Black Hole Golden Book

As I've stated before The Black Hole cracks me up. Don't get me wrong, it's a good film and all but it's just such an un-Disney movie from a time when Disney films were very formulaic. Thirty years later the merchandising still makes me smile. Case in point, this Little Golden Book from 1979. First, you've got the title: The Black Hole: A Spaceship Adventure for Robots. That sounds like the literal title translation from an overseas market. Second, you've got a Little Golden Book, famous for cute stories like The Poky Little Puppy and The Saggy Baggy Elephant and this one is about murderous robots about to be sucked into the dark abyss of cold, empty space.

Poor Black Hole, it doesn't even get the fond recognition that other not-so-classic Disney films get, like Pete's Dragon, Bedknobs & Broomsticks and The Aristocats have achieved.

Anywho, here's some of the slightly bizarre uncredited illustrations...

I don't care how big of a Disney fan you are, ya gotta admit V.I.N.C.E.N.T. has always been a poor man's R2-D2.

The Black Hole Comic Book Ad

The Black Hole has always humored me as a Disney film. After passing on the opportunity to distribute Star Wars, Mickey was sure he had a Star Wars-sized hit with The Black Hole. It was pretty much the first movie from Walt Disney Productions that really strayed away from "the Disney formula" quite a bit and just didn't feel like a Disney picture. Even though it's quite different from the studio's earlier products, it was still marketed just like every other highly-anticipated Disney flick. So even though there were Disney firsts like mild profanity and on-screen death, you could still buy your share of Black Hole action figures, Black Hole lunch boxes and (in my case) Black Hole pajamas. Here we have an in-house ad from Whitman Comics for their adaptation of the 1979 science-fiction flick. There was also a Sunday comics adaptation that appeared in newspapers to hype the film. The comic strip version has recently been reprinted in Disney's Comic Zone Digest.