd/disneydodgeball.png
So this means Maxwell Klinger is an official Disney Princess now!
It’s ironic to think that M*A*S*H,now being owned by Disney,has a connection to all those animated Disney TV series,like DuckTales,Chip ‘N Dale’s Rescue Rangers,Tale Spin,Gummi Bears,Goof Troop,Darkwing Duck,and all them. Never imagined.
M*A*S*H may never be available on BD, however since it was originally filmed, it has been remastered in HD, and is available for streaming, though disappointment, they’ve cropped the video to 16×9, instead of 4×3. Quality is still Superior to my DVD set (I Only purchased Goodbye Farewell and Amen) but cropping/zooming adds some distortion what would otherwise not be there, and may introduce some missing elements at the top and bottom of the screen, as it was produced for a different size TV Screen. Sides would remain the same, as it was cropped to fit, the sides should be unaffected. Wish they had remastered, but left the format alone, and left at at 4×3, Much like the HD remasters of Star Trek, and Star Trek TNG: The only series’ that seemed to get the formatting right, were shows that were originally filmed for 16×9, but cropped to 4×3 for TV use, like the X-Files HD remaster, Friends HD remaster, and That 70’s Show HD Remaster. Wish Disney would fix the screen formatting for M*A*S*H HD remaster, to its proper 4×3. M*A*S*H is still an awesome and deep show on so many levels, and never disappointing me as a whole. And this from someone who was only born between seasons 6 and 7.
The only good thing to come out of this buyout / merger was the reuniting of all the Marvel films in one company. The rest is hog wash I do not want ABC/Disney to own what is now to believed 70% of the film industry. The sale should have been split up by the FCC of the US Assets & CRTC of its Canadian Assets. The only thing they could not buy was the FOX Television Studios cause they owned ABC. Disney/ABC having so much control of TV & Film Content and all the IPs of Star Wars, Marvel, Simpsons and more will be lost in time forever. I am just glad that some of Walt Disney’s early stuff is now in the Public Domain.
Still can’t get M*A*S*H on streaming in UK & Ireland despite Disney’s ownership – I assume it’s due to syndication rights with UK Channel, Great! TV.
Did manage to get the DVDs second hand but in light of the streaming era, I forgot how cumbersome it is to change discs every 8 episodes or so!