30th Nov 202327th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#9 Fun and Fancy Free (1947)

BACKGROUND

Due to the difficulties the Disney Studios faced in the 1940s, with the 1941 Animator’s Strike, and the impact of World War II on both the European markets and the animation workforce, the Studios released a series of “package features”. Fun and Fancy Free was released in this era of the “package feature”, being a more cost-effective film to release because of the financial pressure the Studios was under at the time.

Unlike the three previous “package features” to have come before Fun and Fancy Free, which contained four separate segments, then seven, then ten, for Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), and Make Mine Music (1946) respectively, Fun and Fancy Free consists of only two sections that tell two different stories: “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. These two stories were combined together, both being roughly thirty minutes in length, with linking material to make Fun and Fancy Free.

Of all the Disney Wartime Era “package features”, Fun and Fancy Free is the one I dislike the most, but not for its lack of detailed plot, not for the fact it simply joins two unrelated stories together, not for Disney’s loss of vision, but for ventriloquist dummies….

For some reason, ventriloquism seemed to be a more popular form of entertainment back in the day than it seems to be now, but as I have a strange fear of dolls, ventriloquist dummies, puppets – anything with a human face, especially if they move as well – I have only watched Fun and Fancy Free once, well, twice now, because midway through the film, as the second of the two stories is being introduced, Edgar Bergen appears with his two dummies, Charlie and Mortimer, for probably ten minutes in total – and I am not here for that.

Yet if I ignore the ventriloquism, which is difficult to do as they pop up throughout the narration of “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, Fun and Fancy Free as a whole isn’t terrible; it’s just not as enjoyable for me as the other five of this era. I didn’t find the stories as interesting, probably because “Bongo” is quite a dragged-out simple story and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” is just another retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk. The music wasn’t very catchy either. But like I said, it’s not awful, just not the best.

STORY #1: BONGO

The movie begins with the typical, for this time, Opening Credits and the title song “Fun and Fancy Free”. It’s quite a jazzy, Big Band-type number, like it belongs in the Golden Age of Hollywood Musicals. It reminds me specifically of Top Hat (1935) and Fred’s song “No Strings (I’m Fancy Free)”. But that could just be because both songs use the phrase “Fancy Free”. Regardless, as I like musicals, I was not surprised at how much I enjoyed the song. This song was written by Bennie Benjamin and George David Weiss, who worked together frequently, including on the title song for Disney’s Melody Time (1948), however, for me, I have heard of songs written by both of them but with different collaborators. Benjamin, for example, wrote the song “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”, with Sol Marcus, for Nina Simone, and Weiss co-wrote “What a Wonderful World”, which was first recorded by Louis Armstrong, and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, recorded by Elvis Presley.

Straight from this opening number, we then see Jiminy Cricket, who appears to be paddling on a stream, only to find he is actually paddling through some sort of indoor planter! He makes his way out of the planter and into a house, where he tells us “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow” in song. This song melds well with the title song, and again, I quite like it. It was written by Ned Washington and Eliot Daniel. Eliot Daniel went on to co-write “Blue Shadows on the Trail” for Melody Time (1948), as well as write the song “Lavender Blue” for So Dear to My Hear (1948), which was Oscar-nominated, and then compose the theme from I Love Lucy (1951-1957). Ned Washington wrote the lyrics for some of the music from Dumbo (1941), including “Baby Mine”, nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Song, and “When You Wish Upon a Star” from Pinocchio (1940), which did win the Oscar for Best Original Song. “I’m a Happy-Go-Lucky Fellow” was originally written for Pinocchio but for some reason, it was not used[1]. Cliff Edwards, original voice and singing voice of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio (1940), reprises his character again for Fun and Fancy Free.

After his song, Jiminy tells the viewers that everyone worries too much; we read too many serious things in books and newspapers, and we should all relax more. He then finds himself in a bedroom, with a sad-looking doll and teddy bear, and says he’ll put some music on to cheer them up. He finds a record called “Bongo”, a musical story by Dinah Shore. She sang “Two Silhouttes” for Disney’s Make Mine Music (1946), and was one of the most popular female vocalists of the 1940s, having 80 charted records by 1957. Shore later hosted talk shows in the 1970s[2].

Then we move into the animated world of “Bongo”. It begins by saying this is a story of three bears, but not the three bears story we know that involves Goldilocks; this is a love story instead. Bongo is a big circus star, being able to juggle, lift weights, and walk tightropes amongst many things, however, outside of his onstage performances, he is treated badly by the circus owners and moved constantly from place to place, never getting to experience the outside world. One day, Bongo breaks free from his train carriage and cycles away on his unicycle into the woods. Once he gets there, he realises that he doesn’t know how to be a real bear, as he can’t climb trees, hunt food, or even growl correctly. Some of the forest creatures make fun of him, including two chipmunks who appear to be Chip ‘n’ Dale, but Bongo doesn’t care: it’s a bright, sunny day, and he’s free, to just relax in the countryside and experience all of nature for the first time.

That night, though, as he settles down to sleep, everything seems so loud to him, like insects, bats, thunder, lightning and rain. He stumbles around the woods, trying to find somewhere calmer, eventually falling asleep. Bongo wakes up by a cliff, and is cranky and hungry. He tries to catch a fish but falls through a waterfall, where he sees a girl bear. Bongo thinks he’s dreaming, but she’s right there. Bongo follows the bear into the woods and it’s love at first sight for both of them. All the others bears in the woods surround them and stare at them, as Bongo and the girl, Lulubelle, stare into each other’s eyes – creepy. But they scatter, as a big bear comes stomping into the woods. It’s Lumpjaw, a huge bully of a bear, who likes Lulubelle, and doesn’t want Bongo anywhere near her. He picks Bongo up and throws him around a bit, before Lulubelle tells Lumpjaw to stop. She then proceeds to slap Bongo around the face, not once, but twice! Bongo is heartbroken, not understanding why the girl he loves would be slapping him. Lulubelle goes to slap him one last time, but Bongo ducks so Lulubelle ends up slapping Lumpjaw, who instantly claims her as his girl. It turns out bears slap each other when they like each other – who knew?

Bongo leaves the others bears and goes back to the cliff he woke up on. He watches as the others bear randomly square dance and sing about the strange custom of how their love is shown with a slap. Bongo finally twigs that Lulubelle was slapping him because she likes him. Of course! Because that’s what a normal person would think! Bongo tries to get close to Lulubelle, who is clearly unhappy with Lumpjaw, so he can slap her, and show he likes her too, but Lumpjaw isn’t about to give her up so easily. He tries to beat up Bongo, but Bongo, with his circus skills and unicycle, manages to avoid and outsmart him every time. But then, they both fall into the fast-flowing river, balancing on a log initially, but the log goes over a waterfall and takes them both with it, with the current being too quick to swim out of. It seems that both Lumpjaw and Bongo have been lost forever – except Bongo’s circus hat has saved him from falling over the waterfall, as it became caught on a branch. Bongo goes back to the other bears to win his girl with – you guessed it – a slap round the face! They then live happily ever after up a tree, as wild bears do.

Aside from Dinah Shore’s narration, both singing and spoken, and Cliff Edwards as Jiminy Cricket, there is no other real dialogue, mostly just sound effects. There are three other songs in this half of Fun and Fancy Free though, all performed primarily by Dinah Shore. Written by Bobby Worth, who also contributed the songs “Blue Bayou” in Make Mine Music (1946) and “Once Upon a Wintertime” in Melody Time (1948), the song “Lazy Countryside” is performed as Bongo enjoys being in nature for the first time. It’s a calm, relaxing song, if not particularly memorable. The next song is the love ballad “Too Good to Be True” as Bongo and Lulubelle dance in pink candy floss clouds and fall in love. Again, this song is nice enough to listen to, but I didn’t find myself remembering it afterwards. It was written by Eliot Daniel, who co-wrote the title number, and Buddy Kaye. Buddy Kaye wrote numerous songs throughout his career, which were recorded by singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Barry Manilow, and Cliff Richard. Daniel and Kaye also wrote the remaining number, “Say It with a Slap”. This is a strange song, not only for its lyrics, but also for its country feel, as it is performed when the bears start to square dance. But because of this, it was catchier than the other songs in this section of Fun and Fancy Free! This song, and “Too Good to Be True”, are reprised together at the very end of the segment, rounding it off nicely.

STORY #2: MICKEY AND THE BEANSTALK

And then, we are back in the room as the record ends with Jiminy Cricket, the doll and the teddy bear, who are both now smiling. Jiminy Cricket sees an invite for a birthday party on a table. It is addressed to Miss Luana Patten, a child actress for the Disney Studios at the time, who starred in Song of the South (1946) with Bobby Driscoll, the voice and model of Peter Pan, in the year before Fun and Fancy Free, and then reappeared alongside Driscoll again in both the “Pecos Bill” segment of Melody Time (1948), and in So Dear to My Heart (1948). The invite says the party is at “the house across the way”, so even though Jiminy is not invited to it, thanks to a reprise of the song “Fun and Fancy Free” titled “The House Across the Way”, he is motivated to break into the house across the street and see what’s going on at this party!

The word “party” is a bit of an over-exaggeration, it’s more of a “get-together”, because there are only Luana Patten, Edgar Bergen, Charlie McCarthy, and Mortimer Snerd over at this house, but who are these other three “people”? Well, this is the part I don’t like. Though ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, father of actress Candice Bergen, himself is not scary to look at, though he is doing some weird talking act with his hand at first, it’s his two friends Charlie and Mortimer who are the ventriloquist dummies who haunt my soul… I actually think the two of them are quite funny if I don’t look at them, because some of the things, particularly Charlie, come out with are amusing during this section of Fun and Fancy Free. Alas, even though I don’t like them, these are Bergen’s two most famous characters, with the trio being particularly famous on radio at the time. They would also appear on Walt Disney’s first television production, a Christmas Day special, in 1950, titled One Hour in Wonderland.

Anyway, back to this “party”. Edgar offers to tell them all a story, with Jiminy Cricket settling down on a plate to listen to it. After some delay where Edgar tries to get Mortimer to imagine the land of Happy Valley, only to find he can’t do it and asking Luana to imagine it instead, we find ourselves in a prosperous land, where everyone and everything is happy. In a castle on top of a hill at the top of the lush valley, the singing Golden Harp resides, whose singing and general presence seems to boost the area and all who live there. One day, a shadow comes over Happy Valley and the Harp is stolen. Now the valley is miserable and desolate. Many residents have left the area, but three poor farmers remain. Those farmers are Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Goofy. They have no money, very little food, and just an old cow who no longer produces milk. Donald is fed up with this way of life and goes a bit crazy, threatening to kill the cow just so they can finally eat. Mickey and Goofy manage to restrain him. We then end up back at the party, where Edgar has used Charlie to re-enact this scene. Charlie and Luana debate over whether eating the cow would make sense – which it would, but this film is meant for children, so naturally, Luana says it should survive.

Back in the story, Mickey goes to sell the cow, giving Donald and Goofy hope that they will be able to eat well again, picturing all the foods they’ll be able to eat now. Except Mickey comes back, and the cow has gone, but he sold it for magic beans to plant in the light of a full moon. Donald and Goofy believe he’s been scammed, with Donald throwing them into a hole on the floor and they think no more of it. Overnight, a beanstalk grows all through their house, taking them up and out of their beds as they sleep, high into the sky. They wake up to see a giant castle straight ahead of them and decide to investigate. They walk through a huge garden, row over an enormous moat, and eventually make their way into the castle, after scaling the large steps. They knock on the door, but there is no answer, so they crawl under the door to get inside. They’ve clearly taken some advice from Jiminy Cricket on how to break in to other people’s homes when you haven’t been invited to go inside!

On a table above them, they see a huge feast laid out. Once they’ve climbed up onto the table, they have at it, eating whatever they can, as fast as they can. But then, they hear a voice, which leads them to a locked box, also on the table. Inside is the lost Golden Harp of Happy Valley! She tells the three that she was kidnapped by a giant and that he keeps her locked up in this box most of the time. We then go back to the live-action party, where Edgar shows the others what the Giant looks like by making a shadow puppet with his hands. Back into the animation, we meet Willie the Giant, as he makes his way down the hall and to his table. It turns out Willie the Giant has magic, and can even shapeshift into different things. The three hide as the Giant sits down to dinner, but Mickey chooses to hide in the Giant’s sandwich – that seems like the last place he should be hiding, shouldn’t it? The Giant goes to eat the sandwich, but Mickey sneezes from the pepper and gives himself away. Mickey then reads the Giant’s palms, to gain his trust, which seems to work as the Giant offers to show off his powers. Seeing a fly swatter nearby, Mickey asks the Giant to turn himself into a fly. The Giant would rather become a Giant pink rabbit instead, and as he does so, he spots Mickey, Donald, and Goofy grabbing at the fly swatter. He catches all three of them and locks them in the box with the Harp.

Unbeknownst to Willie, Mickey is actually free, and as the Harp is taken out of the box to sing the Giant to sleep, Mickey uses a length of thread to abseil down to the Giant and get the key that unlocks the box. In the Giant’s pocket, along with the key, is his snuff box, which Mickey disturbs, sending up a plume of dust, which makes Mickey and the Giant sneeze. But Mickey gets the key, and frees Donald and Goofy. They make a break for it with the Harp, but the Giant wakes up and starts to chase them. Mickey stalls the Giant so that Donald and Goofy can get to the bottom of the beanstalk and cut it down. Mickey gets down just in time. TIMBER! The beanstalk falls with the Giant still on it. Presumably, the fall has killed him. But the Golden Harp has returned to the valley so everything is great again.

Back at the party, as the story has now finished, Edgar consoles a crying Mortimer, who is upset that the Giant is dead. This scene is seen briefly in Disney’s Enchanted (2007), when Prince Edward is flipping through the channels on the TV in his dingy hotel room. Edgar tells him that the Giant wasn’t real anyway, but then, in a shock twist, Willie the Giant rips off the roof of Edgar’s house and asks them where Mickey Mouse might be, quite politely, I might add. Edgar is so shocked by this turn of events that he faints on the spot. Mortimer bids Willie goodnight and tells him to quietly put the roof back on so as not to wake Mr. Bergen. Willie then walks over to Hollywood, lifting up random buildings to find Mickey, even picking up the Brown Derby Restaurant hat sign to take with him, as Jiminy watches him go.

Voice actor Billy Gilbert supplies the voice of Willie the Giant. Gilbert was known for his comedic sneezing routines, so when Walt Disney first saw this routine, he cast Gilbert in the role of Sneezy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Naturally, since Gilbert is so good at sneezing, Willie the Giant had to have a big sneeze in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, so one was given to him; when Mickey spills the Giant’s snuff box.

Speaking of Mickey, Walt Disney actually provided some of Mickey’s lines for this segment around 1940 or 1941, but he was too busy to do any further recording when production resumed after World War II, so Jimmy MacDonald, the original head of the Disney sound effects department, was asked to finish recording the lines. This was MacDonald’s first voice appearance as Mickey, but he would continue to voice the character from that point until 1977[3].

Clarence Nash and Pinto Colvig return to voice Donald Duck and Goofy in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. This segment of Fun and Fancy Free was the first time that Donald, Goofy, and Mickey had appeared together in a feature-length animated film. They had appeared together as a trio prior to this, but only in short cartoons. The debut of the three characters as a trio came in 1935 with Mickey and the Service Station[4]. For Mickey Mouse, Fun and Fancy Free was his second feature film appearance, with his first being Fantasia (1940), in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” section of the film[5].

In March 1953, a short cartoon titled The Simple Things was released, which featured Mickey Mouse and Pluto. This was then the final theatrical appearance of Mickey until Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1983. Mickey’s Christmas Carol also saw Donald and Goofy in a return to the screen, with Willie the Giant even reappearing, this time as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Mickey played a version of Bob Cratchit; Donald, a version of Scrooge’s nephew; and Goofy, a version of Jacob Marley’s ghost.

Anita Gordon, singer who performed for radio, television and film productions, including dubbing the singing part of Margy in the film remake of State Fair (1962), provides the voice, singing and spoken, for the Golden Harp. She sings two songs in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”: “My, What a Happy Day” and “My Favorite Dream”, both written by Bill Walsh and Ray Noble. Bill Walsh had worked on various Disney television productions, including Davy Crockett (1954-55) and The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59), and wrote movies for the Studios, such as Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968) and, most famously, Mary Poppins (1964), alongside Don DaGradi. Ray Noble was a bandleader and composer, who worked with Edgar Bergen during his career, and appeared in the 1937 Fred Astaire film A Damsel in Distress. Of the two songs, I like the upbeat, opening tune of “My, What a Happy Day”, whereas “My Favorite Dream” is a lullaby for the Giant and isn’t as fun as the first song.

Willie the Giant also gets a song here, “Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum”, where he talks about his magical powers. It’s good for showing us what the Giant can do, but it’s not the best song here; it’s also less than a minute long so isn’t much of a song! It was written by Paul Smith, who worked on numerous Disney movie scores from the 1930s to the 1960s, including Cinderella (1950) with Oliver Wallace, and Pinocchio (1940), alongside Ned Washington and Leigh Harline, which won Best Original Score at the Academy Awards in 1941.

Apart from a brief reprise of “Fun and Fancy Free” at the very end of the film, the only other song in Fun and Fancy Free to mention is “Eat Until I Die”, which is performed by Donald and Goofy as they dream about what food they’ll be able to eat when Mickey comes back from selling their cow. This song uses the same tune, but different lyrics, as the Neapolitan song “Funiculì, Funiculà”, composed in 1880 by Luigi Denza and Peppino Turco. It has been performed by many artists including Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.

The film score for Fun and Fancy Free was primarily composed by Oliver Wallace and Paul Smith, with Charles Wolcott as the General Musical Director. Wolcott had this role from 1944 at the Disney Studios, working on many of the Disney “package features” during this era, before transferring to MGM Studios in 1950. Wallace and Smith animated many of Disney’s cartoon short and film scores from the 1930s to the 1960s.

Jiminy Cricket is the only character to appear all through Fun and Fancy Free. This was his first appearance since Pinocchio (1940), but he would later be used to narrate educational shorts for children, many of which first aired on The Mickey Mouse Club television series in the 1950s. Jiminy even narrated the “Bongo” story, instead of Dinah Shore, for an episode of Disneyland in 1955. He also hosted five of the Disney Sing-Along Songs videos in the 1980s and 1990s[6].

PRODUCTION

Fun and Fancy Free combined two separate stories and packaged them into a full-length feature film. This was not the intention from the start as both “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” were meant to be full-length feature films, released on their own. The Disney Studios wanted to make a full-length adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk, the English fairy tale popularised in 1890 by Joseph Jacobs, since Disney had already used this story as a basis in 1922 for a Laugh-O-Gram short, then the Giantland short in 1933 with Mickey, and once again with Mickey in Brave Little Tailor (1938), which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.

In the initial planning, it was decided that this Jack and the Beanstalk story should involve Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, who were well-known as a comedic trio in short cartoons, but needed an opportunity to carry their own feature-length film. Development properly began on this story in 1940, with many ideas such as how the beanstalk would grow, the Giant’s dinner table, and the Golden Harp all being decided at this time. There was also a plan for Gideon and Honest John from Pinocchio (1940) to be the ones to trade Mickey the cow for the “magic beans”. But instead, it was decided that Minnie Mouse, as Queen Minnie, would be the one to do this trade, with her saying that she couldn’t just take his cow for nothing, so would give Mickey her family heirloom of a box of magic beans, which held a legend of fame and fortune should they be planted. This scene was storyboarded and voice tracked, but was not animated, and ultimately not used.

“Bongo” was based on a children’s story written by Sinclair Lewis for Cosmopolitan magazine in 1930 under the name “Little Bear Bongo”. There are a few differences between Disney’s version of the story and the original. One of these is that Bongo does not purposefully escape the circus train in the original story, but there is an accident on the train which throws Bongo out of his cage and into the woods. Another is that Lulubelle’s character does not exist in the original story. Instead, a female bear called Silver Ear catches Bongo’s eye, however, she does not return his affections, choosing to be with the violent bear Lump Jaw. The bears don’t like Bongo in the original story and Silver Ear and the others drive him away, as they do not like how “un-bearlike” he is. Lewis’ story then has Bongo leave the woods and find a new circus to join, where the Ringmaster sees how well-trained he is and takes him in, so that he can live in his accustomed environment again, this time with the circus’ other trained bear – a female – for company. Walt Disney acquired the story rights to “Little Bear Bongo” in 1941. Bongo later became a headliner for Disney comic books and was the title character in one of the very first Disney Little Golden Books in 1948.

For Disney’s “Bongo”, early story notes suggested that this would be a follow up to the story of Dumbo (1941) and would have used the same circus and some of the elephants. The early designs of Bongo and Lulubelle, whose original name was Suzie, were very different, and Lumpjaw was designed wearing street clothes. Some additional characters who did not make it into the segment included a chimpanzee valet for Bongo. A rough script for the movie was agreed in 1941, around the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7^th December 1941. This set off a series of events, like the United States formally entered World War II, Disney artists being drafted into the military, and the Disney Studios being used to make military and propaganda films for the war effort. Because of this, the two planned films were paused.

