It's easy to see why the Walt Disney production "Escape to Witch Mountain" made an impression on young children who encountered it in movie theaters in 1975.

The movie offered a potent but mostly unthreatening and generally polite power-trip fantasy for boys and girls alike via the clean-cut persons of Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards. They played Tony and Tia, brother and sister orphans who possess seemingly supernatural abilities.

These kids can levitate, move objects with their minds and communicate with animals (including a circus bear, a black cat named Winky and a horse named Thunderhead). In other words, awesomeness is a birthright. This is a compelling idea for kids, who might feel they haven't lived long enough to develop identities of their own and might wonder why the grownups who take care of them aren't more "cool."

To coincide with the release of the new sequel/remake "Race to Witch Mountain" (which gives cameo roles to Richards and Eisenmann), Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has reissued "Escape to Witch Mountain" and its sequel, "Return From Witch Mountain" (1978), as "special edition" DVDs ($20 each).

Grownups who hadn't seen these fairly well-regarded and popular movies until now might be surprised to discover that, despite the guiding hand of director John Hough (coming to Disney from the scary "The Legend of Hell House" and the violent "Dirty Mary Crazy Larry"), the films suffer from the assembly-line "Disneyfication" that made the studio's products increasingly irrelevant (and TV-like) after Walt Disney's death in 1966.

Still, the movies should appeal to children, as well as to adults on a nostalgia trip.

Based on a 1968 novel by Alexander Key, "Escape to Witch Mountain" finds Tony and Tia searching for their origins at "Witch Mountain" after the deaths of their foster parents. They are aided by a widower (Eddie Albert) in a motor home, who helps them elude two bad guys (Ray Milland and Donald Pleasence) eager to exploit the kids' powers for personal gain.

In "Return From Witch Mountain," Tony and Tia are menaced by Bette Davis as a sinister society woman and Christopher Lee as a dapper but mad scientist who hopes to use the now-teenage siblings to become "the most powerful man in the world."

While Tony is struggling to escape the scientist's robotic control, Tia is hanging out with "the Earthquake Gang," a Scooby Doo-meets-Bowery Boys collection of four young would-be tough guys named Rocky, Muscles, Dazzler and Crusher (played by a bespectacled actor billed only as "Poindexter"). Also getting in on the action is Alfred the goat, who gives the movie's most impressive performance when he clops along a series of car roofs like a 1970s action hero -- a notion emphasized by Lalo Schifrin's typically jazzy score, filled with cues that would be appropriate for a "Dirty Harry" or Fred Williamson film.

Commentators on behind-the-scenes featurettes frequently claim that Disney had the best pre-Lucas special-effects department in Hollywood, but honestly, you can't tell it from the "Witch Mountain" films. Many of the effects are simple piano-wire tricks (ooo, look, a floating gun!), and even these aren't directed for maximum impact.

Each DVD includes commentary, a classic Disney cartoon, a "making of" documentary and other bonus features.