28th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#61 Strange World (2022)

BACKGROUND

The 2020s have, so far, been a difficult time for Disney Animation.

With the COVID-19 pandemic and the launch of streaming services making the viewing of new content easier and more convenient, it’s been hard trying to get audiences back into movie theatres. Film studios are ever hopeful that their movie will be the one to coax people out of their homes, but so far, only a handful of movies have done this.

At the Disney Studios, this issue is continuing to cause problems, with neither Encanto (2021) nor Wish (2023), both being “safer” musical movies, having succeeded in this endeavour, although Encanto did succeed in becoming a major success after its release to Disney+. We’re still talking about Bruno.

So, it’s not really a huge surprise that with Disney Animation “turning left” in making Strange World, i.e., choosing to go to Adventureland and not Fantasyland, with an action-packed, non-musical movie, that the viewers just did not come.

When Disney Animation made a string of non-musical movies in the 2000s, during their “Post-Renaissance Era”, many of these did not do well. Think of Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) or Treasure Planet (2002); those movies are now considered “cult classics”, but they underperformed at the box-office and ultimately led to the downfall of traditional 2D animated Disney movies. Strange World is similar in both its genre and its aftermath.

I was not excited to watch Strange World. After seeing the trailer, I didn’t think it looked particularly interesting, and it reminded me of DreamWorks’ film The Croods (2013), which I was never bothered by and have never seen.

But because its Disney, I knew I had to watch Strange World – just not in the cinema. Luckily, in December 2022, a month after its release in theatres, it came on to Disney+ and I decided watching it at home, over the festive period, would be the best option.

Strange World certainly is not terrible, as some reviews have unfairly claimed, but it is different. Unfortunately for Disney, their adventure-type films have not been seen as the best throughout their history. In actual fact, Strange World isn’t bad. It’s not exactly what you might expect to see from Disney Animation, and it’s not a film I want to rush back and see, but I quite liked it in places. I went into Strange World expecting an adventure film, and that’s exactly what I got.

PLOT

The plot of Strange World follows the Clades, a famous explorer father-son duo. Their community of Avalonia is completely encircled by mountains. Many have tried and failed to get through the mountains, to seek out Avalonia’s future, but one man, Jaeger Clade, is determined to do so. Alongside him is his son, Searcher, an unwilling participant in these journeys. Whilst out on the latest expedition to go beyond the mountains that enclose Avalonia, Searcher Clade discovers a strange, electric plant, which him and the rest of the crew decide must be the legacy to bring back to Avalonia. Jaeger Clade disagrees, wanting to push forward to explore past the mountains as planned. Disappointed nobody wants to join him, Jaeger Clade continues the mission on his own – and is not seen again.

The movie then jumps twenty-five years later where this plant, now named Pando, is the main power source for all of Avalonia, and a whole new way of living was founded off the back of its discovery. Searcher is now a farmer, farming the Pando plant for the city, and is married to Meridian, a pilot. Together, they have a sixteen-year-old son, Ethan, who is soon to be trained in farming, as Searcher wants his son to take over the business someday.

Then, a huge airship, the Venture, lands in Searcher’s fields, and it turns out to be Callisto Mal, the president of Avalonia and one of Searcher’s crewmates on their expedition twenty-five years earlier. She needs Searcher’s help in discovering why the Pando plant is dying and how it can be reversed. Ethan wants to go on this journey, but Searcher refuses to allow him to go along. Searcher, Callisto, and the rest of the crew start their mission by following the Pando roots, which run deep underground. However, Meridian soon flies down to them to say that Ethan, along with the family’s three-legged dog, Legend, has stowed away on the airship. As this happens, all of them are attacked by pink pterodactyl-type creatures, with the pilot of the airship being killed in the process. Meridian takes control and they crash land on a subterranean, strange “world”, with Searcher and Legend being thrown overboard and separated from the crew. Ethan wants to look for his father, but is told that he needs to wait until the Venture airship is repaired, since they know nothing about this place.

Meanwhile, Searcher runs into a blue blob that steals his handkerchief. The blue blob then proceeds to show this handkerchief to some tentacled creatures that attack Searcher. He is saved in the nick of time by a huge, hairy man with a flamethrower. It turns out this man is actually Jaeger, Searcher’s long-lost father! It takes a while to convince Jaeger that he has been reunited with his son; it’s kind of an awkward moment. Jaeger then runs toward the Venture as he needs the airship to get to the other side of the mountains, as per his original mission, which he still has not completed after being stuck in this place for years.