Once the war was over, it was difficult for the Disney Studios to build themselves back up financially, and this took a number of years, with the “package features” of the 1940s being some help with this. This is because they were cheaper and quicker to make. The Disney Studios also looked at making live-action movies with some animated sequences mixed in, like Song of the South (1946), because live-action filming is cheaper than animation. They could not solely release live-action movies because of their contract with RKO, which stipulated that they could only distribute films from Disney that featured animation. In 1946, Make Mine Music became the first Disney animated movie to be released after World War II, and was similar in concept to Fantasia (1940), using short segments of animation set to music. Because of this new format, the ideas of “Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” were revived and paired together, with both of the original story concepts being trimmed and live-action sequences being filmed to cut costs[7]. Many of Walt’s animators worked on these two stories, such as Ward Kimball, Fred Moore and Les Clark on “Bongo”, and Woolie Reitherman and John Lounsbery on “Mickey and the Beanstalk”.

RECEPTION

Fun and Fancy Free was theatrically released on 27^th September 1947, one week before a new Mickey Mouse short, Mickey’s Delayed Date, was released on 3^rd October 1947[8]. The movie received mixed reviews from critics, with some saying, though it was uninspiring and not on par with Disney Animation’s best work, it was a happy film that was cheerful enough to keep most viewers entertained; whilst others said it was mediocre and couldn’t be saved even with the names they had in the cast, like Edgar Bergen.

Financially, Fun and Fancy Free had modest success at the box-office, gaining around $3 million, which was fine for this format of movie. Unfortunately, unlike some of the previous “package features”, there were not even successes from the movie’s songs. Even The Three Caballeros (1944) and Saludos Amigos (1942) had managed to popularise songs such as “You Belong to My Heart” and “Aquarela do Brasil”, but nothing from Fun and Fancy Free really stuck in the minds of audiences, though the title song was covered by some artists, such as The Dinning Sisters[9].

“Bongo” and “Mickey and the Beanstalk” were later released separately. Aside from one episode of the Disneyland television series in 1955 where Jiminy Cricket narrated “Bongo”; “Bongo” was released as a standalone featurette in January 1971. The arguably more favoured section of Fun and Fancy Free, “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, has been aired on television in different edits. For example, in 1955, it was edited and narrated by Sterling Holloway, original voice of Winnie the Pooh; this version was re-aired in 1980. Another edit first appeared in 1963 with Ludwig von Drake narrating the story, and this version has been used for most home video releases of the story.

Following on from the release of Fun and Fancy Free, a similar format of two animated stories being “packaged” together would be released in 1949 under the name The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which adapted the tales of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. It was originally planned for Jiminy Cricket to introduce the two stories, as he did in Fun and Fancy Free, but this never happened. Instead, Basil Rathbone narrates the first story, and Bing Crosby the second. This film was also originally developed under the name Two Fabulous Characters, but this was obviously later changed[10].

LEGACY

An animated feature-length film was in development at the Disney Studios in the 2010s; it was going to be titled Gigantic. This movie would have adapted the Jack and the Beanstalk fairy tale, and set it in Spain. It was meant to include songs by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, now known for their songs from Frozen (2013) and its sequel, and be directed by Nathan Greno, who directed Tangled (2010), and Meg LeFauve, who wrote the screenplay for Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), amongst others. Its original release date was November 2016, but this date continued to be pushed further and further out, even as far as November 2020. In October 2017, it was announced that Gigantic had been shelved and that Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) would be released in this 2020 slot instead. The mystery of why this film never came to be remains unknown.

Another random addition to the “legacy” of Fun and Fancy Free is that in July 2021, Funko Games released a board game inspired by “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. The aim is to collect food from the Giant’s table and rescue the Golden Harp, and then get back to Happy Valley without getting caught by the Giant. It’s for ages four and up, so is likely a simple enough game to play, but how strange that this was made 74 years after the film came out!

At the Disney theme parks, obviously you can meet Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey Mouse at all of them, though they will not be attired in their “Mickey and the Beanstalk” outfits. You will also likely be able to find Jiminy Cricket at most of the parks, if not all. For a time, Bongo and Lulubelle were even walkaround characters, at least at Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, until sometime in the 1990s. They are both visible briefly during The Muppets at Walt Disney World 1990 TV special, in a segment in Frontierland with Fozzie Bear, though they both looked quite different to how they appear in “Bongo”!

There is also a shop in Fantasyland at both Magic Kingdom and Disneyland Paris, which features a beanstalk. Disneyland Paris’ Sir Mickey’s Boutique does seem to feature the costumed Mickey as seen during “Mickey and the Beanstalk” balancing on the beanstalk as it grows through the shop, though you will also see Knight Goofy jousting at another end of the shop, which is not relevant to “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. Magic Kingdom’s Sir Mickey’s is actually meant to be based on Brave Little Tailor (1938) and not “Mickey and the Beanstalk”, which is why the Mickey statue seen here is not wearing his costume from “Mickey and the Beanstalk”. But if you look towards the ceiling in the shop, you should be able to see Willie the Giant starting to open up the roof of the shop, as he does in the final part of Fun and Fancy Free.

During the Wonderful World of Animation nighttime show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort, in the central screen, almost at the very end of the show, within the compilation of scenes from various movies that follows the Encanto scene, you should be able to see a brief clip from Fun and Fancy Free. It shows Mickey trying to steal the key from Willie the Giant in “Mickey and the Beanstalk”.

Finally, since 2022 saw Fun and Fancy Free have its 75^th anniversary, though this was overshadowed by the much bigger celebrations of Walt Disney World’s 50^th anniversary and Disney100, a couple of pieces of merchandise were released to celebrate it. There were two pins released to the general public; one featuring Bongo, with Lulubelle hidden behind a moving piece on the pin, and a second of the Golden Harp, with Mickey and Donald beside her once this moving piece is moved. There was also a pin of Mickey, Donald and Goofy standing on the beanstalk, made to a limited edition of 1,000 and was exclusively released to D23 Gold Members for purchase.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Fun and Fancy Free was the fourth of the “package features” to be released during Disney’s Wartime Era, and, though I prefer the more musical ones which have lots of short sections instead of two longer stories, actually, Fun and Fancy Free isn’t that bad – even with my fear of ventriloquist dummies!

This movie may not be Disney Animation at its best, but it is no different to the other “package features” that the Disney Studios released during the 1940s, which were something cheap and quick to make that would be just enough for audiences who were still recovering from the horrors and hardships of war. They served a purpose, and allowed the Disney Studios to recover financially before making great hits like Cinderella (1950) in the years that followed.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Fun and Fancy Free (1947), pp. 25-27.

[2] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27^th September 2017.

[3] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27^th September 2017.

[4] Credit: Stacia Martin, ‘Goofy: 9 Decades of Showing Us ‘How’ It’s Done!’, Disney Parks Blog, 26^th September 2022.

[5] Credit: Jim Fanning, The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney (2016), ‘The Mouse who Started it all’, pp. 24-25.

[6] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27^th September 2017.

[7] Credit: Disney, “The Story Behind Fun and Fancy Free (1997)”, from Fun and Fancy Free (1947) DVD (2002).

[8] Credit: Jim Fanning, ‘Did You Know? 10 Fascinating Facts about Fun and Fancy Free’, D23.com, 27^th September 2017.

[9] Credit: James Parten, ‘Covering “Fun And Fancy Free”, CartoonResearch.com, 5^th August 2018.

[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 5 (2016), ‘The Disney Package Features’, pp. 65-73.

24th Nov 202327th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#51 Winnie the Pooh (2011)

BACKGROUND

To be clear, I love Winnie the Pooh – but I do not like this film.

The Winnie the Pooh 2011 reboot or revival is not the Winnie the Pooh that I watched in my childhood. Though Jim Cummings returns as the voice of Pooh Bear and Tigger, which is very comforting for me, there are a few voices in this film that put me off instantly, namely Rabbit’s and Owl’s, with the characters of these two also being very different from what I’ve known, almost like their personalities were swapped. I don’t care for the music either, with even the reinterpretation of the Sherman Brothers’ original theme annoying me.

The issue here is just my age. It’s not that Disney made a bad film: they didn’t commit a cardinal sin by deviating too far from either the source material or the previous Disneyfication of the stories, nor did they simply rehash the plot of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), the Disney Studios’ original adaptation of A.A. Milne’s stories. But for me, who went through my childhood with numerous Winnie the Pooh attractions, television series, and movies, some theatrical, others direct-to-video throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the 2011 Winnie the Pooh just doesn’t feel right.

During the 2000s, Winnie the Pooh as a franchise was making the Walt Disney Company plenty of money and remained popular. This wasn’t a situation like the Muppets, where its reboot in 2011 signalled a return to fame, because Winnie the Pooh and his friends hadn’t gone anywhere. They had been prevalent on our screens and in the Disney theme parks for years by this point, so why make this movie at all?

It’s important to remember who the Disney Studios were making this movie for. Not for me and my age group, but for a new generation. I’m sure many children of the 2010s love this version of Winnie the Pooh. It may even have been their first introduction to the characters, Disney or Milne. The parents of these children probably enjoyed it enough too, to sit through it with them. I, however, do not fit either of these descriptions, so I just found myself bored and irritated in equal measure. Winnie the Pooh is only about an hour in runtime, so how I found the time to feel this way, I don’t know, but I know I felt every minute of that hour. It was a struggle to remember exactly what happened either, but don’t worry, I painstakingly wrote notes so I could recount the plot for anyone who now won’t watch the film because I’ve made it seem so off-putting.

PLOT

Winnie the Pooh begins in a child’s bedroom, where we see all the toys sitting about the room, which resemble the well-known characters of the Milne stories. An invisible narrator tells us that this is Christopher Robin’s room and that it is full of items he likes to collect, including stuffed animal toys, like Winnie the Pooh, his best friend. We then see the Winnie-the-Pooh book open and an animated map of the Hundred Acre Wood comes to life. There, some of the animals are introduced to us, including Eeyore, Tigger, and Kanga.

We then move into the story. Pooh Bear is woken up by the Narrator, and literally tipped out of bed by the book turning upside down. Poor Pooh Bear, he looked so sleepy as well. But of course, once Winnie the Pooh is awake, he soon gets hungry, but all the honey pots in his house are completely empty, so he sets off in search of some, whether that be a new pot of honey or just a beehive. He then stumbles upon Eeyore. Eeyore is feeling gloomier than usual, but he isn’t sure why. Pooh notices that his tail is missing. Owl soon swoops in, talking about how he is writing his memoirs, when Pooh Bear asks for his help in finding Eeyore’s tail. Owl says they should issue a reward for finding a new tail for Eeyore, and posters are put up around the Hundred Acre Wood about this contest, with Christopher Robin running the meeting to discuss further and to announce the prize for the best tail: a pot of honey, something Winnie the Pooh would love to win.

Multiple items are tested on Eeyore, such as Pooh Bear’s own cuckoo clock, the red balloon that makes several appearances in the film, becoming a character all of its own, a yo-yo, a dartboard and a moose head, but ultimately, Kanga’s hand-knitted scarf is declared the winner, leaving Pooh Bear still without any honey and searching for some elsewhere. He spots Eeyore on the next page of the book, where the scarf has begun to unravel, so he still doesn’t have a tail. Pooh Bear goes to Christopher Robin for help again, but finds a note. Since he cannot read it, he takes it over to Owl. At Owl’s house, everyone else is over there, as Owl has decided that a chalkboard would be a good tail for Eeyore and he wins the honey. Pooh Bear asks Owl to read this note from Christopher Robin. Owl announces that Christopher Robin has been captured by a creature called a “Backson”, misreading the note which says “Back Soon”. Owl then proceeds to draw what a Backson looks like on Eeyore’s chalkboard tail and recounts the dangers of meeting one.

The group make a plan to lead the Backson into a hole and trap it there, leading it to the pit using a variety of their own items. Piglet digs the hole, and Pooh covers it with a blanket. An empty honey pot is left on top to further entice the creature to the area. The others have laid a trail of random things, leading to the hole. Tigger pounces on Eeyore whilst the others are working, believing him to be a Backson. Realising that it is just Eeyore, Tigger decides to make Eeyore a tigger so that they can fight the Backson together, with Tigger getting Eeyore a spring for a tail and painting stripes on him. Eeyore does not want to be a tigger and hides underwater, waiting for Tigger to pass by. As Tigger searches for Eeyore, he sees tracks in the dirt and gets scared that the Backson is nearby.

Meanwhile, Pooh and Piglet catch up to the others who are finishing up the trail of items. Pooh Bear is still hungry but is told there will be no stopping for lunch. He begins to see honey pots and a whole world of honey around him. He spots a honey pot ahead of him and rushes towards it – only to find it was their trick pot for the Backson, causing Pooh Bear to fall into the pit. The others walk by the hole and hear noises, believing they have caught the Backson. But then they realise it is just Winnie the Pooh. They start to discuss how to get him out when Eeyore walks by, now sporting an anchor for a tail, the anchor he found underwater when he was avoiding Tigger. Rabbit believes that they can use the anchor to retrieve Pooh Bear, but the anchor is too heavy and everyone falls in, except for Piglet – and Tigger who is nowhere to be seen. Piglet is told to find something long enough to pull them all out. He can’t find anything, except for a rope, which Rabbit tells him will be perfect. As there are six people to retrieve, Piglet cuts the rope into six individual pieces, now making them too short to pull anyone out… Rabbit asks him to knot the ropes together, but after some confusion, they realise Piglet cannot knot. Rabbit sends Piglet to go and get Christopher Robin’s skipping rope instead.

Whilst trying to find the rope, Piglet sees the red balloon, and also Tigger, who is dressed up as a Backson from his battle training session with Eeyore. Piglet rides the balloon to get away from Tigger, as Tigger also runs scared, thinking there is a Backson actually behind him that is scaring Piglet, not just himself. As Piglet flies across the book, he knocks some of the storybook’s letters into the pit, and then Piglet and Tigger also fall in. Eeyore uses the opportunity of being trapped to tell Tigger that he should be the only tigger, and that Eeyore is not meant to be one. Pooh Bear figures out how to use the storybook letters to build a ladder so they can all get out. Outside of the pit, Christopher Robin arrives with the red balloon, who tells his friends that he was away at school and that his note said he would be “back soon”. The group decide that as the red balloon “found” Christopher Robin, it should win the pot of honey – Winnie the Pooh just can’t win today!

Since Pooh Bear still doesn’t have any honey, he goes over to Owl’s house later and sees that Owl has been using Eeyore’s tail as a bell pull for his front door. Owl tells Pooh Bear that he found it whilst out and about one day, not realising that it belonged to Eeyore. Pooh rushes to return the tail to Eeyore, with Christopher Robin pinning Eeyore’s tail back on for him. This means that Pooh Bear finally wins a pot of honey, this time a huge one! He climbs in to it to finally eat. Christopher Robin tells Pooh that he did something good for a friend and is proud of him. And that’s the end of the story, apart from a short post-credits scene, which sees a Backson, as described by Owl but nicer, coming to the Hundred Acre Wood and deciding that he should return all the items to the “scary looking fella” in the picture, not realising that the fella is actually him. He ends up falling into the trap.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Pretty much everyone in the entire world knows what Winnie the Pooh is like: he’s a little less intellectual than his other friends; he’s childlike and giggly; and he loves honey. We see a lot of Winnie the Pooh wanting to eat honey throughout Winnie the Pooh, as that is what he spends much of his time doing in the film, trying to figure out where he can get some honey to eat because he is just so hungry. His tummy rumbles every few minutes, with a noise that sounds very similar to Tigger’s growl which is a bit odd – and loud. I would have preferred it if his tummy rumble was slightly quieter like in the 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh! Pooh Bear is still just as likeable and cute in this film as in the original movie and throughout the many spin-offs and series that have come since, though. This is partly down to the animators, who continued to use the original design of the character, because the characters never lost the people’s interest so their animated designs have not been changed significantly since they first came to be in the 1960s. Mark Henn was the Supervising Animator for Winnie the Pooh. Henn was also the Supervising Animator for other well-known Disney characters, such as Belle, Pocahontas, and Jasmine.

The other reason Winnie the Pooh feels very much like the bear we have all known and loved since the 1960s is because of his current voice actor, Jim Cummings, who has voiced the role since 1988, after the death of Sterling Holloway, Winnie the Pooh’s original voice actor. Jim Cummings has successfully mimicked Holloway’s voice just enough so that it has never seemed like two different voice actors have voiced the role. It’s perfect.

Also voiced by Jim Cummings is Tigger, whose original voice actor, Paul Winchell, stopped voicing the character in 1999, with one of Winchell’s final performances of Tigger being for The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction at Walt Disney World[1]. Once again, Jim Cummings has been able to perfectly imitate Winchell’s voice acting and give us continuity to the voice of Tigger for so many years, as well as for Pooh Bear. Jim Cummings has been a frequent contributor to not only Disney voices, voicing numerous characters for the Studios since the mid-1980s, but also for other studios such as Warner Bros. Tigger the character is still carefree and fun, frequently pouncing on his friends and loving to bounce. Instead of irritating Rabbit as he usually does, this time it is Eeyore who gets most of Tigger’s attention in this film! Andreas Deja was the Supervising Animator for Tigger, with Deja being most known for animating characters like Jafar, Gaston, Scar and Hercules.

Then, there is Piglet, who still continues to be scared easily and struggles to calm himself sometimes. In this film, that is seen mostly around the new terrifying monster they have to face, the Backson. And again, Piglet mistakes Tigger for being that monster and runs away from him. So that’s Piglet’s “normal”, however, I think they made Piglet too dim in this film, especially when Piglet is trying to find things long enough to get the others out of the pit they are stuck in. It sets up one of the more amusing moments in the film, where they all get confused over whether Piglet can knot the six pieces of rope together, or whether he cannot knot – see what they did there? But I don’t think Piglet should’ve been made to be this stupid because I don’t remember him being like that. Scared easily? Yes, but stupid? No.

Piglet also got a new voice actor after 2005 when John Fiedler passed away, so his voice actor here in the 2011 film is Travis Oates. Oates does a decent enough job as Piglet; his voice doesn’t sound dramatically different, unlike the voice Piglet would get for the 2018 film Christopher Robin, which is not good at all. Bruce W. Smith is the Supervising Animator for Piglet, as well as Kanga and Roo. Smith animated characters such as Pacha, Dr. Facilier, and Kerchak, and co-created The Proud Family (2001-present) animated television series.

We still have Eeyore being as gloomy as ever in Winnie the Pooh, with his tail going missing and everyone trying to find an alternative being one of the primary story elements of the film. It makes Eeyore feel good that everyone around him is trying to help find a new tail though, and when he gets his actual one back, he even smiles a little bit and thanks Pooh Bear for finding it. Eeyore has had many voice actors over the years, but for the 2011 film, Bud Luckey was chosen to voice the character, and Eeyore sounds more or less as I’d expect him to. Luckey was most known for being a character designer for Pixar, working on many of their earlier movies. He also voiced characters for Pixar, such as Chuckles the Clown in Toy Story 3 (2010) and Rick Dicker in The Incredibles (2004). Luckey directed, wrote, sang, narrated and voiced all of the characters in the Pixar short Boundin’ (2004), which won the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Film and was nominated for the Academy Award in the same category. Luckey passed away in 2018. Randy Haycock was the Supervising Animator for Eeyore, where he said that they added eyelids to the character for the first time here, giving him more expression in his face.

Now for some of the characters I do not like in Winnie the Pooh, due to either their voice, animation, or personality! Firstly: Rabbit and Owl. I feel like they have had some of their personality switched for some reason. To me, Rabbit was the serious, practical leader of the group, who mostly knew what he was doing and took control over the difficult situations the group found themselves in, with differing levels of success. Owl was the one the group went to for specific information, thinking he is the most knowledgeable of them all, but not entirely trusting what he had to say. Instead, in Winnie the Pooh, it seems like Owl is very much the leader here, giving them all motivational speeches, and having all the ideas, like issuing a reward for finding Eeyore’s tail. The scene of Owl reading the note, misreading “back soon” as “Backson” is right to me though, as Owl does a similar thing in the direct-to-video sequel Pooh’s Grand Adventure (1997) with “school” and “Skull”, but now Owl has suddenly become smarter in some areas, only to make a critical mistake here. He also gets annoyed really easily, like Rabbit would normally have done, yet in this film, Rabbit doesn’t get all that annoyed, even when Piglet cuts that rope. It doesn’t make much sense to me, and I just don’t like how these two characters have been written for this film.

The other problem I have with both of them is their voice actors. Ken Sansom did not return to voice Rabbit in this film, despite apparently still being under contract, and as he passed away in October 2012, this would have been his last opportunity to voice the character. Instead, Tom Kenny, most known for voicing SpongeBob SquarePants, came in to voice Rabbit. Kenny tries to make Rabbit sound similar to the other screen adaptations that Disney has made, but he doesn’t quite manage it. But Owl is the worst for me, voiced by former late night talk show host, Craig Ferguson. Though I can see that Ferguson is trying to make Owl sound posh and very English, the problem I think we have is that Ferguson has a strong Scottish accent, so by making himself sound English, he has gone too far and over-exaggerated the voice. I don’t have anything against Craig Ferguson – I thought he was great as Lord Macintosh in Brave (2012) where he could be his naturally Scottish self – but I don’t think he is right for the voice of Owl here. Dale Baer was the Supervising Animator for Owl, who was the animator for characters such as Yzma, Wilbur Robinson and Alameda Slim. Baer said that Ferguson ad-libbed most of his lines[2]. Eric Goldberg was the Supervising Animator for Rabbit; Golberg co-directed Pocahontas (1995) and animated characters like Genie and Philoctetes. Though the character designs of Rabbit and Owl are mostly the same, at times, they do end up with very large, wide eyes, which is unusual.

