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Snow White on video expected to dwarf field

 
Published Oct. 26, 1994|Updated Oct. 8, 2005

Kirby and Rebecca Troyer stood side by side Tuesday, staring at the plastic figures of Snow White and the seven dwarfs in the display window of Suncoast Motion Picture Co. in Tampa.

The 4-year-old twins from Tampa wanted to play with the toys. But their parents wanted to buy the video.

"This is a case of the big kids trying to talk the little kids into wanting to see it," said the girls' dad, Mark Troyer. "We figure we can fast-forward through the scary parts."

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the 1937 Walt Disney film that has captivated, charmed and scared movie theater audiences for years, was released on video Tuesday by Walt Disney Home Video. It was the first full-length animated feature movie ever made, and it is expected to become the No. 1 selling Walt Disney video.

More than 27-million Snow White videos were reserved by customers who put their money down for a copy before it was even in stock at stores, said Debbie Bohnett, vice president of publicity and promotions at Disney Store Inc. in Glendale, Calif.

If all of the copies are actually purchased, sales will surpass Aladdin, which holds the Disney video sales record of 24-million copies sold, according to Rebecca Page of the National Association of Video Distributors.

Jurassic Park, released earlier this month by MCA/Universal Home Entertainment, was also expected to surpass Aladdin in video sales, but MCA officials declined to say Tuesday how many videos they have sold.

The Snow White videos are selling for anywhere between $18 and $27, according to a random sample of Tampa Bay area video stores. And the video seems to appeal to adults as much, if not more, than to little folks.

"I've had so many customers who are in their 60s come in here and say they're going to buy it for themselves," said Michelle Lashien, who works at Musicland in Tampa. "They'll tell me about how they remember when they first saw it in the movie theaters."

The movie has been re-released in theaters every six or seven years since 1937, when tickets cost anywhere between 5 cents and 12 cents, according to Bohnett.

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