Ethan has managed to sneak away from the crew, and, using a skiff, races around the area looking for Searcher. He soon comes across the same blue blob from earlier, which he names Splat. Splat has Searcher’s handkerchief still, and Ethan asks Splat to lead him to his father. As this is going on, Searcher catches Jaeger up on what he’s missed over the last twenty-five years of his life! Jaeger is disappointed to hear that Searcher is “just a farmer”, dismissing all of Searcher’s achievement. But this argument is soon stopped as Jaeger spots one of Ethan’s playing cards on the ground. He tells Searcher that Ethan is in a lot of trouble, about to be lured to his death. They race to find him.

Ethan has indeed been lured to the Reapers, those tentacled creatures, but Jaeger comes along to burn them with his flamethrower just in time. Except there are too many of them, and Jaeger makes all three of them jump onto what seems to be a river of fish. The Reapers continue to chase the trio, and when all looks lost, Callisto and Meridian arrive to drive them away on their skiffs. They get away from the Reapers by using Pando bulbs Ethan collected earlier which electrocute the creatures.

Now safely back on the Venture, the crew can investigate what’s causing the Pando to die by using a sample of its root. But family tensions continue to boil over, as Searcher becomes jealous of Ethan and Jaeger bonding, believing that Ethan will want to be more like Jaeger instead of like him. In attempting to get father and son to communicate better, Ethan suggests they all play a game called Primal Outpost, which is an environmental based game. All this does is cause further argument and, frustrated, Ethan walks away. See, the Clades are just like every other family when the board games or card games come out!

The crew arrive at the Burning Sea, which seems to be a lake of acid. With Splat the blue blob now on side to help, it communicates with these little green things to drive the airship through the area, to avoid the acid sprays. More Reapers come for the crew, and the team use their Pando bulbs to keep them away. Continuing to follow the Pando roots, they see that the roots are getting stronger the deeper down they go. As they get nearer to the heart of Pando, the crew believe they are about to be attacked by more Reapers and those pink pterodactyls – but they go straight past them, on to the heart of Pando. Searcher believes that those creatures are pests, with Pando diverting its energy to fighting them off instead of keeping its crops alive on the surface. Crushing some Pando bulbs and putting the dust into Jaeger’s flamethrower, he sprays these pests, killing them. They believe this must be how they are meant to save their Pando plant.

As the crew set about making their pesticides, Ethan starts to feel that this isn’t right, that they shouldn’t be killing these creatures. Searcher reminds Ethan that this is what farmers do, to which Ethan responds that he doesn’t even want to be a farmer, wanting to explore new lands instead. Searcher thinks this is all Jaeger’s fault, filling Ethan’s mind with these ideas, but Ethan says he’s just trying to lead his own life, and jumps off the airship, onto the river of fish. Searcher follows him in a skiff to apologise, saying that he never wanted to be like his father, trying to force Searcher into following his exploring legacy, but in fact, he is forcing his own legacy onto Ethan. As this conversation has been going on, their skiff has gone across to the other side of mountains. Searcher and Ethan discover that Avalonia is just surrounded by water. But then they notice the mound behind them is moving, and turn around to see an eye looking back at them! Avalonia was built on top of a living creature, so the “world” they’ve been going through is actually this creature’s insides. Eww…

Searcher and Ethan quickly realise that the Pando plant is an infection, attacking this creature’s heart, and that the strange creatures they are planning on poisoning and killing are actually the immune system, trying to keep the being alive. Realising their mistake, they set out to destroy the Pando instead and save the creature. As Searcher and Ethan explain their discovery to the others, Jaeger gets annoyed, and just wants to finally finish his mission of getting to the other side of the mountain, and sensing he’s not wanted, goes alone. Callisto locks all the Clades in a cupboard, so that they will not stop the original plan; Avalonia needs Pando and this is the only way to keep it alive. Luckily, by using Legend the dog, and Splat, they get Legend to open the door and free them. Searcher and Ethan then get on the back of one of the pterodactyls and ride to the heart, whilst Meridian takes control of the Venture once more.