Finally, I have a problem with how Christopher Robin looks and sounds. For his design, Christopher Robin was given human eyes, instead of black dots like he had in previous adaptations from Disney. Mark Henn, the Supervising Animator for Christopher Robin, said this was to update the character to make him look more like a real human boy[3]. He was also given a smart school uniform to wear, clearly showing his family’s social class, or the time period of the film, as this is not what most children in the UK wear to school these days! I just don’t like how he looks, probably because I’m used to Christopher Robin with his black dot eyes and his yellow shirt and blue shorts; he just looks strange to me here. Jack Boulter was brought in to voice Christopher Robin. Although more authentic to the real person behind the character, as Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh now sounds like a young British boy, I just can’t get used to it. It’s not the voice of Christopher Robin that I’ve known for years, which has been a vaguely American accent.

English actor and comedian John Cleese voices the Narrator, since Winnie the Pooh adaptations always need an English narrator! John Cleese does a good job here as the Narrator, as he doesn’t have to sound like anybody else but himself. Cleese is best known for his work as part of the Monty Python comedy troupe, as well as starring in sitcoms such as Fawlty Towers (1975-79), and various movies, including A Fish Called Wanda (1988), and as Nearly Headless Nick in the first two Harry Potter films, and has done voice work, as King Harold in the Shrek franchise from 2004 to 2010, for example.

The final characters to mention are Kanga and Roo, who do not have much of a role in this film, at least not in terms of dialogue; they appear in the movie, helping the others, but they aren’t hugely important in my opinion. This time, Kanga is voiced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who also wrote the music for the film alongside her husband, Robert Lopez. Roo is voiced by Wyatt Dean Hall. Oh, and there is also the Backson, who appears right at the end of the movie, voiced by Huell Howser. Strangely enough, we find that the Backson has a very Southern accent, which surprised me after all that Britishness!

PRODUCTION

To properly talk about how Disney Animation made this 2011 film, it is important to go back to where the creations began. In 1924, the character Winnie-the-Pooh first appeared in a collection of poems by A.A. Milne titled When We Were Very Young. In 1926, a book of stories simply titled Winnie-the-Pooh was released, with another collection of poems, Now We Are Six, being published in 1927, which contained some illustrations of Winnie-the-Pooh. A final children’s book of stories about Pooh Bear and friends by A.A. Milne was published in 1928: The House at Pooh Corner. These were based on his son, Christopher Robin, and his teddy bear, which he named “Winnie” after Winnipeg the black bear at London Zoo and “Pooh” after a swan he saw on holiday. After 1928, Milne did not want to write any more of these stories, and came to resent the books as Milne felt they overshadowed his more serious work. Not only that, but the childhood fame that the real Christopher Robin received as a result of being mentioned in the books, took its toll on both Christopher Robin and his relationship with his parents. He was bullied at boarding school, and blamed his childhood fame for struggling to find work later in life[4]. This difficult past was depicted in the movie Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017), which was not made by Disney.

In July 1961, the Walt Disney Studios obtained the rights to make an animated film about Winnie the Pooh and the rest of Milne’s characters and stories, however, Disney Animation did not announce anything until a few years later. During production, Walt Disney was unsure about how American audiences would respond to these very British stories. This is something that Walt felt had been the problem with Alice in Wonderland’s (1951) audience response, as the film received mixed reviews at the time of its release. With this in mind, Walt Disney decided they should make the first story a featurette, in case it fell flat, though there was some creative license used to give the British stories more of an appeal with American viewers.

Woolie Reitherman, who directed the first featurette, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966), said that the British press were incredibly critical of Piglet being left out of the story, with an American gopher, a new invention by Disney and not be A.A. Milne, somehow making the final cut. Midwestern accents were also used for the characters, instead of British ones – something that the 2011 film seems to go some way in correcting, specifically with the voice of Christopher Robin. Milne’s niece, Angela, would later say that Milne had wanted his stories to be more American, however, his publishers had told him to retain the Britishness. Milne’s widow was also happy enough with the Disney featurette, though Shephard, who had drawn the original illustrations, hated it. But despite British criticism, American audiences loved it, and this led to a second featurette being made, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974) rounded out the three original featurettes, which were then combined to make The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) feature-length film.

After many years of attempts, the Walt Disney Company finally obtained exclusive rights in 2009, meaning that they retain the copyright and trademarks to the Disney versions of the characters, though Milne’s book, along with others such as Felix Salten’s Bambi, a Life in the Woods, fell into the public domain in 2023[5]. Due to this, a horror film, titled Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey (2023), directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, was released in early 2023. It was subsequently panned, but that hasn’t stopped the director from planning a sequel to it, or planning to do the same with the likes of Bambi.

But back to the 2011 film. There hadn’t been a theatrical movie release from Disney of a Winnie the Pooh story since Pooh’s Heffalump Movie in 2005, a film that I still very much like. When Pixar was acquired by Disney in 2006, John Lasseter was named the Chief Creative Officer of both Pixar and Walt Disney Feature Animation. Lasseter expressed interest in producing a new Winnie the Pooh movie. He approached Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall, who had both worked on Meet the Robinsons (2007), to direct this new film. Legendary Disney artist Burny Mattinson was also brought on to the project, working as lead storyboard artist. He was 76 at the time. Mattinson had worked on the original 1977 film so his knowledge was incredibly useful to the current crop of animators. He even pitched the five-minute sequence of Eeyore losing his tail, based on Milne’s story, which convinced the Disney executives to make a feature-length film, instead of another featurette.

Burny Mattinson was an employee of the Disney Studios from 1953 until his death in February 2023. He had worked on numerous Disney animated movies throughout his time with the company, and became a Disney Legend in 2008. Mattinson has a live-action cameo appearance in the Once Upon a Studio 2023 short, celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the Disney company. That and Wish (2023) are both dedicated to him. Mattinson was the longest serving employee of The Walt Disney Company.

The team working on Winnie the Pooh went on a trip to Ashdown Forest in Sussex, to look closer at the area that had inspired A.A. Milne’s stories. Disney decided that the movie had to be traditionally animated, i.e., hand-drawn animation, as using CG would do a disservice to the characters. Therefore, the characters look more or less the same as they always have done, but, with the addition of new technology, the clean-up of the images is better and neater, giving them a fresher look.

The 2011 film does feel more like a complete story than the 1977 film, as it is quite plain to see that The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) was three short featurettes put together with some linking material. There are some similarities between the two as well, other than the character designs. Both movies begin in Christopher Robin’s bedroom, which is filled with cuddly toys. Sylvia Mattinson, wife of Burny, made the stuffed Winnie the Pooh that features in the 2011 movie. It was meant to be used in the 1977 film, but, for some reason, never was[6]. Also, both films begin with the opening of the Winnie-the-Pooh book, before taking us into the animated map of the Hundred Acre Wood. I was also pleased to see the characters interacting with the Narrator, as well as the pages and the words of the actual storybook, as they do in the 1977 film.

Originally, Winnie the Pooh was going to be based on five of A.A. Milne’s stories. As far back as November 2010, it was still stated that the team had used five of Milne’s stories as the basis for the film’s plot. This is also evident from the official trailer, released to the public that same month, where many scenes from the trailer did not appear in the final cut of the film[7]. The trailer curiously used the Keane song “Somewhere Only We Know”, which does not appear anywhere in the movie, unsurprisingly! In the end, the three stories that Winnie the Pooh is based on are: “In Which Eeyore Loses a Tail and Pooh Finds One” and “In Which Piglet Meets a Heffalump”, from Winnie-the-Pooh, the 1926 children’s book, and “In Which Rabbit Has a Busy Day, and We Learn What Christopher Robin Does in the Mornings”, from The House at Pooh Corner 1928 book, though some elements of these stories have been changed for the 2011 film. The books show Rabbit finding the original note from Christopher Robin that speaks of a “Backson”, and the trap hole originally being meant for a Heffalump, not a Backson. One of the unused story elements would have included a scene meeting Rabbit’s friends and relations. Pooh is looking for some honey and sees some on Rabbit’s table. He is told it is not for him, but for Rabbit’s friends and relations. Sure enough, they soon come by, eat everything on the table, and then swiftly leave[8].

MUSIC

When watching Winnie the Pooh, I was not a fan of its music, but luckily many of the songs are less than two minutes long. Though the film begins with the original title song, “Winnie the Pooh”, written by longtime Disney collaborators Richard and Robert Sherman, known as the Sherman Brothers, it is performed by Zooey Deschanel, known for her starring role in the sitcom New Girl (2011-18) as well as for her role in the Christmas film Elf (2003), in which she also sings. I do not like her singing voice much, but I’m not saying she isn’t a good singer; it’s just personal preference. I am at least glad that this original number did make it in the new film in some form.

Aside from the End Credits song, “So Long”, the other seven songs in the film were written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who would later become known as the creators of those catchy numbers from Frozen (2013) and Frozen II (2019). The two had also composed the music for Finding Nemo – The Musical at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World, which officially opened in 2007.

The first song of the film is called “The Tummy Song”, performed by Winnie the Pooh, as he’s searching for honey after he wakes up. It’s not a terrible song, but it’s not as good as “Rumbly in my Tumbly”, which appears in the 1977 film. Zooey Deschanel then returns to perform the song “A Very Important Thing to Do”, as the group start searching for Eeyore’s tail. I didn’t like this song at all. A feeling I also encountered with the next song “Winner Song”; as different members of the group are named the winner of the contest for Eeyore’s tail. It’s just annoying. “The Backson Song” is sung primarily by Craig Ferguson as Owl, as he details exactly what a Backson is to the rest of the group. It’s an interesting scene, animation-wise, as it uses animated chalk drawings to show us what a Backson is. The song itself, though inspired by “Heffalumps and Woozles” from the 1977 film, is not nearly as good as the original. I did like the end of the song though, as Owl almost realises that “Backson” sounds like “Back Soon” and he perhaps could’ve read the note incorrectly.

“It’s Gonna Be Great” is the most energetic of the music in Winnie the Pooh, probably because it is mostly performed by Tigger, as he tries to teach Eeyore how to be a tigger, and shows how they can defeat the Backson together. Zooey Deschanel and the Lopez duo then contribute the backing vocals to Winnie the Pooh’s next solo, “Everything Is Honey”, as he envisages a whole world of honey just for him. It’s a cute song, and I quite like the visuals of islands of honey and overflowing honey pots. Both of these two songs are probably the ones I like the most in the whole soundtrack. “Pooh’s Finale”, Pooh Bear’s winner’s song after he has returned Eeyore’s tail, which is mostly a reprise of “Everything Is Honey”, is just ok.

Finally, “So Long” appears during the End Credits. This song was written and performed by Zooey Deschanel, and is the longest of all the songs at over three minutes. It’s meant to be a kind of cross between pop and country genres I think, but I didn’t enjoy it. Again, this might have something to do with me not really liking Deschanel’s singing voice. The Grammy Awards very much disagreed with me though as this song was nominated in the category of “Best Song Written for Visual Media” at the 2012 Grammys Ceremony. It lost out to “I See the Light” from Tangled (2010).

The score for Winnie the Pooh was composed by Henry Jackman, with additional music from Christopher Willis. Though I couldn’t pick out individual instrumental pieces from the score that stood out to me, I did feel like the score was more in keeping with the original score of the 1977 movie, composed by Buddy Baker, than the new songs are, compared with those of the Sherman Brothers. Jackman would return to the Disney Studios a few more times, to work on the music for Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018). Willis went on to compose the score for movies such The Death of Stalin (2017), and television series such as Schmigadoon! (2021-present). For Disney, Willis has composed the music for the latest Mickey Mouse shorts (2013-2023).

RECEPTION

At Disney’s Hollywood Studios Park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida, to promote the Winnie the Pooh movie, Winnie the Pooh replaced the Lotso meet-and-greet at the now-closed Magic of Disney Animation building in June 2011. This meet-and-greet location had guests walk past pages from the Winnie-the-Pooh book to then see Pooh Bear meeting guests in front of a background of his house[9].

D23 had a paid-for advance screening event for the film, calling it “A Wonderful Morning with Winnie the Pooh”. It was held on the weekend before the release of the movie, so either 9th or 10th July 2011, at El Capitan Theater in Hollywood. The event included a showing of the full movie, a small continental breakfast, a movie poster, and a panel with some of the animators who worked on the movie[10].

Winnie the Pooh was released in some cinemas, mostly in European countries such as Germany and the UK, in April 2011. However, the film did not get released to theatres in the US until 15th July 2011, which meant that the American people had a choice to make: watch Winnie the Pooh, or choose Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 instead, which was released on the exact same day in the US. Not a great start for Disney seeing as this was the culmination of the entire Harry Potter story, so really, they didn’t have much chance in coaxing anybody over the age of eleven to see Winnie the Pooh instead of Harry Potter – not unless they happened to be a parent of a young child. Not even if Disney had somehow managed to get, let’s say, Daniel Radcliffe to voice Winnie the Pooh, Ralph Fiennes to be Owl, Alan Rickman to be Eeyore, and Rupert Grint to voice Piglet, would they have managed to get that older demographic to tear themselves away from Harry Potter.

Still, those who went to watch Winnie the Pooh did seem to like it. Some enjoyed the fact that this was a return to traditional animation once more, after Disney’s The Princess and the Frog was released in 2009, though Winnie the Pooh was the final outing of 2D animation by the Disney Studios, at least for now anyway. The songs received a mixed response; however, it was generally agreed that this movie would appeal most to young children and the nostalgia factor was a reason for older people to watch. Some felt the movie was a bit too short, with a runtime of just over an hour.

Winnie the Pooh was released alongside the short The Ballad of Nessie (2011), narrated by Billy Connolly and obviously based on the legend of the Loch Ness Monster, sometimes nicknamed “Nessie”. It was said that Nessie cried so much at having her first home destroyed and replaced with a miniature golf course that she made a whole loch of her own tears and made that her home. It was a pleasant enough short cartoon and I liked Billy Connolly’s narration, but it wasn’t exceptional, unlike previous Pixar or Disney shorts.

Unfortunately, Winnie the Pooh just didn’t get enough of an audience, and only made just over $50 million worldwide. This is more than its supposed $30 million budget, but it would have lost money due to its marketing costs, however, this was likely recouped from the subsequent DVD and Blu-Ray releases. But, as I said, the movie did get quite positive reviews, which led to Winnie the Pooh being nominated for Annie Awards, in areas such as Music, Directing, Writing, and Character Animation for Andreas Deja and Mark Henn. It won the Annie Award for Storyboarding in a Feature Production, which is better than nothing!

LEGACY

Though the original 1977 film The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh spanned multiple films, television series, and specials, as well as video games and a theme park attraction, from 1977 right up until the release of the 2011 Winnie the Pooh movie, nothing much has come out of the franchise since then.

In 2018, Disney released a live-action/animated film starring Ewan McGregor as an adult Christopher Robin. The film sees Christopher Robin reunite with Winnie the Pooh to take him back to the Hundred Acre Wood. Whilst there, all of his other childhood friends appear and try to get him to rediscover his inner child. At the same time, Christopher Robin realises that his high-pressure job has caused him to neglect his wife and daughter and that he must make amends for that. It’s actually a very good film, with the scenes between Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin in “the real world” being particularly funny. It’s worth a watch, but having said that, though I mentioned that the voices in the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film are bad, some of the ones in Christopher Robin (2018) are even worse!

In 2021, a musical titled Winnie the Pooh: The New Musical Adaptation debuted Off-Broadway. It featured music by the Sherman Brothers and Carly Simon, and was produced by Disney Theatrical Productions. The music here does not appear to include any of the songs from the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film, but does include music from other Winnie the Pooh films, including The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977), The Tigger Movie (2000) and Piglet’s Big Movie (2003). It uses puppets of each of the Hundred Acre Wood residents to tell the story, alongside a child actor as Christopher Robin. The musical has toured both the US and the UK in 2022 and 2023, with a tour in the Netherlands and Belgium currently ongoing until 2024. Another stage adaptation, titled Disney’s Winnie the Pooh KIDS, is specifically based on the 2011 Winnie the Pooh film, following its same story and music, with additional music and lyrics from Will Van Dyke and Cheryl Davis. This show is around 30-minutes long and is available to license for use in local children’s productions.

In August 2023, a new animated television series called Playdate with Winnie the Pooh aired on Disney Junior. It follows a young Winnie the Pooh going on playdates with the other characters of the Hundred Acre Wood. I’m sure it’s entertaining enough for today’s children, but the animation looks weird to me and the characters are voiced by child actors.

Within the Disney Parks, the original 1977 film inspired a dark ride that still operates today. It first opened at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in 1999, taking over the former Fantasyland home of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. As Winnie the Pooh had become so popular at the time, it was an obvious decision to make a theme park ride based on him. Buddy Baker returned to arrange the attraction music from the 1977 film score. The ride goes through many of the same scenes as the 1977 film, and they follow the story order of the film[11].

The ride exists in every Disney Park around the world – except for Disneyland Paris, who must just be miserable for not having any ride based on Winnie the Pooh! It appears the best you’ll get in Paris is a new Winnie the Pooh scene within Le Pays des Contes de Fées, their version of the Storybook Land Canal Boats, sometime around 2024. They do apparently have a meet-and-greet location for Winnie the Pooh on Main Street though. At Disneyland, the ride replaced Country Bear Jamboree, opening in 2003, with the order of some scenes being rearranged compared with the Magic Kingdom version. At Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland, a very similar ride to the Magic Kingdom version opened on the official opening date of those parks in 2005 and 2016, respectively. Shanghai’s “tea cups” ride is also themed to Winnie the Pooh, being called Hunny Pot Spin. Only Shanghai’s Winnie the Pooh attractions opened after the release of the 2011 Winnie the Pooh, though they are not specifically based on that film. At Tokyo Disneyland, they went one step further and created a trackless version of the original ride called Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. This opened in 2000, with many calling it the best Pooh Bear attraction at any Disney Park, with similar scenes to the original ride, but somehow better.

For meet-and-greets, some of these specific locations are listed on the Disney Parks’ respective websites. At Tokyo Disneyland, you could meet Pooh Bear at Pooh Corner; at Shanghai Disneyland, you can meet Pooh Bear at the Hundred Acre Wood area of Fantasyland. At Hong Kong Disneyland, Winnie the Pooh may be available to meet at Fantasy Gardens. At Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, you can have a character meal with the four characters of Pooh Bear, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore, for either breakfast, lunch, or dinner, buffet-style at the Crystal Palace, as well as meeting Pooh Bear and Tigger at the Thotful Spot in Fantasyland. Plus, Pooh Bear has a meet-and-greet location at the back of the UK pavilion in Epcot, inside a room themed to be Christopher Robin’s bedroom. Winnie the Pooh and some of his other friends, such as Piglet, Eeyore, and Tigger, may also be found greeting guests in undesignated times and places at all the Disney Parks. They are also likely to feature within various parades.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Due to unfortunate timing with the release of the film, it is unclear just how well Winnie the Pooh could have done financially; however, most reviews were positive. I personally did not enjoy watching this 2011 film, but I see the attempt by Disney to revitalise the stories for the younger generation. It probably worked for them but I know for me, if I want to watch something with Pooh Bear and friends, I will always choose to watch either the original film or any of the 1990s or early 2000s spin-offs.

Winnie the Pooh was the “reboot” that was never needed. Disney’s franchise was, and still is, as popular as ever, so this film was an unnecessary addition to the numerous screen adaptations of Milne’s stories in my opinion. And yet viewers just can’t help themselves. You can’t help but love Winnie the Pooh, that “tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff”, no matter what he shows up in!

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

[2] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘D23’s Winnie the Pooh Advance Screening Event’, DisneyTravelBabble.com, 14^th July 2011.

[3] Credit: Adam Donald, ‘How ‘Winnie the Pooh’ Updated the 1977 Animated Classic ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh’, Collider.com, 18^th January 2023.

[4] Credit: Mike Miller, ‘Inside the True Story Behind Winnie the Pooh’, People.com, 13^th October 2017.

[5] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘The Problem with Pooh’, CartoonResearch.com, 19^th August 2022.

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Winnie the Pooh (2011)’, pp. 151-153.

[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Winnie the Pooh (2011)’, pp. 151-153.

[8] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Winnie the Pooh (2011) Blu-Ray (2011).

[9] Credit: Todd Perlmutter, ‘New Winnie The Pooh Meet & Greet’, TouringPlans.com, 19^th June 2011.

[10] Credit: Author Unknown, ‘D23’s Winnie the Pooh Advance Screening Event’, DisneyTravelBabble.com, 14^th July 2011.

[11] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

17th Nov 202327th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#28 The Little Mermaid (1989)

BACKGROUND

Finally, after a decade of turmoil, and years of underachievement, Disney Animation actually produced a movie that was both financially and critically successful. Not only that, but the artform was beautiful, the characters were believable, and the music was amazing.

It might not sound true, but after the disappointment of Sleeping Beauty in 1959, the Disney Animation department had shied away from adapting fairy tales. The Little Mermaid was the first fairy tale to be adapted into a Disney animated film for 30 years and it signalled the start of a series of Broadway-style musical films.

This was it. After all the effort the animators had put in, being moved away from the main Burbank studio, trying to find their feet without the direction of artists from Walt Disney’s era, and the more aggressive move to change from the new management, The Little Mermaid began something new. 1989 meant the start of the Disney Renaissance, where the movies produced were released to critical acclaim and big box office numbers for a whole decade, for the most part, with some hitting higher heights than others.

