The holy grail of Disneyana on DVD is Song of the South, the studios 1946 film which combined live action and animation for several memorable Disney moments, including the classic song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” Disney has made the decision for many years not to release the film on DVD because of the depiction of slaves, particularly that of main character Uncle Remus, who is shown to be a happy storyteller despite being a “plantation worker.” The movie sells on eBay for high prices when available, and bootleg copies have been available for years, however nothing new has come from the studio… although that may be changing.

Mouse Exec Bob Iger told stockholders at his first stockholder’s meeting as president that his decision was not to release Song of the South - a disappointing move from the man who replaced Michael Eisner. This year’s meeting had a different message from Iger, however. As USA Today reports, Iger announced that, “The question of Song of the South comes up periodically, in fact it was raised at last year's annual meeting, and since that time, we've decided to take a look at it again because we've had numerous requests about bringing it out.”

I’ve commented previously that Disney’s decision not to release Song was a bit silly, particularly since the animated sequences are available on Disney Sing-a-Long videos. Kids know these scenes already, so why not show them the context of them. Hell, DVD is the best venue for the film these days because so much can be added to the movie through the use of commentary tracks and featurettes.

Sadly, despite the discussion at this year’s stockholder’s meeting and the rage of reporting going on, there is no actual plan to release Song of the South yet. Once there is we’ll gleefully bring you the news (after we make arrangements for our own copies), but until then this is just talk and positioning from Iger and the Disney execs.