At the heart, Searcher tries to dig a hole into the Pando root, so that the immune system creatures can get direct access to heal the creature’s heart. Ethan is told to round up as many Reapers as he can. Searcher is electrocuted whilst attempting to dig this hole and his shovel breaks. Jaeger then comes back to help, saying that his legacy was never about his mission, but is actually Searcher. They both work together using an axe to get to the core. A hole opens up and Reapers fill the area, destroying all of the Pando root. But it wasn’t enough; the heart is not healed. When all looks lost, a flurry of little orange creatures rush over the surface of the heart. They are there to restore the heart back to health. After some time, the heart is revived again, and starts beating. The plan worked! The team then head back up to the surface – after making a quick pit stop to the other side of the mountains, so that Jaeger can finally complete his mission.

One year on, Ethan has become an environmentalist, studying and collecting resources from the Strange World alongside his partner, Diazo, and Avalonia has moved on to using wind energy as its primary energy source. Jaeger and Searcher are now closer, and Searcher continues to run his farm alongside Meridian, growing normal crops this time. A final shot shows the camera zooming away from Avalonia and showing the turtle-like creature that Avalonia was built upon swimming over an ocean-covered planet.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Searcher Clade is the middle generation character. It’s clear from the start of the movie that he is very different to his explorer father and that the path he is going on at that point is not for him, and that he needs to find his own purpose. He seems to really thrive in the farming industry, with the Pando plant discovery being credited to him by the people of Avalonia. He tries to push his son Ethan into following in his footsteps, but soon realises he is doing exactly what his father did to him and knows for Ethan to be happy, Searcher has to let that dream go. Searcher is a good father, albeit quite a protective one, who is also embarrassing at times, as we see when Ethan is trying to talk to his crush, Diazo, and Searcher butts in, introducing himself and generally being weird.

Searcher was voiced by Jake Gyllenhaal, who said the personal story behind the film appealed to him the most as it was clear it had come from a true place. He also was able to bring in his own family experiences to the character. Gyllenhaal has had roles in movies such as The Day After Tomorrow (2004), Brokeback Mountain (2005), and Disney’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010). More recently, Gyllenhaal portrayed the villain Mysterio in Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019); and Dalton in Road House (2024).

Jaeger Clade is the eldest Clade, and though he is a great explorer, very determined and brave, Jaeger also knows it, so he finds it difficult to check his ego at times and just be a father and grandfather without that determination getting in the way. He is completely fixated on his own mission, to get to the other side of the Avalonia mountains, that he doesn’t initially want to help Searcher and the others with their mission to save the Pando plant because he’s spent a large part of his life on this one expedition, foregoing his responsibilities as a father and a husband, and is still upset that Searcher did not want to be an explorer like him. In the end, though, he realises that he needs to be with his family and that he can’t always think of himself, and he repairs his bond with Searcher.

Jaeger was voiced by Dennis Quaid, who was incredibly enthusiastic about the role. Quaid said the Clades felt like a real family, with real issues and that some of the conversations and conflicts they have are reminiscent of any family at the Thanksgiving dinner table. He liked that Disney were being very open with these discussions, but also making them funny. Quaid also starred in The Day After Tomorrow (2004), as the father of Gyllenhaal’s character. He has starred in numerous movies throughout his career, including Innerspace (1987), alongside Meg Ryan and Martin Short; The Rookie (2002); and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009). In 2024, Quaid will portray Ronald Reagan in the movie Reagan. And, for all the 90s kids out there, you’ll know Quaid from The Parent Trap (1998), where he played Nick Parker, the father of the twins.

Ethan is the youngest family member at sixteen-years-old, and is Searcher’s son and Jaeger’s grandson. Ethan is at a point in his life where he’s trying to figure out who he wants to be and what he wants to do with his life. He knows that he doesn’t want to be a farmer, and that he wants to experience what else is out there, beyond Avalonia. His father struggles with this idea, and thinks that, whilst out on this mission, that Jaeger has spent time trying to convince Ethan to be an explorer, not listening to Ethan and what he wants. Ethan perseveres though, and doesn’t give in, explaining to his father that it’s his life and he should do what he wants with it. Ethan is also the peacekeeper and the environmentally-conscious one in the family. He finds happiness in the end, researching and resourcing from the strange world. Ethan is the first openly gay character to feature in any Disney work. Ethan’s family are wholly accepting of his sexuality, so this isn’t even a story about him having to seek approval from his parents as you might expect.