To find someone who doesn’t like or can’t appreciate the importance of The Little Mermaid is difficult. It really was a major blockbuster, both at the time and in present day, as can be seen from the push to make the live-action version, released in May 2023. It’s a movie from one of Disney’s arguably most popular eras, so continues to be referenced and remembered by audiences and the Disney company.

I’ve always liked The Little Mermaid, but for some reason, I don’t choose to watch it very often and would rather watch other films from the Disney Renaissance Era instead. I’m not sure why that is, although it’s probably got something to do with the fact none of the characters are favourites of mine. I’d never wanted to be a mermaid, so Ariel doesn’t resonate with me; I find Eric a bit of a pointless prince, not having to do anything particularly brave until right at the end, when I think Ariel could’ve taken Ursula on her own; and Ursula isn’t my favourite villain, though I do like how flamboyant she is. But I still like the story and the music, with the ending always able to make a couple of tears spring to my eyes.

PLOT

Disney’s story begins with a ship sailing the open sea. Its sailors are telling their captain about the myth and legend of King Triton, ruler of the sea and the merpeople. Some on board do not believe these stories, but others believe them wholeheartedly to be true. As one of the sailor’s is making this point, a fish that they had just caught leaps out of his hands and dives back into the ocean. We then follow this fish deeper under the water, seeing lots of marine animals, and then finally, some merpeople who we follow into a royal castle. At the castle, an audience is assembling for a concert – eagled-eyed viewers might even be able to spot Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in the crowd here, though what they are doing under the sea at this point, we don’t know. King Triton and his court composer, Sebastian, are very excited for this concert which will feature all seven of Triton’s daughters, with his youngest, Ariel, being named the most talented singer of all. Sebastian does say quietly, though, that Ariel does not always show up to rehearsal, so clearly is not as bothered by her musical gift as her father is. The concert begins, and everything seems to be going swimmingly – until we find that Ariel, the soloist, is not there!

Ariel is in fact looking at shipwrecks with her fish friend, Flounder. The two are searching for treasures from the “human world” that Ariel can add to her collection. Their fun day out is rudely interrupted by a shark at one point, but Ariel outwits him and goes up to the surface to see their friend, Scuttle the seagull. He is supposedly an expert on all things humans, but the audience soon finds that Scuttle has no idea what he’s talking about, as he thinks that a fork is called a Dinglehopper, used for combing hair, and that a pipe is called a Snarfblatt and is actually a musical instrument! Speaking of music, Ariel then realises that she has missed her father’s very important concert and rushes home. King Triton is not happy, especially when Flounder lets slip that they actually went to the surface. He warns Ariel not to go to the surface again, reiterating that humans are barbarians. Ariel is upset since she is sixteen and capable of independent thought and swims away to be alone. Sebastian is told by Triton to keep an eye on her. Sebastian follows Ariel to her grotto, which is full of things from the human world. He overhears her talking about how she wants to live above the sea with those humans, and is furious. As Sebastian proceeds to give Ariel the same spiel about humans as her father just gave her, Ariel is distracted by a shadow passing over the surface of the water. She swims up there; Flounder and Sebastian follow.

On the surface, she sees a boat, with fireworks flashing high into the sky. She swims closer and sits by the side of the boat, watching as music plays, men dance, and a dog even comes up to lick her face. Ariel is fascinated by this world, but then she sees a man – Prince Eric – and she is instantly smitten with him. It is a celebration for Eric’s birthday, with his butler, Grimsby, presenting him with a statue of himself as a present. Eric hates it! It was meant to be a wedding present, however, Eric did not like his would-be bride and wants to wait for his true love. Suddenly, a hurricane starts bubbling up nearby. It soon impacts the crew with wind, rain, thunder and lightning. The ship struggles against the high winds, tossing some of the crew overboard, who then swim towards their life boats. Things take a real turn when a lightning bolt sets alight one of their sails, spreading fire to the rest of the ship. Everyone is safely on board a boat, apart from Max, Eric’s dog, who is stuck in the middle of the flames. Eric gets back on to the ship to save him, tossing him to the lifeboat below as his leg gets caught in a hole in the floor. The fire reaches the explosives onboard before Eric can free himself, and the ship explodes. Ariel sees Eric unconscious and about to drown in the ocean. She pulls him to shore, and waits for him to wake up. As she does, Flounder, Sebastian, and Scuttle discuss whether the man is dead or not. Scuttle believes he is, but Ariel can see that he’s breathing. Eric begins to wake up and just catches a glimpse of Ariel’s face and hears her singing briefly, before she is spooked by Grimsby and the others looking for him and rushes back into the water.

Ariel is now falling in love with Eric and very much wants to be human. Her sisters see that Ariel is hopelessly in love, not realising who with, and tell their father, King Triton. Sebastian tries to tell Ariel to stay under the sea, where it’s best for her, but she doesn’t listen, and Flounder takes her off to her grotto, to find that Eric’s statue just so happens to have floated down into it. King Triton summons Sebastian, wanting to know who Ariel is in love, expecting it to be one of the kingdom’s mermen. Sebastian thinks Triton already knows about the human and tells Triton he tried to stop her. Triton is furious and goes to Ariel’s grotto. She tells her father she is in love with Eric, to which Triton responds by destroying pretty much every artifact in her collection, including the statue of Eric. She tells Sebastian and Flounder to leave her alone, and sobs her heart out.

At the same time as all of this has been playing out, Ursula, the sea witch, and her two eel henchmen, Flotsam and Jetsam, have been watching Ariel. Very creepy. Ursula thinks she can use Ariel to bring down King Triton once and for all, after he banished Ursula from the kingdom so many years ago. Now that Ariel is in love with a human, it’ll make things all the easier for her plan to succeed. The eels tell Ariel that Ursula can help make all her dreams come true. After some persuasion, she eventually follows them to Ursula’s lair. Sebastian and Flounder follow, knowing this will be trouble. Ursula tells Ariel that she can make her human and that she’ll be able to live on land with her man forever. Ariel is not sure, but eventually, Ursula manages to convince her, telling her about all the other “good work” she’s done for other people, and the reason she has a garden full of shrunken merpeople – or emaciated shrimp as Olaf likes to call them in his comedic retelling of the movie – is because they never paid her for her spells. Ariel agrees to Ursula’s deal, which has these conditions: to make her human permanently, she has to get true love’s kiss from Eric within three days; and the price she must pay is to give up her voice. Despite Flounder and Sebastian’s protestations, Ariel signs the contract and the deal is enacted; Ariel is given legs, in what seems to be quite a painful procedure, and is left to drown in the sea, as humans cannot breathe underwater! Luckily, Sebastian and Flounder swim her up to the surface.

At the surface, Ariel learns to walk on her legs, and is dressed up in a tatty sail, as advised by Scuttle and his all-knowing expertise. Max the dog is drawn to the smell of Ariel, leading Eric straight to her. She looks familiar to him, and Eric believes she is his dream girl, the one who saved him that day, but as she can’t talk, it can’t have been her. Err, Eric, have you never heard of laryngitis? Maybe she’s just lost her voice through illness, it doesn’t mean she’s been mute all her life! Anyway, Eric takes her inside the palace. There, she is cleaned up and dressed to have dinner with Eric and Grimsby. Despite Ariel blowing tobacco smoke all over Grimsby through his pipe, and combing her hair with a fork and looking a bit crazy, Grimsby thinks Ariel would be a great match for Eric, but Eric is still holding out for this “mystery girl”, though he does invite Ariel to go sightseeing the next day. In the palace, Sebastian has his own problems – the French chef, Louis. After going through the laundry, Sebastian finds himself in the kitchen, where stuffed crab is being prepared. Louis sees little Sebastian and thinks he’s missed one and tries to cook him! But Sebastian is too smart for that and grabs Louis’ nose, starting a whole war between them. Louis destroys the entire kitchen looking for him but cannot find him. Carlotta, Eric’s housekeeper, shouts at Louis for all the noise and mess, and takes the plates in for dinner. It turns out Sebastian hid on Grimsby’s plate and Ariel signals for him to crawl over to hers. Ariel clearly doesn’t eat anything, and must sneak Sebastian into her pocket or something, as he’s fine in the next scene, where Ariel is watching Eric as he plays her song on the flute. She goes to bed, as Sebastian tries to coach her about how to get this kiss from Eric the next day.

On this day out, Eric and Ariel look at the sights, dance, shop, even encounter a near-death experience when Ariel gets their horse and carriage to jump a massive ravine! They end the day on a moonlit boat ride, where Eric tries to guess Ariel’s name, going through random girls’ names, like Rachel, Diana, even Mildred, which Ariel really dislikes – sorry to all the Mildreds out there. During a song meant to encourage Eric to kiss Ariel, conducted by Sebastian, of course, Sebastian whispers her actual name to Eric. He thinks it’s “kind of pretty”. As the two are about to kiss, their boat is tipped over by none other than Flotsam and Jetsam; that was too close for Ursula, and she must be mad because she even goes so far as to call Ariel “a tramp”. Harsh. Ursula realises she needs a new plan now…

That night, again, Grimsby tells Eric that Ariel would be a good match for him and this time, he actually listens. He tosses the flute into the ocean, but just as he is about to talk to Ariel, a woman singing that song walks along the beach in front of him. It’s her, the dream girl. Except it’s actually Ursula, disguised as a woman called Vanessa, and using Ariel’s voice which she kept in a shell locket. This locket also just so happens to be able to entrance Eric so he is under her spell. The next morning, Scuttle wakes Ariel up as he hears wedding preparations are going on and assumes it must be for her. Ariel runs downstairs to Eric, but stops dead as she sees him cuddled up to someone else. Those two are actually going to be married by sunset that day, the same time that Ariel’s spell runs out. She watches as the wedding ship departs, feeling completely hopeless. Scuttle flies by the ship and sees that Vanessa is actually Ursula, as her real reflection is revealed in a mirror. He races back to the others, and they devise a plan: Flounder will swim Ariel over to the ship, while Scuttle gets all the animals to stall the wedding. Seals, birds, lobsters, and even Max, all get in on the action. Though this distracts Vanessa, the officiant for some reason doesn’t seem to notice and continues with the ceremony, which is really strange! Ariel arrives just as Scuttle and Max manage to break the locket, returning Ariel’s voice and breaking the spell on Eric. He realises she was the one all along and goes to kiss her, but it’s too late; it’s sunset.

Ursula reveals herself to be Vanessa and takes Ariel back underwater, as she has transformed back into a mermaid. Triton comes to rescue her, trying to break the contract with the trident but it’s legal and cannot be broken. Instead, Ursula offers Triton a deal: to take Ariel’s place, which he does, becoming an emaciated shrimp and leaving Ursula to take his crown and trident and become the new ruler, exactly what she’s always wanted. Meanwhile, Eric swims down to rescue Ariel, striking Ursula with a harpoon in the process. The eels try to keep Eric underwater, but Sebastian and Flounder help free him. As Ursula is about to fire a spell at Eric, Ariel grabs her head, making her shoot too high, destroying her beloved eels instead. Ursula is mad now and makes herself huge, big enough to go above the surface. She manipulates the waves and summons a storm, trapping Ariel in a funnel so she can finally kill her. Eric gets on a wrecked ship and drives it into Ursula, jabbing her with a broken piece of wood, defeating and killing her. Eric swims to shore and passes out.

Under the sea, Ursula’s spells are broken and all the emaciated shrimp come back to life, including Triton. Ariel sits on a rock by the shore and looks sadly at Eric, knowing they can’t be together. Triton and Sebastian discuss how much she clearly loves at Eric, and Triton decides to grant her wish to become human permanently. She looks over at her father, grateful, before reuniting with Eric. The two marry at the earliest opportunity, on a ship again, so that the humans and merpeople can celebrate together. Flounder is flown up by Scuttle to kiss Ariel; Ariel and Eric finally kiss; and Sebastian gets away from Chef Louis once again! Triton fashions a wave to bring him to Ariel’s level, where Ariel tells him she loves him. Triton magics a rainbow to appear in the sky, and Ariel and Eric end the film with another kiss. Aw.

Disney’s The Little Mermaid is based on the 1837 story by Hans Christian Andersen, which was published under the name Den Lille Hayfrue. In Andersen’s much darker story, when a mermaid turns fifteen, she is allowed to swim up to the surface to take a glimpse at the human world for the first time. On the little mermaid’s first visit, she falls in love with a human who she sees celebrating his birthday on a ship and then saves him from drowning. The mermaid waits for a human woman to find him before returning home. Back under the sea, the little mermaid asks for more information about humans from her grandmother. She tells the mermaid that humans have an eternal soul that lives on after their death, whereas mermaids turn to sea form. The little mermaid goes to the sea witch who says that she can make her human, but that her tongue will have to be cut out and that the creation of her legs will be painful and that every step she takes from then on will feel like she’s being pierced by knives. She is also warned that she can never return to the sea, and that should the prince marry someone else, the mermaid will die of a broken heart at dawn the day after his marriage. The little mermaid does the deal anyway and is found by the prince, who grows close to her, but does not fall in love with her as he believes another woman saved his life; he has no idea it was ever the mermaid who did. He finds this woman and marries her, with the little mermaid realising that she will now die. Her sisters tell her that she could break the curse if she kills prince, and that she can then become a mermaid again. The little mermaid goes to kill the prince, but cannot do it and awaits her death. Her body becomes sea form but she then becomes “a daughter of the air”, due to her selflessness. She will now complete good deeds for humans for the next 300 years in order to finally obtain an immortal soul[1].

The Disney Studios were first going to adapt Andersen’s story in the 1940s, as was evidenced by the discovery of multiple concept artwork. The1940s version was similar to the 1989 film in some ways, as both versions decided to focus on the prince instead of the immortal soul, and wanted the prince to at least get a glimpse of the mermaid so he did not believe someone else had in fact saved him. The 1940s version would have had the mermaid rush off, not realising she’d lost her voice until she got to the surface, but the 1989 directors wanted her to know she was losing her voice, but to not make the process so graphic. They also didn’t want her to find having legs painful. The ending of both Disney versions was also different. In the 1940s version, the prince would have got married, but not to anyone specific, and the mermaid would have died and turned to sea form. The 1989 team wanted a happy ending instead, and gave Ariel everything she wanted[2].

Though I feel like the edits to the 1989 film version of Andersen’s The Little Mermaid were very much necessary to create family-friendly entertainment, with it seeming like the planned 1940s version was even going to be too dark and depressing, children’s author Maurice Sendak was quick to critique Disney for deviating from Hans Christian Andersen’s story in the ways that they did. As the story is about the risks of sacrifice and ultimately ends with the mermaid getting no reward, it was felt that Disney avoided having their mermaid learn this hard lesson, which is a fact of life sometimes[3]. The 1989 film does give a nod to Hans Christian Andersen’s story in many ways though, despite some changes to make it slightly happier and more suitable for a Disney feature film. They did also reference the original statue of the Little Mermaid which sits by Copenhagen harbour and was created by Edvard Eriksen; Ariel’s pose of her sitting on a rock watching Eric from afar at the end of the film is reminiscent of the statue’s same pose. There are thirteen replicas of the Little Mermaid bronze statue all over the world, including in Madrid, Seoul, and even California[4].

CHARACTERS & CAST

It might sound surprising to hear that Ariel is actually only the fourth Disney Princess; it sounds like there should have been more by 1989, but there was only Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora before her. This is because Sleeping Beauty (1959) did not do as well as expected, so the fairy tale adaptations were put on hold, until The Little Mermaid was greenlit thirty years later. A lot had changed societally in those three decades, so Ariel is a very different princess to her predecessors in terms of her personality. Ariel is a feisty, rebellious teenager who goes out of her way to change her life completely, to try to live it as she wants to, despite her controlling father trying to stop her. This is in complete contrast to the quiet, gentle, sweet temperaments of Snow, Cinderella, and Aurora. Ariel’s character led to different princesses being created by Disney, giving them more personality and more end goals for their life, so that they aren’t just trying to find love with a handsome prince. Glen Keane spoke to Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas, two of Disney’s famous “Nine Old Men”, as well as Keane’s mentors, on the opening night of The Little Mermaid. Johnston and Thomas told Keane that they felt some of Ariel’s expressions were ugly at times, like when she screws her face up, and that their princesses were always pretty. Instead of being saddened by the criticism, Keane felt proud that they’d made Ariel real, and this showed that a new generation of animators with new ideas were coming in, signalling the new era.

Ariel’s hair colour was a point of discussion inside Disney at the time of her creation. Many animators felt that giving Ariel red hair would reflect her personality well, however, thanks to the live-action romantic comedy Splash (1984), one of the first Disney-produced films to be released during the time of the new management, the higher-ups felt that Ariel should have blonde hair, like Daryl Hannah did in Splash. As mermaids don’t exist, Keane said that they couldn’t just tell him that mermaids have blonde hair, so they went all in on making her a red-head[5]! The original Ariel dolls, manufactured by Tyco, later Mattel, were actually more strawberry blonde in their first production run as the company felt redheaded dolls would not sell well. Consumers later complained that the doll did not resemble Ariel sufficiently, so they were remade with her hair colour matching what is seen in the movie[6].

Ariel’s supervising animators were Glen Keane and Mark Henn. Keane said that his wife was one inspiration for Ariel’s physique but that he also looked at classical artwork like the 1901 painting A Mermaid by John William Waterhouse, as well as the statue of the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. It has also been said that Henn and Keane used images of Alyssa Milano, who was starring in the programme Who’s the Boss? (1984-92) at the time, to get the look of an adolescent teenage girl. Milano was not aware of this fact for many years. Not only that but they took inspiration from Ariel’s voice artist, Jodi Benson.

Jodi Benson had worked with Howard Ashman on the musical Smile in 1986, which flopped on Broadway and closed after only 87 performances. Ashman invited many women from the show to audition for Ariel, with Benson being one of them and being the one who got the role. The directors needed someone who could sing as well as act, especially as Ariel’s songs in particular feel like an extension of her dialogue. Benson loved performing as Ariel, a role she has reprised for the spin-off films, television series and theme park attractions for many years. She also regularly sings “Part of Your World” during her concerts[7]. Not only that but Benson became a Disney Legend in 2011 for her role as Ariel. She has also voiced Helen of Troy in the television series spin-off Hercules (1998-99), voiced Barbie in Pixar’s Toy Story 2 (1999) and Toy Story 3 (2010), and starred in the live-action/animation hybrid Disney film Enchanted (2007), which was also a parody of Disney’s princess films, as Edward’s assistant, Sam. Benson also “went over to the dark side” and voiced the title role for Don Bluth’s 1994 film Thumbelina, which I personally really like.

The character also benefitted from live-action reference modelling, as many Disney animated movies had done before. Writer and performer Sherri Stoner, who was performing as part of an LA-based improv group called The Groundlings at the time, was brought in to model for the character of Ariel. She was asked to audition by co-directors Ron Clements and John Musker, who noticed she had a similar petite frame to how Ariel had been envisioned after Stoner came to teach improvisation to the animators with some other performers. As much of Ariel’s scenes are underwater, and her hair in particular was causing the animators some bother, Stoner spent three days performing Ariel’s underwater scenes, with two of those days taking place at Glendale’s YMCA swimming pool and the other being held in an 8-foot-deep clear tank at Walt Disney Imagineering. From this modelling, they were able to figure out how Ariel’s hair might look – the animators had also used footage of astronaut Sally Ride in space for this purpose – and added some facial expressions and personality traits from Stoner’s performances. The animators liked her big eyes and expressive hands, and she embodied the character of Ariel fully to make her believable. Her biting her lip was also included in the movie[8]!

Ariel’s prince, Eric, was supposedly named after the creator of the bronze sculpture of the Little Mermaid, Edvard Eriksen. Eric doesn’t get much character progression in this film to be honest, so I don’t care all that much about him. I’m glad Ariel finally gets her prince, and that just happens to be him, but I don’t find him very interesting, and think that Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty (1959) and some of the princes who come after Eric are much more engaging. Eric wants to marry his true love, fair enough, but when Ariel saves him, he is so obsessed with her that he constantly replays the song that he briefly heard her sing, yet when he sees Ariel, he is put off by the fact she can’t talk so she can’t possibly be the girl who saved him, despite the fact she looks just like her! It takes quite a lot of time to convince him that Ariel is good for him, because he’s too busy stubbornly chasing dreams to realise that, even if she isn’t his “perfect girl”. This really annoys me; I just find him frustrating! Still, he comes to Ariel’s rescue at the end, but I think she would’ve managed to defeat Ursula on her own if she’d been given the opportunity to do it. I’m sure lots of people like Prince Eric, and I guess he’s not THAT bad really. Christopher Daniel Barnes provides the voice of Prince Eric and continues to reprise his voice, as Benson does, in Disney projects. Though curiously, Barnes did not return to voice Eric in the sequel to The Little Mermaid, yet he did become the official voice of Cinderella’s Prince Charming for those two spin-off films and for other Disney projects. Barnes also voiced the role of Spider-Man in the animated series from 1994 to 1998.

