An intriguing question posed to me in another forum: “Who is the worst Disney villain? Mother Gothel in
Tangled is
bad (kidnapping, brainwashing). The evil Queen from
Snow White?”
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From the beginning the rodents were always there, tiny sidekicks running around in the periphery of Disney animated features, starting with
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White’s woodland attendants included chipmunks, squirrels and rabbits as well as raccoons, bluebirds and other critters — everything but mice, it seems, though there is at least one mouse in the picture, an irritable little fellow in a mouse-hole in the Dwarfs’ house who objects to the sweeping squirrels using his hole as a dust-bin.
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Yesterday
I wrote about the possible effects of the box-office success of
Alice in Wonderland on fairy-tale revisionism in family films to come. The flip side is the box-office disappointment of Disney’s
The Princess and the Frog, which hit DVD shelves yesterday.
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Now, encouraging signs of change in recent Disney films
suggest that the Mouse may be starting to get the message. The
new trend began with surprisingly strong pro-family themes in
direct-to-video sequels such as Lady & the Tramp II:
Scamp’s Adventure. This positive depiction of family
continued in the theatrically released (though still low-budget)
sequels Return to
Never Land and Jungle Book 2.
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Is Home on the Range really the final entry in the
canon of Disney’s traditional hand-animated feature films — a
body of work that goes back to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
and includes such landmarks as Fantasia, Pinocchio, and Beauty
and the Beast?
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The modern era of Disney animated greatness started with a splash in 1989 when the promisingly fresh
The Little Mermaid hit theaters. Delighted audiences actually burst into applause at colorful show-stopping musical numbers like the sprightly "Under the Sea" and the enchanting "Kiss the Girl." Coming as it did after a string of uninspired releases (
The Fox and the Hound,
The Black Cauldron,
Oliver & Company),
The Little Mermaid set the stage for a creative comeback.
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