Comedian, actor and writer Jaboukie Young-White voiced the role of Ethan. Young-White has written for shows such as Big Mouth (2018-present) and American Vandal (2017-18), and appeared as a correspondent on Trevor Noah’s The Daily Show from 2018 to 2021. Young-White also released his debut music album in August 2023.

Meridian is Searcher’s wife and Ethan’s mother, but is also a pilot, and ends up playing a pivotal role in the expedition as the original crew pilot is killed by a creature whilst the airship is crash-landing. She was only there to try and retrieve Ethan who she knew had snuck aboard the ship. She is a very caring mother, and a very experienced and brave pilot, having to get them through multiple scrapes and navigate difficult terrain. She knows that Ethan is loving exploring this new area, and that he seems to have found what’s right for him; Meridian is the voice of reason and understanding. Originally, Meridian was going to have a backstory, which involved her being a stunt pilot. She loved to fly, but after a crash which she was lucky to walk away from, she had been scared to fly again, having to fly a plane once more to save her family. This backstory ultimately was not used[1].

Meridian was voiced by Gabrielle Union, who was drawn to Meridian’s strength and parenting approach, feeling that it was similar to her own self. She has done voice work for Disney previously, as Nala in The Lion Guard (2016-19), but she said to be able to do a full Disney animated feature was a “dream come true”. She liked how she could contribute to the character, with many of her adlibs kept in the final cut, and she was pleased that Meridian looked like her, with authentic hair and Afrocentric features[2]. Union first appeared in “teen movies” such as She’s All That (1999), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), and Bring It On (2000), moving on to other roles such as Special Agent Burnett in Bad Boys II (2003); Mary Jane Paul in the series Being Mary Jane (2013-19); Zoey Baker in the remake of Cheaper by the Dozen (2022); and Jenna in the Netflix film The Perfect Find (2023).

There is also Callisto Mal, the president of Avalonia and leader of the exploration. She is a strong leader, but very set in her ways and the aims of the mission. Once the Clades realise the Pando plant is killing the creature that Avalonia sits atop, Callisto does not stop trying to kill the creatures (now shown to be an immune system) and even locks the Clades in a cupboard on the airship as they try to get the other crew members to stop what they are doing. Eventually, though, Callisto sees sense when the Clades show her exactly what the plant is doing to this creature and she helps makes things right again. At one point, the writers were unsure how many of the crew on the expedition should survive, and whether they should all be killed by monsters, except Callisto, who would be the sole survivor in order to “break her” and give her some emotional depth[3]. This idea was not realised.

Lucy Liu voiced Callisto. Liu rose to fame as one of the three Charlie’s Angels, alongside Cameron Diaz and Drew Barrymore in the 2000 film and its 2003 sequel. She also played the role of O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill (2003) and its 2004 sequel. More recently, Liu appeared in the Netflix film Set It Up (2018) as difficult boss Kirsten, and as Kalypso in Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023). For Disney, Liu has also voiced characters such as Mei for Mulan II (2004) and Silvermist in the Tinker Bell series of films.

A couple of other actors to mention are Karan Soni and Alan Tudyk. Soni voices the very funny, but kind of minor, character of crew member Caspian. He has some great lines, delivered with perfect comedic timing. It’s a shame Caspian wasn’t used too much in the overall story. Soni rose to fame in the role of Dopinder in Deadpool (2016), going on to reprise this role in its sequels. He also appeared in the movies Ghostbusters (2016); Detective Pikachu (2019); and Not Okay (2022), as well as having a voice role in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse as Pavitr Prabhakar. On television, Soni had a role in each of the four series of anthology comedy series Miracle Workers (2019-23).

Alan Tudyk has had a role in every Disney animated movie since 2012. For Strange World, he voiced the very brief role of the pilot on the Venture who dies right at the start of the mission, as well as the narrator at the start of the film. Tudyk’s other Disney voice roles include: King Candy in Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Duke of Weselton in Frozen (2013), Alistair Krei in Big Hero 6 (2014), KnowsMore in Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), and Valentino in Wish (2023). Outside of voice acting, Tudyk was the voice and motion capture for Sonny the robot in I, Robot (2004), and also appeared in the films Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004), as Steve the Pirate, and Trumbo (2015), as Ian McLellan Hunter. He also portrays the title character of “Harry” in the series Resident Alien (2021-present).