Now, back to the important female roles. Ursula is an incredibly powerful Disney villainess, yet she is also hilarious and very flamboyant. She knows what she wants, and can persuade anyone to do exactly that. Ursula is devious and clever, with her thwarting all of Ariel’s attempts at getting Eric to kiss her, until the very last moment, but then she becomes Ruler of the Ocean so who cares about that? Ursula also managed to have two henchmen, her moray eels Flotsam and Jetsam, who are actually useful and do what they are asked to do without getting it wrong, unlike many other villains who just can’t seem to get good help. She has quite a painful death, similar to Maleficent in that the princes stab them both, which can’t be nice. I didn’t think I was that big a fan of Ursula, but when I rewatched the film this week, I thought she was amazing, right up there with Maleficent as one of the best Disney villainesses, who I tend to think pale in comparison to their male counterparts. Ursula is meant to be King Triton’s sister as mentioned in deleted scenes. This fact would not be made public until the original Broadway production of The Little Mermaid, though it was included in the extended version of “Poor Unfortunate Souls”, with this verse later cut out.

Ursula went through many designs, with Ruben Aquino, the Supervising Animator, stating that they originally made her a lionfish or a scorpionfish with spines, but one of the story men said that she’d probably work well as an octopus. It is debated whether or not Ursula is a squid or octopus, as she only has six tentacles, yet an octopus should have eight – this is supposedly because drawing two less tentacles was easier for the animators – but as Ursula also has two human arms, she is classed as just being “part octopus”[9]. Aquino tried varying sizes for Ursula, bigger and skinnier but decided that bigger was better. The performances of drag queen Divine was another inspiration for Ursula’s look, movements and personality. Divine had featured in many movies by filmmaker John Waters, of which Howard Ashman was a fan and suggested Divine as a vision for the character.

Pat Carroll was very excited to have been given the role to voice Ursula as she had always wanted to work on a Disney film. Carroll discussed her character’s performance with Howard Ashman at times especially for her song “Poor Unfortunate Souls”. Carroll said that she asked Howard to sing the song for her, and instead of just singing it, Ashman performed it full out, giving Carroll lots of ideas to play with her; she even admitted that she stole “innit” and some other ad libs from him[10]! Carroll continued to reprise her role as Ursula, and voiced Morgana, Ursula’s sister for the sequel, for Disney projects until her death in 2022. Carroll also starred in various television and stage productions, and voiced Granny in the English dub by Disney of My Neighbor Totoro (2005).

Then, there’s King Triton, the controlling father of Ariel. It’s plain to see how much he loves all seven of his daughters, but feels he has to be stricter with Ariel because she has her head in the clouds and doesn’t tend to listen to anyone’s advice. It is particularly harsh of Triton to just go and blow up most of Ariel’s things from the human world, a moment of actual nastiness from a Disney parent, but you can tell that Triton does regret having done that as soon as he has – though he does not apologise for it. Triton is out of his mind with worry when Ariel goes missing, blaming himself for it, and makes the ultimate sacrifice for her when he finds that she has done a deal with Ursula, trading his life for his daughter’s. He also comes good at the end when he decides to make Ariel human, without her even asking and knowing that he’ll miss seeing his daughter every day. Triton probably has the most interesting character development of anyone else in the movie.

Triton is voiced by Kenneth Mars, who appeared in two of Mel Brooks’ most famous films: as Franz Liebkind in The Producers (1967) and as Police Inspector Kemp in Young Frankenstein (1974). Mars also chose to do a lot of voice acting in his later years, not only reprising his role as Triton for Disney, but also in Don Bluth’s Thumbelina (1994), as King Colbert, and as Grandpa Longneck in the series of The Land Before Time direct-to-video sequels, from 1994 to 2006. Mars passed away in 2011.

Before I move on to the animal sidekicks, there are a few other human characters to mention, specifically related to their voice artists. Firstly, Grimsby, Eric’s strait-laced butler, is voiced by Ben Wright. Wright voiced Rama, Mowgli’s wolf father in The Jungle Book (1967) as well as Roger Ratcliffe in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), a fact that was apparently unknown to the team working on The Little Mermaid at the time! Wright also appeared as Herr Zeller in The Sound of Music (1965). Grimsby was Ben Wright’s final role; he died four months before the movie’s release[11]. Carlotta, Eric’s maid, is voiced by Edie McClurg, who went on to voice many characters for Disney and Pixar, including Dr. Flora in A Bug’s Life (1998), Minny in Cars (2006) and Mary, a Nicelander, in Wreck-It Ralph (2012).

For Sebastian, it was Howard Ashman’s idea to give him a Caribbean accent, as I believe originally, he was going to have a stuffy English accent. However, though many say Sebastian is Jamaican, he actually has a Trinidadian accent. Ashman was looking for this specific accent as he had spent some time in Trinidad during his childhood. Samuel E. Wright auditioned for the part and Ashman was surprised to find that the accent was exactly what he had been looking for. Menken said that this choice opened up new musical styles to them, such as calypso and reggae, which are used in Sebastian’s songs[12]. Though Sebastian seems quite uptight at the start and has no desire to babysit Ariel as ordered by the King, he does realise that Ariel has her own life to lead and he wants to help her achieve it. As mentioned, Samuel E. Wright voices Sebastian, King Triton’s court composer and advisor. Wright would also reprise his role as Sebastian in other Disney projects, and also voiced Kron the Iguanodon in Disney’s Dinosaur (2000). He played the part of Mufusa in the original Broadway cast of The Lion King in 1997. Wright passed away in May 2021.

Flounder is Ariel’s best friend, who is kind and loyal. He is named after the flat fish flounder but looks more like a tropical reef fish. He’s a sweet friend, trying to help Ariel as best he can, but you can tell he is quite young and scared of the dangers of the sea, so he isn’t overly helpful at times, but he tries! Flounder is voiced by Jason Marin. Scuttle is the dippy seagull, who thinks he knows what he’s talking about and is generally just clumsy and very in-your-face, especially with Sebastian! He’s a bit much at times and his singing is truly awful, but it’s hard to not like Scuttle, because his heart is in the right place. Scuttle is voiced Buddy Hackett, who reprised this role for The Little Mermaid sequel. Hackett also appeared in such films as The Music Man (1967), as Marcellus Washburn, and The Love Bug (1969), as Tennessee Steinmetz. He passed away in 2003.

PRODUCTION

The Little Mermaid was the last Disney film to use the traditional hand-completed ink and paint method, with the movies that came after moving on to use the CAPS system in full, which used a digital ink and paint method. CAPS was used for The Little Mermaid’s final scene, specifically for the rainbow. This film also contained more effects animation than any Disney animated movie since Fantasia (1940) with nearly 80% of the film requiring effects. Over a million bubbles were drawn with two thirds of the film taking place underwater[13].

Eric’s shipwreck was another area where special effects were vital. The effects team wanted this sequence to be similar in size, scale and consequence as that of Monstro the Whale in Pinocchio (1940). The lightning flashes were important to create the mood of the scene and to light up specific areas of the ship. They also used concept art and reference material from the Animation Research Library for help. From here, they found materials from Pinocchio (1940), and also Bambi (1942), where the rain and blowing snow was useful to recreate weather. They also discovered concept art from Kay Nielsen that had been drawn in the 1940s when the Disney Studios looked to adapt Hans Christian Andersen’s tale. They found his art of a shipwreck to be useful. All the effects in The Little Mermaid had to be drawn, be they water, fire, weather, or even magic[14].

When production began on The Little Mermaid, it was in the mid-1980s, when the new management had come in and the animators were now working from that rundown warehouse in Glendale. When “The Gong Show” was brought in by Eisner, a place for animators to pitch new ideas, Ron Clements put forward the idea of adapting The Little Mermaid at their first meeting in January 1985. He had just read the story and wrote a two-page treatment of it, coming up with a happier ending. However, the idea was “gonged” i.e., rejected, because of a planned sequel to the live-action film Splash (1984), which was about a mermaid. Two weeks later, Jeffrey Katzenberg, then Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, read the full treatment and did decide to greenlight the project. Katzenberg started to look outside for screenwriters, when Ron Clements and John Musker asked if they could give it a try; Katzenberg loved their screenplay and they moved forward with the film.

In early 1988, a work-in-progress screening was assembled for Katzenberg to view, containing sketches and voice recordings. Katzenberg liked the script and the songs but didn’t love the movie as a whole, admitting that he wasn’t able to see how it would look on screen, whereas the animators did know what would and wouldn’t work. They joked that management was not patient enough, but this was the first time the team felt they were in trouble. Howard Ashman helped rewrite a few scenes when they struggled with the story. with some of those being Sebastian coaching Ariel on how to get Eric to kiss her, and the ending of Triton deciding to give Ariel legs, where it was more of a visual element originally.

Then an audience of children was invited to view the movie, with a half-animated “Part of Your World” included. Katzenberg could see that the children were restless and uninterested, so said that the song should be removed. Everyone was horrified at this idea so the directors, the songwriters and the animators all tried to convince him to keep it. Katzenberg gave them a chance to finish animating it and then decided to keep the song in the movie. It would’ve been a mistake to cut the song, as Katzenberg has admitted, as it tells the audience exactly why Ariel wants to be human and ties us to her emotionally. At an official audience preview at the AMC Theatre in Burbank, the unfinished movie was a hit, with both children and adults alike. A marketing campaign for the movie then began, with this movie being marketed in all areas of the company, including at the theme parks. Katzenberg thought that The Little Mermaid wouldn’t surpass Oliver & Company (1988), the previous animated release, as he felt Oliver was a boys’ movie and The Little Mermaid for girls, with boys’ movies doing better at the box office, though the animators felt it would appeal to all.

MUSIC

As The Little Mermaid was Disney’s first return to their fairytale format for three decades, the new generation of animators knew they needed a fresh approach to the traditional style in all aspects, including the music; The Little Mermaid began Disney’s Broadway-style of animated musical. This was thanks to the duo of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Ashman had written the hugely successful musical Little Shop of Horrors, the horror-comedy rock musical about a human-eating Venus fly trap, in the 1980s alongside Alan Menken. Ashman then went on to write the musical Smile which premiered in 1986 but was not well-received. Because of this disappointment, Ashman wanted a new project away from Broadway. Howard Ashman felt that musical theatre and Disney animation had always worked well together, so he was interested in working on a Disney animated feature film. Ashman had already written a song for the previous animated Disney release Oliver & Company (1988) and was invited by Jeffrey Katzenberg to work on The Little Mermaid. Naturally, Ashman asked Menken to collaborate with him on the music, with Ashman writing lyrics and Menken composing the music, despite neither of them having any experience in writing music for films.

The film has a mixture of short songs and also bigger star numbers, but I’ll start with the shorter ones. The Little Mermaid begins with the song “Fathoms Below”, sung by Prince Eric’s crew as they talk about the legends of merfolk and King Triton. It’s a good opening number for building some backstory into the characters we are about to see, and also gives the film some atmosphere, with the ship moving through a misty screen. This song was meant to be extended, and would have included information about Ursula being Triton’s sister, however, the number was cut for the movie’s pacing. The next song follows on from “Fathoms Below” quite quickly and is performed by Ariel’s sisters under the sea, in the concert that Sebastian has arranged for their father. It introduced each of Ariel’s six sisters, giving us their names, which are: Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Attina, Adella, and Alana. Even though this song is unceremoniously cut short, I actually really like it and would’ve liked to have heard more should Ariel have bothered to appear for her solo! The third shorter song is “Les Poissons” performed by René Auberjonois as Chef Louis. It’s very funny, though obviously stereotypically French! I quite like it, and it can quite easily get stuck in your head!

Moving on, we have Ariel’s big showstopping number “Part of Your World”. This was written to be the typical “I Want” song that the leading lady would sing in a Broadway musical, talking about her hopes and dreams for her life. In this case, we hear how much Ariel wants to be a human and live above the surface. It’s one of the most memorable songs from The Little Mermaid. I believe “Part of Your World” was written quite soon after Ashman and Menken received the story treatment, with the directors first hearing it in Ashman’s New York apartment. From this song, the Disney directors could tell how much the duo understood story and character. Unfortunately, I have heard too many renditions of “Part of Your World” through the years and they never match Jodi Benson’s original version. I sometimes feel like this song has been “overused” at times and I therefore don’t love it. “Part of Your World” features twice more in the film, as reprises: once when Ariel realises she is in love with Eric after saving him, where we can hear how desperate she is to be with him; and then again for the finale, sung by the chorus of guests at their wedding, which ends the film well. One other interesting fact about this song is that on the soundtrack, there is some dialogue heard before the song; this dialogue does not feature in the movie.

Sebastian the crab also gets two songs in The Little Mermaid: “Under the Sea” and “Kiss the Girl”. Thanks to the choice to use a Trinidadian accent for Sebastian, Menken and Ashman were then able to incorporate the musical styles of calypso and reggae in these two songs[15]. “Under the Sea” is all about trying to convince Ariel that being under the sea is the best place for her, via a big party number with all the marine life, and “Kiss the Girl” is building a romantic atmosphere to get Eric to finally kiss Ariel. They are both fantastic, although I didn’t always like “Under the Sea”; again, I felt like Disney used it too much in their parades and shows, so I’d just heard it too much, but in recent years, I’ve found I really like it, especially when the song builds towards its finale. I’ve always liked the romance of “Kiss the Girl” and like seeing how Sebastian and all the animals are trying to help Ariel realise her dream of being human forever, even if it is a bit forcefully done!

The final song to cover is “Poor Unfortunate Souls”, the longest of all of them at almost five minutes, but hey, Ursula needs her big moment! It really makes a show-woman of Ursula and I think Pat Carroll performs it so well. It follows Ursula trying to convince Ariel to take her deal to become a human, and then ends with the spell actually being enacted. It goes through specific examples of her magic working for others, and warns Ariel of the price she will have to pay, or else she will belong to her. The song is a perfect example of devious, pushy sales tactics, really! I particularly like Ursula’s verse on body language and how men don’t like women to talk – it was quite a contemporary attitude to put into a Disney animated film, as this is something that we still discuss today in the overarching feminist debate – and also the point where the spell is complete, with Ariel singing those few notes that recur at multiple other moments in the film. It’s beautiful singing, even if Ursula is taking her voice!

For the score, though I do not have any specific instrumental pieces that I really like, it is obvious to hear how Menken’s music is able to impact the mood of the viewer to match what they are seeing on screen. I do like the finale music the best of the music within the score, but Menken continued to do great scores for other Disney animated films, many of which I do prefer to The Little Mermaid’s.

Menken and Ashman had a lot to be proud of with their soundtrack as they received three Academy Award nominations: “Under the Sea” and “Kiss the Girl” for Best Original Song and then the award for Best Score. They won both Best Score and Best Original Song for “Under the Sea”. “Under the Sea” also won a Grammy and a Golden Globe. Menken’s score also won a Golden Globe for Best Score and the soundtrack as a whole won the Grammy for Best Recording for Children. A few days after the Oscar ceremony in 1990, Ashman told Menken that he was unwell, and had been diagnosed as HIV positive. They continued to work on songs for Beauty and the Beast (1991) and for Aladdin (1992) whilst Ashman was ill. Sadly, he did not live to see either movie to completion, passing away in March 1991, eight months before the release of Beauty and the Beast[16].

RECEPTION

The Little Mermaid was released in theatres on 17^th November 1989, and despite Katzenberg not foreseeing the movie doing as well as Oliver & Company (1988) had one year previously, the team were pleased to see that the movie continued to do well over the weeks that followed, earning over $84 million during its initial run in North America. The reviews were also dazzling, with many stating that the Disney Animation department had managed to reclaim the enchantment and the charm of their medium and had restored the public’s faith in animation. Many of the characters were praised, including Ariel and Ursula, with the songs being another major factor in the movie’s popularity. It would ultimately gross over $200 million worldwide, thanks to theatrical re-releases, both in 2D and in 3D. The Little Mermaid has also been released on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray multiple times over the years.

LEGACY

As far as The Little Mermaid continuing outside of the original movie, on screen, the story was continued with the direct-to-video sequel The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000), which happens to be one of my favourite Disney direct-to-video sequels. Many of the vocal cast returned with the addition of Tara Strong as Melody, Ariel’s daughter. The sequel sees Melody wanting desperately to be a mermaid, not a human, and goes to Morgana, Ursula’s sister to become one, in a complete reversal of Ariel’s story. Tara Strong has had a long history of voice acting, including as Timmy Turner in the long-running series The Fairly OddParents (2001-17), and in person appeared as Gwen in the two Sabrina the Teenage Witch movies, Sabrina Goes to Rome (1998) and Sabrina Down Under (1999). The Little Mermaid also spanned a prequel, titled The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning (2008), which details King Triton banning music in his kingdom after his wife’s death with Ariel fighting to change that in her youth. I have only seen the prequel once and I didn’t think too much of it, to be honest. An animated series based on the film, which looked at Ariel’s life before the film, called simply The Little Mermaid, aired for three seasons from 1992 to 1994.

Following on from that, in 2019 Disney aired a television special called The Little Mermaid Live! This was to celebrate the original movie’s 30^th anniversary, with additional live musical performances from the film and the Broadway stage show, which first went to Broadway in 2008. Auli’I Cravalho, voice of Moana, performed as Ariel, with other big names such as Shaggy as Sebastian and Queen Latifah as Ursula, joining her. I will admit I did not watch this, and I’m not sure whether I will; I have seen other television versions of musical films in recent years, such as Hairspray Live! and don’t think they have been worth it.

Finally, a 2023 live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid was also released. I have not watched this live-action film either. It did very well financially, as all of these Disney live-action adaptations seem to, but received mixed reviews, though it is supposedly one of Disney’s better attempts at modernising the original. It made such changes as adding new songs, written by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda, such as “Wild Uncharted Waters” for Prince Eric, and “For the First Time” for Ariel, which apparently added to their character development. There was also some strange song called “The Scuttlebutt”, which was not popular with many viewers…They added more backstory to Prince Eric and his family, and made it so Ariel doesn’t know she needs Eric’s kiss to remain human, causing their relationship to develop more organically. Some of these story changes do not sound too bad, but I don’t think much of the casting, with Awkwafina being a particularly odd choice for Scuttle, though Halle Bailey seems to do a good job as Ariel from the few clips I’ve seen[17].

Generally, at the Disney theme parks, Ariel and The Little Mermaid are prominently featured at all the parks across the world, be that through parades, shows, nighttime fireworks performances or meet-and-greets, with Ariel and Ursula being the two most easily spotted, though Ursula may only be available for the Halloween season in some areas. Ariel is also likely to be at any location where the Disney Princesses can be found, including character dining such as Cinderella’s Royal Table at Walt Disney World or Auberge de Cendrillon in Disneyland Paris. Sometimes Ariel meets with Eric, but this is not common. Many children also choose to be made over to look like Ariel at Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boutiques.

Some of the specific high points of The Little Mermaid references include the ride of the movie. The attraction is named The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure at its home in Disney California Adventure Park, opening in June 2011, with a copy of the ride opening at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, as part of the New Fantasyland area, in December 2012 under the name Under the Sea – Journey of the Little Mermaid. This is an Omnimover dark ride that takes guests through highlights of the movie, such as the “Under the Sea” scene, Ursula’s lair, her defeat, and “Kiss the Girl”. The interesting thing about this ride is that it was originally in development in the early 1990s, however, the ride was put on hold and was not built. A computer-generated ride-through of this original attraction was added as a bonus feature to the 2006 Special Edition DVD release of the movie. Whether because of feedback from this ride-through or not, an attraction was then developed by Disney in the mid-to-late 2000s and opened as the ride we have today. The original ride would have had guests going through some different scenes such as a more intense battle with Ursula and an opening scene of Eric’s ship on the ocean in the mist, with the shell-shaped vehicles also being attached to a track on the ceiling, similar to Peter Pan’s Flight[18]. I remember seeing this ride on the bonus features before the actual attraction was built and was so annoyed it wasn’t real, so when it did open in some form, I was very happy, although I do find some of the animatronics of Ariel in the actual ride kind of creepy…

Also at Walt Disney World Resort, there is a whole section of the Art of Animation Resort dedicated to The Little Mermaid, as well as the area within New Fantasyland with the ride that includes an exterior building to look like Prince Eric’s castle, something that California’s version does not have. Sebastian’s Bistro is also a vaguely The Little Mermaid-themed restaurant at the Caribbean Beach Resort. There used to be a whole stage show for The Little Mermaid titled Voyage of the Little Mermaid at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This was a fifteen-minute re-telling of the movie which incorporated live performers, puppets, including a 12-foot-tall Ursula, water effects and a huge projection screen showing moments from the movie. It was only meant to be a temporary show however it ran from January 1992 until March 2020, when it closed with the parks for the COVID-19 pandemic, but never reopened. It has now been confirmed that this show will not be returning, and will be replaced by a new, albeit fairly similar, show titled The Little Mermaid – A Musical Adventure. It is due to open in late 2024, and will feature songs from the film, as well as puppets, live characters, and digital characters, created via motion capture.

At Tokyo DisneySea Park, a whole area called Mermaid Lagoon is themed to The Little Mermaid. The façade of the building looks like King Triton’s palace and takes you into an indoor area, making guests feel like they are under the sea. This is where guests can meet Ariel, shop, play in the play area, and ride some more basic fairground-type attractions, such as the Jumping Jellyfish, a child-friendly drop tower-style ride, and The Whirlpool, similar to the Tea Cups. Outside, there are also two outdoor attractions: Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster, a child-friendly rollercoaster, and Scuttle’s Scooters, a non-spinning version of the traditional Waltzers. This area looks great and I would’ve loved an area like this at Walt Disney World for when I was younger – though I’d probably still like it now!