PRODUCTION

After Moana was released in 2016, Don Hall started working on a new project to direct. Strange World was just one of a few ideas that he had been working on and had pitched to Disney. The idea for the movie came from the question: what kind of world did we inherit from others, and what world will the new generation inherit from us? It was to be a generational story of how the world has been developed, or harmed, at various points in time, although the very first pitch was about what would you do if you found out you were living on a living thing. Clearly, both of these ideas made it into Strange World in some form.

The story was originally being developed with Chris Williams, who had co-directed Big Hero 6 (2014) with Hall, however, Williams left Disney to work on The Sea Beast (2022) for Netflix. Roy Conli came on board as the producer for Strange World in 2018, and had previously collaborated with Hall on Big Hero 6. He liked the father-son angle of the story. To get writer and co-director Qui Nguyen to join the project, Hall called the movie Indiana Jones meets National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983).

Strange World was inspired by multiple movies from completely different decades of film-making. For example, Hall stated that he was inspired by movies of the 1970s and 1980s, like Star Wars, as well as Disney animated films, like Peter Pan (1953) that were all about adventure. They were also inspired by the “pulp fiction” era of the 1900s to the 1950s, where magazines were printed onto cheap wood pulp paper – hence the name – as well as movies like King Kong. These choices gave a nostalgic feeling to the adventure film[4].

Work on the film was going well, however, in 2019, Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) was announced at the D23 Expo as the next Disney animated film release, so Strange World was put aside so that Don Hall and Qui Nguyen could come onto the project as director and screenwriter, respectively, for Raya and the Last Dragon instead. They both felt they knew the story of Strange World well enough to leave it for a while and focus on Raya[5].

Creating the world of Strange World, or sub-Avalonia as it is also called, was a complex challenge, since the area had to look like the most bizarre landscape ever, and yet also refer to the plot-twist of the movie by showing that everything within this landscape is alive. The team working on Strange World consulted with biologists and scientists, and researched ecosystems, organ functions, and cell structures so that everything that exists within Strange World would be grounded in real science, although it was never meant to exactly replicate the anatomy or internal workings of any creature or a turtle specifically, despite this being the creature Avalonia resides on.

They chose a jungle-like landscape for sub-Avalonia but did not use the colour green. The pinks, blues, and purples of the scenery is in stark contrast to what would be expected. Strange World includes some of the largest environments created at Disney Animation and they had to include everything: from the smallest blade of grass, to the biggest structures. Disney also had to make this place feel alive, in both the backgrounds and the characters.

Everything had to feel like it was a part of the overall environment, since this place is constantly in motion, so the ground can suddenly give way, as Ethan finds out when he thinks he’s landed on solid ground but he is actually on top of an organism that flies away, and the trees even breathe; the trees were made to represent bronchial tubes as the first organ that the crew falls into is the lungs. This means that the Burning Sea with its oceans of acids is actually the stomach, and the creatures that seem to attack the crew are parts of the immune system. The flying fish that the Clades travel across whilst trying to avoid the Reapers are actually the bloodstream, with a red channel and a blue channel to mimic oxygenated and deoxygenated blood.

Some of the creatures that exist within Strange World include the Filterlope, which is a six-legged deer which filters and purifies everything that it comes into contact with; the Nub McNubbins, which are the little orange things that ride around on the six-legged dinosaurs, looking for damage tissues that they can repair, so they represent stem cells; the Reapers with their long tentacles are part of the immune system, looking to swallow any foreign objects to keep away harm; and the T cells, the pink pterodactyls, are another part of the immune system, seeking to destroy harmful particles, working similarly to white blood cells[6].

Splat, the blue blob, is a form of dendritic cell, which scouts out the area, finding antigens so that it can defend its organism. That is why when Splat first meets Searcher, he takes his handkerchief and tries to lead him to the Reapers so that they can destroy him[7]. Splat’s not being mean, that’s just what he’s been trained to do. In the end though, Splat sees Ethan as a friend, because Ethan heals Splat after he is terribly burnt by a Pando bulb – that scene actually made me really sad; I don’t like seeing things getting hurt, especially when they’re cute, like Splat. Splat’s character design looks simple but it was quite challenging, since it has so many limbs and all of them stretchy.