These were the most interesting attractions themed to The Little Mermaid, however, each of the six Disney theme parks does have attractions, restaurants, hotel areas, or shops themed to The Little Mermaid or its characters, but recounting them all would take too long! But that’s not all because when the live-action The Little Mermaid was released, a whole new Ariel could be celebrated. At Disneyland Paris, an outdoor musical show, featuring performances of songs from the live-action film, took place at Walt Disney Studios Park from 26^th May 2023 to 23^rd June 2023. Also to promote the release of the film, new snacks, drinks and merchandise were also available to buy at the Disney Parks. You can still meet live-action Ariel at Walt Disney World, at the end of the Walt Disney Presents attraction at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but I’m unsure if you can still meet her at Disneyland by the it’s a small world attraction; the meet-and-greet is not listed on the website.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The Little Mermaid continues to have a hold on the hearts of many, whether they were adults or children at the time of the movie’s release, or born five, ten, twenty years afterwards. It’s one of those Disney animated films that has remained popular with young and old alike, as Beauty and the Beast (1991) and The Lion King (1994) would do just a few short years later. The Little Mermaid sparked a whole new era for Disney Animation, lovingly titled the Disney Renaissance Era, and although Ariel would later be joined by multiple other Disney princesses and heroines, some more contemporary than herself, she was the one who started the new age of Disney Princess.

It is difficult to express how important The Little Mermaid was for Disney Animation, the Disney movie-goers and the Walt Disney Company as a whole but it was vital. It is thanks to The Little Mermaid that a nervous animation workforce managed to find their passion for their work again and thankfully, the viewers saw that and were happy to join them on the crazy ride that followed.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Charline Bouzon, ‘The Little Mermaid: The incredible true story of Andersen’s tale’, En-Vols.com, 16^th February 2023.

[2] Credit: Disney, “The Little Mermaid: The Story Behind the Story”, from The Little Mermaid (1989) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2006).

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Ariel’s Tale’, MousePlanet.com, 28^th July 2021.

[4] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘The Little Mermaid (1989)’, pp. 82-84.

[5] Credit: Mackenzie Nichols, ‘’The Little Mermaid’ Turns 30: Inside the Disney Classic’s Rocky Journey’, Variety (online), 13^th November 2019.

[6] Credit: Mackenzie Nichols, ‘’The Little Mermaid’ Turns 30: Inside the Disney Classic’s Rocky Journey’, Variety (online), 13^th November 2019.

[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Ariel’s Tale’, MousePlanet.com, 28^th July 2021.

[8] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘How Sherri Stoner Became “The Little Mermaid”’, CartoonResearch.com, 19^th November 2021.

[9] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘The Little Mermaid (1989)’, pp. 82-84.

[10] Credit: Disney, “Treasures Untold: The Making of The Little Mermaid”, from The Little Mermaid (1989) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2006).

[11] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘The Little Mermaid (1989)’, pp. 82-84.

[12] Credit: Mackenzie Nichols, ‘’The Little Mermaid’ Turns 30: Inside the Disney Classic’s Rocky Journey’, Variety (online), 13^th November 2019.

[13] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘The Little Mermaid (1989)’, pp. 82-84.

[14] Credit: Disney, “Storm Warning: The Little Mermaid Special Effects Unit”, from The Little Mermaid (1989) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2006).

[15] Credit: Disney, “Treasures Untold: The Making of The Little Mermaid”, from The Little Mermaid (1989) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2006).

[16] Credit: Don Hahn, Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009).

[17] Credit: Alex Abad-Santos, ‘What Disney changed (and didn’t) in The Little Mermaid remake’, Vox.com, 25^th May 2023.

[18] Credit: Disney, “The Little Mermaid Under the Sea Adventure: The Virtual Ride”, from The Little Mermaid (1989) 2-Disc Special Edition DVD (2006).

10th Nov 202327th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#27 Oliver & Company (1988)

BACKGROUND

The 1980s were a troublesome time at Disney, particularly for the Animation Department.

Although The Black Cauldron (1985) was the “problem child” of Disney Animation during this decade, it was not the only issue the department faced. As well as dealing with an art form that was continuing to be expensive and received little respect from audiences, there was also a major upheaval in the form of new management, namely that of new Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, new Chief Financial Officer Frank Wells, new Chairman of Walt Disney Studios Jeffrey Katzenberg, who all arrived in 1984, coming from different film studios, and new president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, Peter Schneider in 1985.

It was a hard time. The dismal failure of The Black Cauldron (1985) and the mediocre success of The Great Mouse Detective (1986) meant there was a lot of pressure piling on to those animators working on Oliver & Company, a strange adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novel Oliver Twist, but with dogs and a cat. It was at least a unique adaptation of the novel, which had already become a musical, its subsequent 1968 film, as well as television series and other film and stage productions. But the animators weren’t excited, instead feeling anxious about their job security, and the new management mostly just wanted to make money. Audiences weren’t expecting much, having almost given up on seeing something spectacular from Disney Animation ever again, with the releases since Walt Disney’s death rarely living up to the spectacle and enchantment of the Studios’ early years.

But despite the incredibly mixed reviews and a lack of enthusiasm, Oliver & Company did in fact do well financially, and has managed to garner a cult following. I personally like Oliver & Company. I used to watch it a lot after school while I did my homework; it had a short enough runtime at just over an hour that it fit perfectly into the time I had between getting home from school and eating dinner! I also watched other shorter Disney animated films, like The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Robin Hood (1973) at this time too, and because I used to watch them so frequently, I guess I found an appreciation for them that perhaps the average person does not have. Although I can see why Oliver & Company is not one of those animated films that has been remembered or referenced much since its release in 1988: the animation is not beautiful, the story is not ground-breaking and bares little resemblance to its source material, and it doesn’t have the same charm as previous animated releases from Disney.

Other than the basic premise of an orphan being found by a group of pickpockets before finding a home with a rich family, and then being pursued by a villain, and the use of some character names, Oliver & Company is very different to Dickens’ novel. Instead of setting it in 19^th Century London, Disney’s film takes place in 1980s New York, and feels very contemporary. I think it was best for Disney to take this approach in moving the adaptation far away from the often-depressing work of Dickens and make it more relatable to a contemporary audience. It gives you the basic idea of the novel, without having to deal with any of the difficult, grim, problematic, and sometimes quite violent, themes!

PLOT

Oliver & Company begins with an aerial shot of Manhattan Island, before moving to the streets of New York City, where a box of kittens has been left. The box states “Kitties Need Home 5.00”. There must be some sort of honesty box, because although, one by one, the kittens are taken away, we never see anyone pay for them! After a couple of days, just one remains – a little ginger kitty – with the box now stating that the kitten is free to a good home, however, the last kitten is not taken away, but left in the box in the middle of a rainstorm. The kitten meows at passers-by but they either ignore him, or don’t hear him. After the kitten is almost flushed down into the sewer by rushing rainwater, almost killed by feral dogs, who chase him down an alley, and almost scared to death by thunder and lightning, it eventually settles down to sleep on top of a stationary truck’s wheel.

The next morning, the kitten is woken up by the truck moving and quickly jumps off. It begins searching for people to presumably either take him away from this horrible place or feed him, but, except for one toddler who is quickly dragged away by its mother, the kitten is largely ignored again. He stumbles upon a hot dog cart, and tries to beg for food but is shooed away by the miserable seller, Louie. A dog comes over to the kitten; his name is Dodger. He tells the cat that they need to team up to steal the hot dogs. Dodger barks at Oliver, scaring him so that he will run up Louie and distract him. This does the job, with Dodger taking the sausages. He walks away, leaving the kitten to fend for itself, but the kitten follows Dodger to a construction site, and all over New York City, telling him that half of those hot dogs are his, as per their deal.

Eventually, after Dodger’s big song-and-dance number where he shows off about how cool he is, they arrive at the docks, with Dodger unaware that the cat has been following him all along. On a rundown boat, a ragtag team of dogs live: the hyperactive Chihuahua, Tito, the high-class bulldog, Francis, the no-nonsense Saluki, Rita, and the nice but dim Great Dane, Einstein. They spend their time trying to find treasures that their owner, Fagin, can pawn to pay back a debt he currently has. Unfortunately, since they are only dogs, these “treasures” mostly amount to shredded wallets and random broken items; not enough to pay back debt. As Dodger is recounting his “terrifying” tale of how he outsmarted a “psychotic” monster to bring them food for dinner, something crashes through the roof of the boot – it’s that cat. Soon, Fagin arrives home, and is greeted by his dogs. He looks at their loot from the day and is disappointed by what he finds, saying Sykes won’t be happy with that. But really, what did he expect? How can dogs know what will and won’t pay off his ridiculous debts? Give them a break, man.

Anyway, Fagin goes up to see Sykes, the loan shark he needs to pay back. He tells Fagin he has one last chance; he has three days to pay back what he owes – or else. At the same time, Sykes’ Dobermans, Roscoe and DeSoto, stay with Fagin’s dogs, to keep them in line, and flirt with Rita, who rebuffs them every time. They soon smell the cat, with the cat scratching DeSoto’s nose as a warning. Fagin’s dogs surround and protect the kitten, and Sykes’ dogs are soon called away. Fagin returns to the room, feeling down and hopeless, with no idea how to pay back the money. The dogs rally around him, and Fagin is introduced to the cat, who is dubbed an official member of the gang. After a quick bedtime story, everyone settles down to sleep. The kitten moves off Fagin’s lap at one point and snuggles up next to Dodger. Cute.

The next day, Fagin and his dogs head into the city once more, with Fagin driving his three-wheeled scooter and the dogs sitting in the shopping trolley that is attached to it – very inventive. Fagin sends the dogs out to either find some way of making money or to steal something expensive, whilst he attempts to pawn items he’s “found”. The dogs teach the cat the tricks of their trade by seeing firsthand their plan to steal a limousine. Einstein hits the car, making the driver stop, with Francis putting on a theatrical display in front of the car, pretending to have been hit. Tito and the cat are sent inside the limo to hot-wire it. Except something goes wrong, because as Tito is working with the electrics, the cat gets scared by movement in the back of the car and falls onto the keys, which are in the ignition. The car goes haywire and Tito is electrocuted, and shot out the window. The cat gets stuck in wires, and is rescued by the passenger, a little girl called Jenny. The other dogs run away and meet up in an alley, only to find the cat was left behind. Tito and Dodger follow the car to find him.

The limo pulls up to a house on Fifth Avenue. The dogs make a plan to retrieve the kitten later on. Meanwhile, Jenny convinces her driver and butler, Winston, that her parents, who are away on a conference, wouldn’t mind her keeping the cat. Sure enough, they call soon after and say she can keep it. She names him Oliver – this is the first time the kitten’s name is mentioned in the film. Winston knows this will annoy their pampered, prize-winning poodle, Georgette. Sure enough, when Georgette comes downstairs and finds the cat eating “Oeufs á la Jenny, avec Cocoa Krispies” out of her bowl, no less, she is furious and tries to get the cat thrown out of the house. Speaking of Jenny’s strange cat food concoction, I’m sure most kids thought whatever it was she made looking amazing, because it’s basically a chocolate pudding or mousse, with chocolate cereal and whipped cream on top, which sounds great to me, but little Oliver shouldn’t be eating it because chocolate is toxic to cats, and most cats are actually lactose intolerant so shouldn’t have dairy. So, if you are looking for recipes for this amazing “cat food” online, and surprisingly, there are many of them, then please only give it to humans, not to your pets! Georgette is also seen eating a box of chocolates later on; don’t feed your dogs chocolate either.

Back to the story. Jenny and Oliver spend lots of time together, where she takes him to Central Park, to eat ice cream and sit in a rowboat and carriage; Oliver even “helps” her as she practises the piano. Jenny also gets Oliver a collar and tag, with his new name and new address. Oliver is very happy in his new home. But the next day, whilst Jenny is out at school, Fagin’s dogs break into the house. They find Georgette first who is furious to have strange dogs near her, but is only too pleased to hear that they want to take Oliver. Georgette is delighted to have the house all to herself again. When Oliver is returned to Fagin’s boat, he is upset at the others for taking him back because he was happy. Dodger is annoyed and tells Oliver to just leave then. As Oliver is about to leave, Fagin comes home, with his three days almost up and picks up Oliver. He sees Oliver’s tag and, believing that Oliver belongs to some rich person, writes a letter to the owner, asking for a ransom to get their cat back. Fagin posts it through the door.

Jenny sees the letter and is devastated to find that Oliver has been stolen. Her and Georgette head off in the rain over to the docks following Fagin’s terribly drawn map. At the docks, Fagin meets with Sykes. Sykes is expecting his money and when he finds that Fagin doesn’t have it, he orders his dogs to attack Dodger. Fagin babbles out his plan to use Oliver as a ransom, at which point Sykes calls off his dogs and tells Fagin it’s not a bad plan and gives him a few more hours. As Fagin waits for the rich cat owner, he sees Jenny and her dog looking very lost and upset. He realises that Jenny is the owner of Oliver and that there is no point trying to extort money from her, since she hasn’t got much, only what’s in her piggy bank. He returns Oliver to her, but little does he know that Sykes has been watching this exchange. Sykes drives towards them and grabs Jenny, throwing her into the car. He tells Fagin his debt is repaid.

The dogs and Oliver go to Sykes’ office and see Jenny tied up there; Sykes is on the phone to her parents, telling them to pay up. Tito is told to cut the security cameras, whilst the others dress up as a pizza delivery man to trick Sykes into coming out of the room; the dogs get inside and hook Jenny up to a wire above. Tito uses his electrical skills to get it to move upwards, but Sykes sees and jams the box, sending them down a slide. They are cornered with Sykes’ dogs about to attack. Jenny and the gang are soon rescued by Fagin in his scooter, and they rush off. Sykes and his two dogs follow behind in his car. Fagin thinks he can lose Sykes by going into the subway in Times Square, and yet, Sykes drives his car down into the tunnel and follows Fagin onto the train tracks. Sykes bumps the scooter, throwing Jenny onto his car. As Sykes tries to grab her from the roof, Oliver jumps over and bites his hand; Oliver is tossed into the back of the car, with DeSoto and Roscoe ready to attack. Dodger jumps into the car to save Oliver, but is himself attacked by Sykes’ dogs and thrown out of the back window, with one dog hitting the tracks. Oliver scratches the other dog who also hits the electrified tracks. Ouch.

Jenny reaches out to Fagin to save her, but Sykes pulls her back, so now Tito is driving the scooter, and no-one is driving Sykes’ car. Oliver and Dodger jump onto Sykes, giving Jenny the chance to jump towards Fagin. At the same time, Tito is driving the scooter directly into the path of an oncoming train, leaving Georgette to completely freak out on him. At the final moment, Tito pulls the scooter on to the railings of the Brooklyn Bridge and Sykes throws Dodger and Oliver off him – but is then struck by the train…Once the train has gone, Tito gently reverses the scooter off the railings and back on to the pavement, where Dodger comes out of the shadows carrying a seemingly lifeless Oliver. Jenny rushes to him, and he suddenly comes alive again.

A day or so later, it is Jenny’s birthday. At her fancy house, Oliver, Jenny, Winston, Fagin, Dodger and the rest of the dogs are having a party to celebrate. Winston gets a phone call from Jenny’s father saying that they will be home tomorrow – finally! Fagin watches wrestling on TV with Winston, only to lose a bet and have to make a swift getaway since obviously he has no money. Jenny receives gifts from all the dogs, like a lovely fish bone, broken tennis racket, and a beaten-up shoe, and says goodbye to Fagin, and the other dogs. Georgette decides to give Tito, or Alonso as she calls him, a makeover to meet her “grooming standards”. Tito rushes out of the house, dressed as a sailor, saying that Georgette is crazy and he doesn’t want to see her again! The dogs say goodbye to Oliver, with Dodger and Oliver having a particular moment, before he catches up with Fagin and his scooter by jumping all over cars and garbage trucks, like he does. The rest of the gang sing “Why Should I Worry?” with him, and the film ends with a final aerial view of NYC.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Oliver is the little ginger kitten that seemingly nobody wants to adopt. He has a very difficult start in life, with everyone ignoring him or not noticing him. When Oliver becomes a part of Fagin’s gang of dogs, though they accept him and protect him, more or less, it’s clear that he doesn’t really fit in and isn’t sure this is where he wants to be. It’s not until Jenny takes him in that Oliver starts to be happy with his life, as she clearly adores Oliver and I bet he ended up being a very spoilt little kitty! Oliver is very tough, by scratching and biting dogs and humans much larger than himself to either protect himself or save someone else. He’s also cute so you can’t help but root for him, especially after the New York streets seem to be too much for him to handle.

Oliver is voiced by an eleven or twelve-year-old Joey Lawrence. As a child star, he appeared in series such as Gimme a Break! (1983-87) and Blossom (1990-95). He also starred alongside his two brothers in the series Brotherly Love from 1995 to 1997. Oliver & Company was the first time one of the Lawrence brothers was cast in a Disney project. Later, Matthew Lawrence would be chosen for a voice part in the Disney English dub of Kiki’s Delivery Service (1998), and Andrew Lawrence would voice T.J. Dettweiler in the series Recess and its spin-offs. Nowadays, Joey Lawrence is probably best known for starring alongside Melissa Joan Hart in the ABC sitcom Melissa & Joey (2010-15).

Dodger starts off being quite arrogant and overly confident in the film. When he meets Oliver, he clearly just wants to use him to get food for himself and has no intentions of sharing. He talks a good game, but some of his stories are very much exaggerated, and made to make him look cooler and braver than he actually is. But Dodger is a very loyal dog, protecting Fagin, the rest of the dogs, and eventually Oliver, from harm, usually from Sykes and his Dobermans. Dodger is also carefree and relaxed, letting worries wash over him, which is good for me to see because I am the complete opposite, though I’d much rather be like Dodger. But then life is easier for dogs generally, isn’t it?

Singer-songwriter and six-time Grammy Award winner Billy Joel both voices and provides the singing voice for Dodger. This was an incredibly big name to have in the cast of a Disney animated film at the time, and they certainly used his name a lot in the marketing of the film’s release to get as many people to see it as possible! At the time, Billy Joel was famous for releasing hits such as “Piano Man” in 1973 and “Uptown Girl” in 1983. Oliver & Company was Joel’s acting debut. Director George Scribner was initially sceptical about whether Joel would be right for the role, but after an audition over the phone, Scribner thought he was great[1]. After this role, Joel continued to focus on his music. In June 2023, Joel announced that his residency at Madison Square Garden will end in July 2024.

Then, there’s Fagin. Though the novel Oliver Twist shows Fagin to be an outright crook, teaching his boys to steal from others and not caring much about their welfare, the Fagin in Oliver & Company has been humanised somewhat. I don’t see him as a thief, although I know he tells his dogs to go out and steal items for him, so that in itself is morally wrong, even if he doesn’t personally steal himself. To me, he seems to be someone who is down-on-his-luck, who had to take money from Sykes and is now struggling to pay it back. Fagin is threatened with violence or even death by Sykes, so how can you not feel bad for him? I think Fagin seems like a nice guy really, who cares for his dogs, but struggles to hold down a job and make money.

Maybe it’s just his voice that makes Fagin seem so lovable, and that is the work of actor and comedian Dom DeLuise. DeLuise starred alongside his friend Burt Reynolds in various films such as The Cannonball Run (1981) and Smokey and the Bandit II (1980). He also appeared in Mel Brooks movies, like Blazing Saddles (1974). Outside of this, DeLuise had much experience in voice acting, having voiced the characters of Jeremy in The Secret of NIMH (1982) and Tiger in An American Tail (1986). Disney were pleased to get DeLuise to voice a character for one of their films, as these two previous films he had voice acted in were for Don Bluth[2]. Bluth had been an animator at the Disney Studios but left in 1979 to set up his own animation studio, taking many animators with him. Disney felt they had “poached” DeLuise, however, DeLuise reprised his roles as Jeremy and Tiger in their subsequent spin-offs throughout the 80s and 90s. But for me, I know Dom DeLuise from only Oliver & Company and just one episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1996-2003), where he played Cousin Mortimer in Season 3 Episode 4 in 1998. DeLuise passed away in 2009 at the age of 75.

Sykes is the evil and scary loan shark who Fagin must owe a lot of money to warrant this kind of attention from an obviously very busy and successful man, judging by his shiny Cadillac. Sykes is willing to resort to violence to get what’s owed him, but he can be charming, albeit in a menacing way, when he’s trying to get someone to listen to him, like Fagin in their first encounter in the film, or when he’s talking to Jenny after kidnapping her. He’s a Disney villain that nobody really talks about, despite having quite a brutal death, which is disappointing because I think he’s a good one.

The role of Sykes was initially offered by Michael Eisner to Marlon Brando; however, Brando declined the role as he thought the film would bomb[3]. Instead, they cast Robert Loggia, who had starred in films such as three films in the Pink Panther series and Scarface (1983) by the time he was cast by Disney. The same year as Oliver & Company’s release in 1988, Loggia also starred as Mr. MacMillan, the owner of MacMillan Toy Company, in Big (1988), a massively successful movie, where Loggia won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. I had no idea Mr. MacMillan was Sykes until just now, and I am surprised, in a good way! Loggia passed away in 2015 at the age of 85.

Finally, for the primary characters, we have the kind and caring seven-year-old Jenny. Though she has a nice house and rich parents, Jenny is actually very lonely before she meets Oliver as her parents seem to be very busy with their jobs and fly out of the country often for work. Jenny is even told that they won’t be home for her birthday, which upsets her a lot. They do come home the very next day, apparently, but that’s besides the point. She doesn’t have her parents around, their poodle Georgette is pretentious and not very cuddly, and Winston is their highly professional butler, so Jenny has no-one she can really talk to. She needed Oliver to give her some sort of stability and friendship in life, outside of school, where I assume she has friends, but we don’t get to find out. Her birthday party consists of just Oliver, Fagin, and his dogs, so maybe she doesn’t! Jenny is a sweet girl, and a very deserving and devoted owner to Oliver.