The difficulty in animating the worlds of Strange World was in keeping it relatable, grounded in reality, but also beautiful, just not so appealing that it detracted from the story. It couldn’t pull focus but needed to be imaginative. I think the animators did a great job in creating this bizarre world, and the science behind it and all the creatures was fascinating. In contrast to sub-Avalonia, we also see the city of Avalonia, which, despite being a technologically progressive place, contains quite an old style of architecture with many stone buildings, kind of reminiscent of towns in Spain or Italy, which I found to be an interesting twist on a futuristic world.

MUSIC

Composer Henry Jackman wrote the music for Strange World, having previously worked on Winnie the Pooh (2011), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), for which he won the Annie Award for Music in an Animated Feature Production in 2013, Big Hero 6 (2014), and Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018) for Disney. Jackman has also composed music for non-animated action films including Kick-Ass (2010) and its 2013 sequel; Captain Phillips (2013); Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its 2017 sequel, and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and its 2019 sequel. Hall and Nguyen wanted Jackman to evoke the adventure mood of the film.

The score definitely evokes the feeling of adventure and peril. Some of my favourite instrumental pieces include “The Fate of Strange World” and “Resurrection”, which play as Pando is destroyed and the creature’s heart is revived. This is the big emotional scene in Strange World. Naturally, I pay more attention to the score in those quiet moments when you’re being made to think, and those are my favourite types of pieces. I also like “A New Perspective”, which plays during the final scene.

There is only one song in Strange World, and it’s a bit of a strange one. “They’re the Clades!” plays as we are given some backstory into the explorer family of the Clades, as a documentary-style film plays. The music was written by Jackman, with lyrics by Kevin Del Aguila. It does fit the comic-book style opening scene that the movie has, being quite loud and exuberant, and it throws you straight into what the Clades do. It’s kind of catchy, but it’s not going to go down in Disney history as one of their best songs! “They’re the Clades” has a reprise at the end of the movie as well, during the End Credits. These songs are performed by James Hayden.

RECEPTION

Strange World was released in theatres on 23^rd November 2022 – in some countries. Disney decided not to theatrically release their movie in certain territories, such as the Middle East, China, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Pakistan. This is due to the inclusion of LGBTQIA+ content, with the character of Ethan, which Disney did not want to have to edit out to make it fit the culture of these areas. Pixar’s movie Lightyear, released in June 2022, had been banned in a few countries, like the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Malaysia, and Indonesia, due to controversy over a brief scene of a same-sex couple kissing[8].

The inclusion of an openly gay character was not only seen as “problematic” in these areas, but also within the United States. A teacher in Florida was reported to the school board by a student’s mother in 2023 after showing the movie Strange World to her fifth-grade class. The parent reported the teacher for “indoctrination” and an official investigation was set in motion after this complaint, as it was in possible violation of the Parental Rights in Education Act, which banned the teaching of gender and sexual identity in schools in the state. The teacher had felt that Strange World was an appropriate movie for her class to watch as it related to their studies on Earth science and the ecosystem, and did not choose to show it to her students for any other reason, having also received permission slips from the parents to allow their children to see the PG-rated movie[9].

This just shows how divisive Strange World has become, although many critics did like the progression of including a gay character in a Disney movie. The environmental message was also praised by some, although others found it slightly too preachy. In general, audiences liked the bright, colourful animation, and the overall themes of the movie, around family dynamics, exploration, and understanding each other, but felt that the movie’s plot was “dull” and lacked drama.

Strange World was not nominated for Best Animated Feature in any of the major award ceremonies, and was only nominated for a couple of awards for storyboarding at the Annie Awards in 2023. It was also nominated at the Visual Effects Society Awards in 2023, but again, did not win.

Potentially because of the controversy around the LGBTQIA+ content, and for the lack of desire by viewers to see movies in theatres, Strange World became a box-office bomb. Despite being released around Thanksgiving, generally considered a very good time to release new movies, especially family-friendly ones, Strange World only made $18.6 million in that five-day window[10]. Globally, the movie only grossed $73.4 million, and with an estimated budget of $180 million, plus its advertising costs, that was a big loss.