Former child actress Natalie Gregory provides the speaking voice for Jenny. In 1985, she starred as Alice in the 1985 made-for-television film Alice in Wonderland, which aired on CBS in two parts. After the release of Oliver & Company, Gregory then played the part of Annie in the former Epcot attraction Cranium Command, which opened at the Wonders of Life pavilion in October 1989 before closing in January 2007. I miss that attraction so much…

For the more minor characters, there are still so many impressive names in the voice cast. Firstly, actress and singer Bette Midler voices poodle Georgette. Georgette is quite vain and bossy, thinking herself better than Fagin’s dogs because she is a show dog, having won numerous awards. She hates the spotlight being taken away from her by Oliver, but when they have to set out to save Jenny, she gets on board with the dogs’ plans, though she isn’t much use! Bette Midler has released numerous albums, performed in many Broadway productions such as Fiddler on the Roof as Tzeitel in 1967 and Hello, Dolly! as Dolly from 2017 to 2018, and starred in various screen roles, like Big Business (1988) and The First Wives Club (1996). For Disney, she introduced “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” segment of Fantasia 2000 (1999) and most famously, starred as Winifred Sanderson in the Halloween movies Hocus Pocus (1993) and its sequel Hocus Pocus 2 (2022).

Cheech Marin provides the voice of the energetic and highly flirtatious Tito the Chihuahua. Tito is quite fiery and easy to anger, but because of Tito’s small stature, nobody takes him seriously when he wants to fight. Tito is tasked with biting through lots of electrical wires, which seems very unfair, but apparently being electrocuted is his top skill! He’s the funniest of all the characters, and has some great lines, “If this is torture, chain me to the wall” and “Get off my back woman, I’m driving”, being his best. Marin was well-known for his comedy act Cheech & Chong alongside Tommy Chong during the 1970s and 1980s. Since his role in Oliver & Company, Marin has returned to Disney to voice other characters such as Banzai in The Lion King (1994) and Ramone in the Cars franchise (2006-present). Other roles he may be known for are: “Uncle” Felix in the first three Spy Kids films (2001-2003) and Officer Salino in the under-appreciated movie Christmas with the Kranks (2004).

The last three names to mention are the dogs Rita, Einstein, and Francis, who are the three with the least amount of screen time. Rita is streetwise and feisty. She tries to care for Oliver by teaching him the way of the streets. Looking at the source material, I presume Rita is meant to be like Nancy in Oliver Twist, a maternal figure of some sort to Oliver before he meets his forever family. Rita’s voice is provided by Sheryl Lee Ralph. At the time, she was best known for performing as Deena Jones in the original Broadway production of Dreamgirls in 1981. She later returned to Broadway to play the role of Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2002. Presently, she stars as Barbara Howard in the critically acclaimed ABC comedy series Abbott Elementary (2021-present). Sheryl Lee Ralph won a Primetime Emmy Award for this role in 2022. She is amazing. But, like Dom DeLuise, I also know her from an episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1996-2003)! This time it is Cousin Zsa Zsa, who appears in Season 4 Episode 13, which aired in 1999.

Richard Mulligan is the voice of Einstein, the slow but kind Great Dane. His big skill is banging into things, and somehow not getting too injured! Mulligan won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1980 for his recurring role as Burt Campbell in the sitcom Soap (1977-81), a parody about daytime soap operas. Mulligan was also known for playing Dr. Harry Weston in the sitcom Empty Nest (1988-95), where he once again won the Primetime Emmy for Lead Actor in 1989. Mulligan died in 2000. Roscoe Lee Browne provides the voice of the highly cultured and posh bulldog Francis, who can be seen watching a production of Macbeth on television during our first introduction to Fagin’s dogs. He has some fun lines, like Tito, such as: “Isn’t it rather dangerous to use one’s entire vocabulary in a single sentence?”. Like Richard Mulligan, Roscoe Lee Browne also appeared in the sitcom Soap (1977-81) as Saunders. He also won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Performer for his role as Dr. Barnabus Foster, which he performed from 1986 to 1987 in The Cosby Show (1984-92). Throughout his career, he also performed in numerous productions of Shakespeare plays. Roscoe Lee Brown passed away in 2007.

MUSIC

That’s the voice cast, but the artists on the soundtrack are just as impressive. Huey Lewis, lead singer of the band Huey Lewis and the News, whose hit song “The Power of Love” was written for and played within the blockbuster film Back to the Future (1985), performs the opening number “Once Upon a Time in New York City”. The song says to hang on to your dreams, even when times get tough, which is fitting since New York City is named the City of Dreams. It’s a lovely song, my favourite on the soundtrack. It’s kind of melancholy to begin with and then more hopeful by the end. I also like how it references Oliver in the lyrics, despite the fact he has no name at this point in the film! The song itself was written by Barry Mann and Howard Ashman. This was the first song that Ashman wrote for a Disney animated feature, before going on to collaborate with Alan Menken on music for The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991)[4]. Barry Mann has had success writing both his own songs and alongside his wife Cynthia Weil. Weil and Mann wrote the song “Christmas Vacation” for the film National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989).

The next song is performed by Billy Joel as Dodger and is called “Why Should I Worry?”. It’s an upbeat pop song that Dodger performs as he tries to outrun Oliver across the streets of NYC, over a construction site, on to cars, even on to a piano dangling in mid-air! He really doesn’t worry about anything. It suited Disney to give Joel a big number in the film, since singing is what he is best known for. I like the song and its sequence; it’s good fun. In this scene, you can see cameos of Peg, Trusty and Jock from Lady and the Tramp (1955), as well as Pongo from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), when all the dogs in the city rush to follow Dodger as he sashays down the street. The song is also reprised at the end of the film by all Fagin’s dogs. This song was written by Dan Hartman and Charlie Midnight. The two were a longtime songwriting duo. Separately, Hartman wrote and released the disco song “Relight My Fire” amongst others, and Charlie Midnight has worked with numerous artists and on movies soundtracks, including on The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003) and the title song “Big Time Rush” for the Nickelodeon band Big Time Rush.

The third song, “Streets of Gold”, is performed by Rita, but not by Sheryl Lee Ralph. Instead, Ruth Pointer, of The Pointer Sisters who had hits with the songs “I’m So Excited” and “Jump (For My Love)”, sings the song. It’s not clear why the two performers are different. It’s possible that Ruth Pointer agreed to sing for the soundtrack, but did not want the full voice part, or couldn’t do it due to previous commitments. Either way, it’s a great song, with Rita telling Oliver how to survive on the streets, although it’s short, stopping just as it’s about to get going. The soundtrack version is much longer than the film version though. It was written by Dean Pitchford and Tom Snow. Pitchford wrote the lyrics for three songs for the 1980 film Fame, including the title song “Fame”, which won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Original Song. As well as writing the screenplay, Pitchford also collaborated on the music for Footloose (1984), with some of the songs, including “Let’s Hear It for the Boy”, being co-written with Tom Snow. Tom Snow wrote songs for numerous artists and movies, but most interestingly for me he co-wrote three songs for The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride (1998): “One of Us”, “We Are One”, and “Love Will Find a Way”.

“Perfect Isn’t Easy” is Georgette’s big theatrical number. It sounds Broadway, it looks Broadway, and it’s performed by a Broadway star: Bette Midler. She’s amazing from start to finish here, even having to do a huge yawn at the start of the song, and then she’s barking by the end of it! At this point in the film, Georgette does not know about Oliver so she’s basically just singing about how wonderful she is and how everyone, even birds and squirrels, not just dogs, are in love with her; it’s brilliant. This was the song I used to rewind the VHS for all the time, but as I’ve gotten older, “Once Upon a Time in New York City” became my favourite song and this is now my second. The winding staircase Georgette walks down at the end of her number was actually created using computer-animation. The song was co-written by Barry Manilow, Jack Feldman, and Bruce Sussman, who regularly worked together, for example on Don Bluth’s film Thumbelina (1994), the highlights of their career, I’m sure, and on the Grammy Award-winning song “Copacabana”. Feldman also collaborated with Alan Menken on songs for the musical Newsies, and co-wrote with Tom Snow on those three songs from The Lion King II (1998). We all know Manilow as both a singer and songwriter, specifically for his hit songs like “Copacabana”, “I Write the Songs” and “Mandy”.

The final song, “Good Company”, was not sung by Jenny’s voice actor but by Myhanh Tran. It is likely that Natalie Gregory’s voice was not strong enough to handle the song here. “Good Company” is a sweet song, played over a sweet scene, of Oliver and Jenny going all over New York together and having the best day ever. It’s probably not the most exciting film in the soundtrack, and the only one not to have some big name attached to it, either as the performer or in the songwriting team, but it matches the sentiment of the sequence. I particularly enjoy the instrumental bit in the middle of the song. The song was written by Ron Rocha and Robert Minkoff, whose name you may recognise for his work at Disney. Minkoff co-directed The Lion King (1994) with Roger Allers, and was supervising animator for Olivia in The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and provided early designs for Ursula in The Little Mermaid (1989). He later left the Disney Studios and instead directed live-action films like Stuart Little (1999) and its 2002 sequel, and then Disney’s The Haunted Mansion (2003). He returned to animation to direct Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014).

The last thing I will say about the soundtrack is that the score was composed by J.A.C Redford, and I really like the piece titled “Pursuit Through the Subway”; it’s pretty obvious where in the film this plays! For some reason, this always gets me. I think it’s because it’s the first real bit of peril you see in this film, which has mostly just been funny, fluffy entertainment, but to be chased by a madman through the subway and almost get hit by an upcoming train, whilst said madman is trying to kidnap a little girl is a lot to take in! The music feeds in to the feeling of threat and it is kind of stressful! And then it’s all really sad, because we think Oliver’s dead, and then it’s all happy again when it turns out he’s not. That one piece of music sends you on a total emotional rollercoaster.

PRODUCTION

Oliver & Company began development in the standard way. The new management that had come in decided that to get fresh, new ideas for movies they should organise meetings where animators were free to pitch their ideas; they called it “The Gong Show”, after the televised talent contest of the same name that ran through the 1970s and 1980s. In a similar fashion to the buzzers that the judges use on the …Got Talent series, an act would be gonged if they were particularly bad and had to leave the stage. In this case, the animators’ ideas were the acts and either they were gonged or greenlit. Pete Young was the Disney employee to suggest making Oliver & Company, simply stating it would be Oliver Twist, but with dogs; Katzenberg approved the idea.

However, this was not a simple story to adapt. As I’ve mentioned Dickens novels are not particularly happy, they are also not written for a contemporary audience, so his prose can be difficult or complex to read and understand. The team chose to set their Oliver Twist in America and in present day, yet there were many creative discussions that went on during the film around the plot, leading to rewrites and many wasted drawings. There was a whole different plot idea about the dogs stealing a panda from the zoo that was developed, but obviously was not continued, and an initial idea for this to be some sort of sequel to The Rescuers (1977). Richard Rich, who had directed the infamous The Black Cauldron (1985), and George Scribner were named as the directors of Oliver & Company, but halfway through production, Rich was removed from the project, leaving Scribner as the sole director.

Not only were story and personnel changes causing problems for the film, but there was an overall lack of morale within the Animation Department at the time. This was partly due to audience reactions and financial results of The Black Cauldron (1985), and to some extent, The Great Mouse Detective (1986), which was considered a huge step forward for Disney Animation, but had been outperformed by Don Bluth’s An American Tail (1986), which coincidentally was also about a mouse. The animators had been moved from their dedicated animation building at the Burbank Studios, as ordered by the new management team. The artists were forced to move to Glendale, which was an uninspiring place to work to say the least. By the summer of 1985, the whole animation department had been moved there. The crew working on The Great Mouse Detective (1986) were some of the first to move to Glendale, with the team working on Oliver & Company being the last.

Roy E. Disney stated at this time that he wanted a new animated film to be released every year, putting even more pressure on the already stressed animators, though this is something that Disney have managed to do ever since, with few exceptions. The new management of Eisner, Wells, Katzenberg, and Schneider were firmly settled in their new positions by the time Oliver & Company was being created and steaming ahead with their ideas of working, but at the same time another big film, a hybrid of animation and live-action was being developed: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), directed by Robert Zemeckis, with executive producer Steven Spielberg. The animated portion of this film was not completed in California, but in London. Peter Schneider, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, was flying back and forth between the two studios, boasting about the success of one to the other, building up some sort of rivalry between the two, perhaps to boost both sides’ work. In the end, Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), released in June 1988, was hugely successful at the box office and with critics, boosting the morale of all the Disney animators[5].

After much discussion over the story, and with the shocking passing of screenwriter Pete Young who originally pitched the idea, the final screenplay for Oliver & Company was co-written by James Mangold, who went on to direct movies such as The Wolverine (2013), Logan (2017), and Ford v Ferrari (2019). Other big Disney names who worked on the story included Mike Gabriel, who went on to co-direct Pocahontas (1995); Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, who went on to co-direct Beauty and the Beast (1991), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Atlantis: The Lost Empire; and Kevin Lima, who went on to direct Tarzan (1999) and Enchanted (2007). Animators Mark Henn, Glen Keane and Ruben A. Aquino also worked on Oliver & Company as Supervising Animators. They would go on to design and animate characters like Princess Jasmine, the Beast, Ariel, and Simba[6].

Despite being predominately hand-drawn, Oliver & Company was actually the first Disney animated feature to have a specific department solely for computer animation. Computer animation was used for things like buildings, trains, cars, including Sykes’ car, and Fagin’s weird scooter. This was a leap forward for Disney in using this technology, which had only been used in small sequences for previous movies The Black Cauldron (1985) and The Great Mouse Detective (1986). Pixar had only just made their fully CG-created short Tin Toy in August 1988, so it was still a technology in its infancy[7].

The location for Oliver & Company is New York City. Animators shot photos of NYC streets as reference material, shooting photos from 18 inches off the ground to represent a dog’s perspective. It is also worth mentioning that famous landmarks such as Manhattan Island, Times Square, Central Park, and Fifth Avenue all feature in the movie. The World Trade Center is another one. To represent New York City authentically, Oliver & Company is the first Disney animated feature to use product placements. Brands seen include Coca-Cola, Sony and USA Today. It’s worth noting that this advertisement was unpaid and was added purely to give a sense of reality to the setting[8].

RECEPTION

Oliver & Company was theatrically released on 18th November 1988, the exact same day as The Land Before Time (1988), another Don Bluth film, with Spielberg and George Lucas as two of the executive producers. The Land Before Time topped the box office during its opening weekend, however in the end, Oliver & Company beat out The Land Before Time, raking in $53 million compared with $46 million. This showed to the Disney animators that their effort was finally paying off[9]. Having said that, it is likely that some of this success would have been boosted by a huge marketing push from Disney, with their links to McDonald’s and the names of their all-star cast being just two elements that were helpful to them.

However, box office figures aren’t everything, because critically Oliver & Company did not do well. Many reviews said that the movie was predictable, the animation was basic, and that it did not compare to the heights of Disney Animation. Some did like the music and characters, others did not, saying this movie was only going to be popular with children. Oliver & Company was then not seen again for eight years, when it was re-released theatrically in 1996, before finally being released on VHS. DVD and Blu-Ray editions have since been released in the years that followed and it is also available to view on Disney+.

LEGACY

So how does Oliver & Company do at the theme parks? Well, it’s probably not much of a surprise, but not well. It doesn’t look like the characters ever did traditional meet-and-greets, but they were seen on a pre-parade float at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World around the time of the movie’s initial release. These floats were more or less the same at both parks, featuring costumed Dodger, Oliver, Georgette, Tito, and Francis, with an actress playing Jenny. The song “Why Should I Worry?” played as it went past. During the broadcast of Walt Disney World’s Christmas Day Parade in 1988 there was also a featurette about the making of the movie. At Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, there used to be a castle show called Disney Mania, which ran from 1989 until 2001. It involved a costumed Dodger “singing” “Why Should I Worry?” for a time, but only from 1989 to 1992.

After that, there is very little else to say. I have seen one photo of Francis, Tito, Dodger, and probably Georgette and Oliver, in a car together during a parade at Tokyo Disneyland sometime between 1988 and 1990. Supposedly the film was popular in France, but I cannot find anything showing Oliver & Company being represented at Disneyland Paris. Perhaps there were some characters involved in the park’s opening in 1992, but I am not sure. As Oliver & Company was not popular with audiences, and Hong Kong Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland opened much later than these other parks, in 2005 and 2016 respectively, it is no surprise that nothing referencing Oliver & Company has appeared there.

As part of the celebrations for Disney100, collections called Disney100 Decades were being released throughout the event. The collection for the 1980s included a plush of Oliver and a plush of Dodger, which were available in 2023. Other than that, you will be lucky to find anything else celebrating the film, outside of the occasional pin or anniversary ornament. It unfortunately just didn’t do well enough with the general public to warrant a whole line of constant merchandising, unlike other prominent animated films.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It is disappointing that more people don’t enjoy Oliver & Company. It has many good points, like its amazing cast of vocal and musical talent, its lovable characters, and its moments of heart. It really isn’t a bad film, it’s just underappreciated. It launched the Disney Renaissance Era, with those involved going on to do amazing things just a year later.

The nostalgia of the 1980s continues to be referenced, through fashion and screen, with it interesting the younger generations in particular. As Oliver & Company is most definitely an 80s movie, who knows, maybe there will be a whole new appreciation for this film so that others can correct the mistake of the older viewers who have since forgotten it.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Disney, “The Making of Oliver & Company”, from Oliver & Company (1988) 20^th Anniversary Edition DVD (2009).

[2] Credit: Sam Scott, ‘Things Only Adults Notice In Oliver and Company’, Looper.com, 16^th October 2022.

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Oliver & Company (1988)’, pp. 79-81.

[4] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Oliver & Company (1988)’, pp. 79-81.

[5] Credit: Don Hahn, Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009).

[6] Credit: Kiki Evans, ’10 Things You Didn’t Know About Oliver & Company’, CBR.com, 29^th March 2021.

[7] Credit: Sam Scott, ‘Things Only Adults Notice In Oliver And Company’, Looper.com, 16^th October 2022.

[8] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Oliver & Company (1988)’, pp. 79-81.

[9] Credit: Don Hahn, Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009).

3rd Nov 202327th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#47 Meet the Robinsons (2007)

BACKGROUND

I remember when I first watched Meet the Robinsons.

It was only about five or six years ago, when DisneyLife – the little-known streaming app that was the precursor to the streaming giant that is Disney+ – was released in the UK, allowing me the chance to catch up on those animated movies that I’d missed out on; Meet the Robinsons was one of those. And I must say: it surprised me. A lot.

I hadn’t even been paying much attention to it at the time. It was just playing on a tablet while I did something else, but soon, it caught my attention, and by the end of it, I found I’d actually quite liked it.

I hadn’t expected much because Meet the Robinsons was released in 2007, during that timeframe when Disney was being outdone by the likes of Pixar and DreamWorks, with a new Disney animated movie not receiving much attention, or, if it did, receiving it for all the wrong reasons. Disney was not being compared favourably to the other animation studios, so why did I think Meet the Robinsons would be any different? It was just something I wanted to get through, to say I’d watched it. I was wrong to think that.

Not everything Disney touches turns to gold, and Meet the Robinsons is still evidence of that, but it was at least a step in the right direction, after the dismal reviews of Home on the Range (2004), which I partly agree with, and Chicken Little (2005), which I wholeheartedly do not.

I know that Meet the Robinsons does not have much of a following. I personally don’t know many people who have watched it, but it has managed to gain a cult following over the sixteen years since its release, and I am only too pleased by that. Now, granted, it’s not my favourite film, nor is it one that I revisit often. It doesn’t look brilliant, at least not very “Disney-like”, due to this only being their second attempt at a fully CG animated movie, after Chicken Little, and, on top of that, parts of the film feel a bit slow and drawn-out. However, I like some of the plot points, along with a couple of the characters, but the emotional ending with its touching message is really what sticks with you.

PLOT

The movie is quite heavily influenced by science-fiction, specifically time-travel and changeable timelines, kind of like the Back to the Future franchise, but less complicated. Though having said that, there are multiple time jumps in Meet the Robinsons, so bear with me while I try to recount the plot.

Meet the Robinsons begins on a dark, rainy night, outside an orphanage, where a woman leaves her baby on the doorstep to be taken in. We skip forward twelve years to see that the baby has become an imaginative kid inventor called Lewis, who wants nothing more than to be adopted. Unfortunately, his latest “adoption interview” goes awry when his newest invention malfunctions, spraying his prospective parents with peanut butter and jelly – only for the man to be allergic to peanuts…Needless to say, Lewis is devastated and runs up to the orphanage roof to be alone. Mildred, Head of the Sixth Street Orphanage, tells Lewis he’ll be adopted soon, despite having had 124 of these interviews so far, with none of them coming to anything. Mildred tries to lift his spirits, but Lewis is intent on finding his birth mother, the only person, he believes, who has and will ever love him. So, he sets out to make a “memory scanner” to retrieve the only memory he has of his mother so he can find her. Lewis makes the scanner and takes it to his school Science Fair, where he is taken aside by a dark-haired boy called Wilbur, who claims to be from the future, and is looking for a perpetrator– a strange, lanky man with a bowler hat – who has stolen his time machine. Lewis dismisses the idea; however, this man does exist and his bowler hat, which moves on its own, tampers with Lewis’ scanner, causing the Science Fair to descend into chaos.