Strange World was then released just a month later on Disney+ on 23^rd December 2022, just in time for the festive season, where it became one of the top 10 most streamed films on the platform in its first three weeks[11].

LEGACY

To promote the release of Strange World, the Disney Parks offered some limited time experiences from November 2022 to January 2023. These included a sneak peek of the movie at Walt Disney Presents in Disney’s Hollywood Studios at the Walt Disney World Resort, as well as at Disneyland Paris.

At Disney California Adventure, guests could learn how to draw Splat and the Clades’ dog Legend at the Animation Academy, and photo opportunities were available at Disneyland’s Tomorrowland. These included “magic shots” of Splat appearing in Disney PhotoPass photos. There was also some merchandise available for Strange World, including play sets, books, and plush toys of Splat.

Since Strange World was not a successful movie for Disney in terms of box-office results, and to some extent reviews, very little else related to Strange World has been seen at the Disney Parks, although surprisingly, Ethan Clade as a meet-and-greet character made his debut at the runDisney 10-miler race in April 2024, standing in front of a sign for Clade Farms. This appears to be the first time that any character from Strange World has been spotted at the Disney Parks as a meet-and-greet opportunity. Whether or not that changes soon, and more characters from the movie will be seen more frequently or even just at Special Events remains to be seen.

FINAL THOUGHTS

It is a shame that Strange World was not received as well as hoped, or as well as previous “Revival Era” animated features, especially after having read some interviews with the cast and creators for this piece, as it’s clear just how much passion and emotional experience went into the making of the movie.

Disney have tried to be more progressive in their characters, and have been much more diverse in their casting choices and ethnic representations recently. Even a decade ago, this was not the case. It is disappointing to find that people haven’t warmed to this film as much as they did with 2021’s hit Encanto, possibly because Strange World is not a musical, and adventure films are not as widely popular with a large audience.

I do think Strange World needs to be seen a couple of times to fully appreciate the artistic talent that went into creating that world, and the emotional arcs that take place. There is a lot going on, and it is difficult to figure out where to focus initially, whether that’s on the family aspect, or the environmental theme.

If anyone is unsure about whether to watch Strange World or not, I say be brave like the Clades and give it a go.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes: Lightning Lynx”, from Strange World (2022), Disney+ (2023).

[2] Credit: Alison Stateman, ‘Behind the Scenes of Disney Animation’s Strange World’, D23.com, 17^th November 2022.

[3] Credit: Drew Taylor, ‘Making ‘Strange World’: The Origin, Evolution and Progressive Representation of Disney Animation’s Sci-Fi Adventure’, TheWrap.com, 25^th November 2022.

[4] Credit: Camille Jefferson, ‘Behind the Scenes With the Makers of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Latest Film, Strange World’, Disney News (online), 14^th October 2022.

[5] Credit: Drew Taylor, ‘Making ‘Strange World’: The Origin, Evolution and Progressive Representation of Disney Animation’s Sci-Fi Adventure’, TheWrap.com, 25^th November 2022.

[6] Credit: Disney, “Creature Feature”, from Strange World (2022), Disney+ (2023).

[7] Credit: Disney, “Strange Science”, from Strange World (2022), Disney+ (2023).

[8] Credit: Jamie Lang, ‘Disney’s ‘Strange World’ Skips Markets Where LGBTQIA+ Content Is Banned Or Censored’, CartoonBrew.com, 22^nd November 2022.

[9] Credit: Ed Pilkington, ‘Florida teacher defends showing Disney movie: ‘I’m just being accepting’, The Guardian (online), 14^th May 2023.

[10] Credit: Anthony D’Alessandro, ‘The Biggest Box Office Bombs of 2022: Deadline’s Most Valuable Blockbuster Tournament’, Deadline.com, 14^th April 2023.

[11] Credit: Amanda Lamadrid, ‘Strange World Ended An Incredible 30-Year Disney Movie Rating Streak’, ScreenRant.com, 14^th April 2023.

21st Jun 202426th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#48 Bolt (2008)

BACKGROUND

In the midst of the Disney “Post-Renaissance Era”, the Disney Studios were struggling, as you can tell from the uninspiring era name, suggesting a decade of movie releases that never hit the heights of the famed “Renaissance Era” of the 1990s.