Wilbur follows Lewis and tries to convince him to help him find “Bowler Hat Guy” and retrieve his stolen time machine. Lewis dismisses him again, so Wilbur takes him in the spare time machine to the future, the year 2037, to prove he isn’t lying. Meanwhile, Bowler Hat Guy and DOR-15, the hat, (pronounced “Doris”) have stolen the memory scanner, to pass it off as their own to InventCo, a big corporation, however, as he knows nothing about it, he is thrown out and the scanner is broken. Bowler Hat Guy and Doris go back to the year 2037 to find Lewis, and get him to fix the scanner. There, Lewis has been trying to fix the spare time machine, on the proviso Wilbur takes Lewis back to see his mother, but while doing so, Lewis accidentally meets the other members of Wilbur’s family, the crazy, zany Robinsons. After Wilbur says that he was never going to take Lewis back in time to see his mother, Lewis walks off angrily, to be picked up by Bowler Hat Guy and Doris in the other time machine; they get Lewis to fix the scanner, promising to take Lewis back to see his mother, but he is captured and told the true story of Bowler Hat Guy – that he is actually Lewis’ former roommate at the orphanage, Michael Yagoobian, known as “Goob” – shock twist! After being kept up for days on end while Lewis made his scanner, Goob fell asleep during an important baseball game, missing a vital catch, and subsequently being beaten up by the team, and, holding on to that blame, became consumed by his hatred of Lewis for ruining his life and decided to join forces with Doris, one of Lewis’ abandoned inventions, to ruin his life instead. Bowler Hat Guy and Doris go back and sell the scanner to InventCo, along with an idea for “helping hats”

Lewis realises this will ruin his future timeline, so fixes the time machine, and, now in this new parallel universe, sees Doris has enslaved every human with these “helping hats”. He vows never to invent her, destroying her, and causing the original future timeline to go back to how it was. Bowler Hat Guy, now without his hatred of Lewis, no partner-in-crime, and with no future plan, goes away to figure out what to do next, while Lewis realises that he is in fact the elusive “Cornelius”, father of Wilbur, patriarch of the Robinson family – or he will be anyway! Cornelius and Lewis meet, where he states that the memory scanner started his career as an inventor. Now Lewis must return to his time to see out this future, but before doing that, Wilbur does take Lewis to see his mother. Just as he’s about to say something to her, Lewis realises he doesn’t need to, as he has a family waiting for him, and that he needs to move on from the past. Lewis returns to his time, wakes Goob up during his baseball game so he can make the winning catch and have a happier future, and then Lewis gets to show the now-working memory scanner again at the Science Fair, where he finds that one of the judges, scientist Lucille Krunklehorn, and her husband, Bud, will adopt him, moving him to the famous Robinson house that he saw in the year 2037, cementing his future with them. The movie ends with a quote from Walt Disney, saying not to dwell on failure and to “keep moving forward”, this being the ultimate message and theme of Meet the Robinsons.

Meet the Robinsons is loosely based on the children’s book, A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce, published in 1990. The plot of the book follows a boy visiting a family friend’s home, only to be introduced to the strange Robinson household and having to join the search for Grandfather Robinson’s missing false teeth. This is a very minor plot point that does appear in Meet the Robinsons, with Lewis helping Grandpa find his teeth being the way he meets the other Robinson family members. Joyce took inspiration from his childhood in Louisiana. One of his childhood friends had a large family, who all lived together in a huge house and were quite a unique household, apparently[1].

CHARACTERS & CAST

Meet the Robinsons involves a few main characters, but has a large supporting cast – something that had troubled some of Disney’s previous animated features, due to the lack of central focus, giving them a “busy, hectic” vibe. The main characters are strong enough to support the plot, however, the supporting cast does not make a huge influence on the story, or the viewer. But let’s focus on the primary characters of Meet the Robinsons.

The point of the duo of Lewis and Wilbur is for them to be contrasting, in look and personality. Even in the original source material, Wilbur was the extrovert, the driving force of the relationship, and Lewis was the introvert, taking more of a passenger-role in the story[2]. Lewis in the movie is blond, kind of nerdy, with glasses and a sweater vest, compared with Wilbur’s look of dark hair, styled in a sort of slicked-back Danny-from-Grease style, with his cool shades, black t-shirt and jeans. Personality-wise, Lewis is a bit shy, and unsure of himself. He seems quite apologetic, thinking he’s a failure and never going to amount to anything. This is probably because of his unfortunate luck with prospective adoptive parents. He’s also going through a difficult time in his life, feeling like he doesn’t belong. Lewis doesn’t start to feel more comfortable in himself until he meets the Robinson family, who teach him that it’s ok to fail, and that it’s great to just be yourself. No matter how “weird” or “strange” you may come across to others, it doesn’t matter what people think.

Wilbur, on the other hand, is confident, and quite sure of himself. He comes from a large, loving family, and that has clearly helped him feel secure. He doesn’t seem like much of a friend to Lewis at the start of the movie, ordering him around a lot, and lying about taking him back to his mother, but that is partly due to the fact that he needed to conceal his identity from the family, and get the timeline back on track. By the end, after Lewis realises he will actually be Wilbur’s father in the future, they seem to get along much better, and Wilbur does keep his promise to take Lewis back to see his mother by the end.

Lewis is voiced by two different voice actors: Jordan Fry and Daniel Hansen. Daniel Hansen seems to have retired from acting since the release of Meet the Robinsons. Jordan Fry is probably best known for playing the role of Mike Teavee in the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the one with Johnny Depp). Wesley Singerman provides the voice of Wilbur Robinson. Since the release of Meet the Robinsons, Singerman retired from acting and now focuses on his career in music.

The other main characters are Bowler Hat Guy and his sidekick Doris – or is that the other way round? At the start of the movie, we are led to believe that Bowler Hat Guy is the villain of the story. Only, he doesn’t act like much of a villain. Sure, he intends to ruin Lewis’ future, and he wants him to be miserable, but Bowler Hat Guy isn’t a very effective villain! For one thing, he isn’t particularly scary or sinister-looking. He has a black cape, his bowler hat, a long moustache, and he moves a bit like a snake, but as soon as he opens his mouth, he doesn’t sound at all like a villain. The other thing is that he isn’t really sure what he’s doing. He’s a bit of a dope to be honest, but a funny one at that.

That’s why Doris is so important, because she is the mastermind of all the schemes, and has to tell Bowler Hat Guy where to go, what to do, and what to say, for the most part. The couple of times he is left on his own to deal with things, they do not go to plan. When he is in InventCo, for example, trying to pass off the memory scanner as his own, Doris is not able to tell Bowler Hat Guy exactly what to say, and as a result, he breaks the invention and gets thrown out of the building. When Bowler Hat Guy is left to capture Lewis, with a mini-Doris to help, he manages to get mini-Doris to control both a frog and a T-Rex, only to find that they are both useless minions because the frog is too small to capture a teenage boy, and the T-Rex’s arms are too stubby to do it either!

The identity reveal of Bowler Hat Guy is the best part for me, and makes him a very sympathetic character in the end. To find he is actually Goob, Lewis’ roommate at the orphanage, who has set out to ruin Lewis’ life after he “ruined” his, is heart-breaking. Goob has been so consumed by hate that he has let his whole life pass him by, not being able to function properly, and ending up without a family, living in the abandoned orphanage alone. He finds Doris when he is about to exact his revenge on Lewis’ company building – by throwing toilet paper over it, very scary – and she tells him to join forces. When Doris is shown to be the evil one, enslaving all the humans, Bowler Hat Guy is clearly upset by this turn of events, and Doris casts him aside. Once Lewis has fixed the timeline, by saying he will never invent Doris, he is about to ask Goob to become one of the Robinsons, but Goob has already walked off. They find his checklist on how to exact his revenge on Lewis, which now is just a question mark, resembling his future. It’s very sad to see. I really like him as a character; I like how he is more complex as a villain, with a complicated backstory, an attempt at being evil, and a redemption at the end[3].

The director, Stephen Anderson, is actually the voice of Bowler Hat Guy, which isn’t unheard of and is quite common if you look into it. For example, Brad Bird who directed The Incredibles (2004) voices Edna in that movie, and Stitch is voiced by the director of Lilo & Stitch (2002), Chris Sanders. Sometimes the scratch voices they use during production stick, and they have to use the same person, even if they are the director! I think he does a brilliant job with it.

For the supporting cast, every member of the Robinson family from the book makes an appearance in the movie, each with their own trait or unique quality. They are free to do whatever makes them happy, whether that is Franny, Wilbur’s mother, who has made a full frog band, as frogs have a capacity to be musical, more so than humans, or Uncle Art, who is a pizza delivery man with a superhero persona. If you want the full details of the family, and their relations, you’ll have to either watch the film or Google it, because it would take forever for me to recount them all here! I wouldn’t say many of the family members are particularly memorable; I could only remember a couple of them, but it is still useful in showing that the Robinsons are a huge, quirky, but loving, family.

For the secondary roles, Disney managed to get a few big names to come in for the voice work. This includes Laurie Metcalf, who voiced Jim’s mother in Treasure Planet (2002) and Andy’s mom in the Toy Story franchise (1995-present), amongst other things. Metcalf voices Lucille Krunklehorn, Lewis’ adoptive mother. Adam West voices Uncle Art. He did quite a lot of other voice work before his death, but is perhaps best known for playing Batman in the 1960s. Nicole Sullivan, known for playing Holly Shumpert in The King of Queens (1998-2007) as well as voicing Shego in Disney’s Kim Possible (2002-07) around this time, provides the voice work for Franny. Angela Bassett, now perhaps most known for her role as Ramonda in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including in the films Black Panther (2018) and its sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022), voices the part of Mildred, the head of the orphanage. American actor Ethan Sandler ended up voicing seven different characters, including Doris, and Tom Kenny, best known as the voice actor for SpongeBob SquarePants since 1999, voices Mr. Willerstein, Lewis’ teacher.

The biggest name in my view that Disney somehow managed to get is Tom Selleck as the voice of Cornelius, who only makes a brief appearance towards the end of the movie. The team had always planned to have the joke of the visual image in the movie: Lewis asks Wilbur who Cornelius looks like and he responds with Tom Selleck, so a picture appears in his space in the family tree as Lewis lists off what he’s learned about the family. Disney weren’t sure if they could get the rights to use the image, so looked into trying to sweeten the deal by having Selleck voice the part. Fortunately, when he was pitched the idea, he thought it would be funny and agreed to do it. The team had all grown-up watching Magnum P.I. (1980-88) so needless to say, they were pleased! Tom Selleck is also known for his roles as Peter Mitchell in Three Men and a Baby (1987) and its (far superior) sequel, Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), and as NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan in Blue Bloods (2010-present). He was also Jesse Stone in a series of television crime drama films from 2006 to 2015.

PRODUCTION

Disney being involved with Meet the Robinsons goes back as far as the book’s publishing in 1990. Bill Borden, an executive producer for Meet the Robinsons, had asked William Joyce to show the book to Disney executives, just before it was finished, to pitch it to them as a live-action film. They both thought the pitch had gone badly, so were surprised when Disney optioned it. Joyce wrote around eleven or twelve draft scripts for this live-action film, but it wasn’t being moved forward, mostly due to the cost element. It went quiet for many years, until Disney executive Leo Chu got in touch to try to bring the story to the animation department instead.

Around 2001, they were told that the concept would follow Wilbur as a time-traveller and Lewis as an orphan. Joyce and Borden weren’t overly convinced by this story-route as they felt it would feel too much like Jimmy Neutron and not like Joyce’s book at all[4]. Around late-2002, Stephen Anderson was approached with the script, as he had expressed an interest in directing for the studio someday. He had just finished work as a story supervisor on Brother Bear (2003), when he was handed this script for a movie called “A Day with Wilbur Robinson”, based on Joyce’s book. Anderson had an instant connection with Lewis as he too was adopted, and had the same sort of questions about his life: why did his mother give him up? Where was he from? Should he find his birth parents? Anderson felt he had to do this movie[5].

Work on the movie progressed from 2004, with a 2006 release date planned. However, when Pixar was bought by Disney and the leadership of Walt Disney Animation Studios was changed so that it would be led by John Lasseter, some parts of the movie had to be changed. Lasseter was shown the movie, and disliked the villain, Bowler Hat Guy. He asked for the villain to be changed, as he wasn’t scary at all, so the sidekick of Doris was brought in to become the main villain. Apparently, 60% of the film was scrapped and redone at this time, with the ending also being rewritten[6].

Disney did have some struggles with the computer animation side of production since it was only Disney Animation’s second fully CG animated movie. The team found that humans were difficult to capture because any errors or lack of flexibility in movement would be easy to spot, as we know how humans should look and how they move. Bowler Hat Guy in particular was a challenge as they wanted him to be quite sleek and snaky with his movement, but the characters could not bend as well back then. Still, Bowler Hat Guy was quite a step forward for CG in terms of this movement. The clothing also did not wrinkle as fabric should, instead it just stretched, but it would’ve been too expensive to do any cloth renders[7]. It kind of works in Meet the Robinsons because the clothing resembles rubber suits which sort of fit in a futuristic film. For the stylisation of the characters, the team were trying not to use the original illustrations for Joyce’s book, as his style had been used in the 2005 film Robots, produced by Blue Sky Studios, a competitor to Disney. I still feel like the style is kind of similar, especially in the robot butler to the Robinson family, Carl, which would explain why the entire film doesn’t look particularly “Disney”.

However, the most important thing that Disney wanted to get across during Meet the Robinsons was the message of hope and positivity, something that is very “Disney”. They wanted to make the future look hopeful, especially compared to most films that had made the future look bleak or even horrifying. They also wanted to evoke the ideas and the creations of Walt Disney’s original ideas for the Disney Parks, such as Epcot and Tomorrowland. There is even a quick reference to Tomorrowland in the film: as Wilbur takes Lewis to the future for the first time, you can briefly see a sign that says “Todayland”, with a building resembling the attraction Space Mountain in the background.

Then the team got to the phrase “Keep Moving Forward”, and it stuck as a theme. It worked with the adoption element, of not feeling the need to look back at the past, because hope comes from the future. Stephen Anderson mentioned in an interview that he had received letters from people saying how the theme of Meet the Robinsons had gotten them through some really hard times, and that’s all they could’ve hoped for[8].

MUSIC

The soundtrack of Meet the Robinsons is quite an eclectic mix. Danny Elfman, composer for such films as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and multiple other Tim Burton projects, was asked to compose the score for Meet the Robinsons. He successfully went from very crazy, such as the music that plays when the Robinsons are being introduced, and the strange song when Lewis is seeing the future for the first time, to the emotional scenes, like the opening scene outside the orphanage, Goob telling his story, and the ending where everyone is reunited. Elfman also wrote the song “The Future Has Arrived” which he asked The All-American Rejects to perform as the End Credits song.

There are also multiple other songs in the movie. For example, Rufus Wainwright wrote three songs: “Another Believer”, which he performs; a gently peppy song, which is used for the time-lapse of Lewis researching and experimenting with his memory scanner invention, and “Where is Your Heart At?”, performed by Jamie Cullum, a proper swing-time, band leader type of song, performed in the movie by Franny’s frog band, so yes, Jamie Cullum is a singing frog. The third song is the second End Credits song, “The Motion Waltz (Emotional Commotion)”. Rob Thomas performed a song called “Little Wonders”, which is probably the most emotional song, talking about how the past can’t be changed and to look for the good things in life. It plays at the end of the movie when we see that Lewis and Goob have both been adopted and that Lewis’ future home has become his present home[9].

Even the Jonas Brothers got involved in the music, though the song has very little to do with the movie and is quite clearly more of a cross-promotional thing with the Disney Channel than anything else. The music video uses some clips from Meet the Robinsons. It is called “Kids of the Future”, a parody of “Kids in America”. There is even a version of “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” from the Disney attraction Carousel of Progress on the soundtrack, performed by They Might Be Giants. Though I like the majority of the soundtrack individually, I don’t think there is much cohesion with the music. It feels like there are too many big names in there, and all the styles are quite different. The best song for me is probably “Another Believer”. The score is good though, and I feel it helped me connect with the emotional scenes in particular.

RECEPTION

Meet the Robinsons was released a year later than expected, in March 2007, earning very little attention during its release. It made $169 million at the box office against a budget of $150 million, being seen as a “break-even” film[10]. Though it has since gained a reputation as a “cult classic” by some, it was not what Disney had hoped for the movie. Unfortunately, most people do not know this film, either having never seen or having never heard of it. It is not referenced in Disney merchandising and no characters are seen at the Disney theme parks. Or are they?

LEGACY

I thought Meet the Robinsons was completely ignored by Disney; however, I remembered that in actual fact, Bowler Hat Guy makes an appearance in Mickey’s Boo To You Halloween Parade. I saw the parade on YouTube one year, and thought: who is that guy? He’s supposedly a villain, but who is he? It wasn’t until years later, once I’d seen Meet the Robinsons for the first time, that I realised it was Bowler Hat Guy. He appears towards the end of the parade with the other villains, as one of the characters walking/dancing in front of the main villain float. In 2023, he was with Lady Tremaine, Oogie Boogie, Gaston, and Dr. Facilier, amongst others. I believe he has been a fixture in that parade since 2014, at least intermittently. The villains seem to be swapped out every year, so whether he continues to be a presence remains to be seen.

Lewis and Wilbur did appear as “meet-and-greet” characters when the film was first released for a while, at then-named Disney’s MGM Studios, now Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World Resort, but have not been seen for many years, with the most recent sightings being at Disneyland Paris around 2018 for the Disney FanDaze event, along with Bowler Hat Guy. But there was a MagicBand released in 2022 for the movie’s 15^th anniversary, with Lewis on one side and Bowler Hat Guy on the other. It is possible these three will appear once more, probably for Special Events, but if you’re desperate to see any character from Meet the Robinsons, seeing Bowler Hat Guy during Halloween is likely to be your best bet!

Meet the Robinsons was not a big success, and divided critics. Some said the movie was charming, with considerable depth, enjoying the plot twists; others were confused by some of the time-travel elements; and there were critics who said it was one of the worst Disney films ever released. It did not receive award nominations from the bigger academies, but was nominated for a couple of Annie Awards, as well as a few smaller ceremonies, mostly for the music.

A direct-to-video sequel was in the works, at least initially, with a title of Meet the Robinsons 2: First Date. This was cancelled by John Lasseter after he became Chief Creative Officer at Walt Disney Animation Studios, as he did with the plans for many other direct-to-video sequels that had been customary releases by Disney in the late 1990s and early 2000s. There was a video game based on the movie, unsurprisingly. More surprisingly, some of the characters featured within the 2023 short Once Upon a Studio, the 100^th anniversary celebratory short for Disney animation, with Lucille, robot butler Carl, and Bowler Hat Guy being the easiest to spot. These lesser-known faces finally got to have their moment in the spotlight – even if it was just a few seconds.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Meet the Robinsons was a failure in some ways, and a success in others. It was Disney’s attempt to compete with the other animation studios, yet also trying to find a way to differentiate themselves. The movie gave Disney more confidence in the computer-animation medium which would help them immensely just a few years later. They tried a new concept by moving into science-fiction, which they hadn’t done before, and they got back to creating an emotional story, something the audience could connect with, rather than the comedy route they had previously gone down.

But most importantly, the film presents the audience with a significant message: “keep moving forward”. There were plenty of audience members who were touched by this and saw this movie at a time when they needed that message most. It is a shame that more people did not take something from it.

Meet the Robinsons tells us that the future is full of hope and possibilities if you can learn from your mistakes and failures instead of reliving them. It’s also a story of family, showing us that no matter how lost you feel, you can always find somewhere you belong.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Shania Russell, ‘Meet the Robinsons at 15: An Oral History of Disney’s Underrated Gem’, SlashFilm (online), 28^th December 2022.

[2] Credit: Disney, Inventing the Robinsons: The Making of Meet the Robinsons (2007).

[3] Credit: Scott Mendelson, ‘Walt Disney’s Most Underrated Cartoon Just Turned 15 Years Old’, Forbes (online), 31^st March 2022.

[4] Credit: Shania Russell, ‘Meet the Robinsons at 15: An Oral History of Disney’s Underrated Gem’, SlashFilm (online), 28^th December 2022.

[5] Credit: Jeff Ames, ‘Interview: Meet the Robinsons Director Stephen J. Anderson Discusses the Classic Disney Film’, ComingSoon.Net (online), 23^rd August 2022.

[6] Credit: Mari Ness, ‘When Even Dinosaur Fights Aren’t Enough: Disney’s Meet the Robinsons’, Tor.com (online), 19^th May 2016.

[7] Credit: Disney, Inventing the Robinsons: The Making of Meet the Robinsons (2007).

[8] Credit: Jeff Ames, ‘Interview: Meet the Robinsons Director Stephen J. Anderson Discusses the Classic Disney Film’, ComingSoon.Net (online), 23^rd August 2022.

[9] Credit: Disney, Inventing the Robinsons: The Making of Meet the Robinsons (2007).

[10] Credit: Scott Mendelson, ‘Walt Disney’s Most Underrated Cartoon Just Turned 15 Years Old’, Forbes (online), 31^st March 2022.