Disney Animation had tried to move into comedy and adventure films in the 2000s; that hadn’t worked out. They then moved away from 2D animation, and threw themselves into the world of computer animation; that also hadn’t impressed audiences.

It was getting to the end of another decade and Disney Animation wasn’t matching up to outside animation studios like DreamWorks and Blue Sky Studios – just think of how popular Shrek (2001), Madagascar (2005), and Ice Age (2002) had been at this time, spanning long-running franchises, some of which are still going today.

Not to mention Pixar, who was way ahead of everyone in terms of their CG movies, full of humour, heart, and soul. But since Disney merged with Pixar in 2006, the success of those movies could almost be considered a success for Disney Animation.

A new animated movie had to show that Disney Animation was a force to be reckoned with once more. That movie which drove the company onwards to better days was actually Bolt. In some ways, anyway.

Bolt is an underrated Disney film, and one that is not usually talked about. I don’t personally know anybody that has watched it, or, if they have, they clearly didn’t like it enough to mention it!

The first time I watched it was purely so I could say I’d watched all the Disney Animated Classics. I didn’t choose to watch Bolt out of any interest for the story. I remember deciding that I didn’t like it at all after that first watch, and that I would never watch it again.

But I did watch it again, with some reluctance, and actually…. I kind of liked it.

Bolt doesn’t have the most interesting storyline, but it has some touching moments, and the relationship between Bolt and Penny, his owner, is sweet. I also found that I liked the “showbusiness” elements to the plot, both the behind-the-scenes moments, as well as those featuring the awkwardness between Penny and her uncaring agent, which is actually quite topical, given what we have heard from former child stars about their time in showbusiness, and what we are still hearing today.

PLOT

The story begins with us seeing a White Swiss Shepherd in the Silver Lake Animal Rescue Center, where he’s playing with his squeaky carrot toy. A little girl walks in to the centre and decides that she wants this little puppy. She gives him a tag, showing his name is now Bolt.

Five years later, we see this twelve-year-old girl, named Penny, still with her dog, Bolt. She gets a call from her father, telling her he’s in trouble and that she can’t go home, but not to worry because he has altered Bolt to give him powers so she will be protected. Penny and Bolt try to track down her father, coming across the evil Dr. Calico, who has captured him. They discover that Dr. Calico is in Bolivia so they head to the airport, however, they are being chased by agents of Dr. Calico. With the help of Bolt and his special power “the super bark” all the bad guys are thrown back and the two are safe to go on. We then find that this almost ten-minute sequence is actually not how the rest of the film is going to go because we discover this is all just a television show that Penny and Bolt star in together.

The Director of this TV show relays the importance of ensuring that Bolt doesn’t know that this is a show, as his belief that Penny is in danger makes his “acting” more real. However, the Network says that the show is getting too predictable and they need to do something about getting their ratings back up. Penny is upset that Bolt can never act like a normal dog, because of the Director’s rules; Bolt has to stay shut in the trailer and can never be taken home with Penny because he has to believe that everything in the show is real.

The next day, a new shoot for the show begins. The shoot ends with Penny being captured by Dr. Calico and shut in a huge box. The Director believes that ending the show on a cliffhanger will help ratings, but this traumatises Bolt who is not allowed to know that Penny is safe until they film the next episode. When Bolt is taken back to his trailer by a handler, he escapes and runs around the studio lot trying to find the box Penny was placed in on set. He finds it, but smashes into a window as he tries to get to it. Bolt then collapses into a box. This box is then sealed up and put in a van, with it eventually being delivered to New York City. Bolt breaks out of the box and begins to run around the city, not knowing where he is or where Penny is. At one point, he believes he’s found the real Dr. Calico, but it’s not him. Bolt then follows a Portaloo being taken across the city on a truck, believing this to be the box Penny is trapped in, but he finds she isn’t there. He then tries to ask for help from dogs on the street, but their owner thinks Bolt is lost and attaches a lead to him, so he runs away into the park, getting his head trapped between some railings. A trio of pigeons help him free himself from the bars.

Bolt then sees a Styrofoam packing peanut attached to him. He believes this has weakened him and that is why his powers aren’t working. Bolt tells the pigeons he needs to find one of Dr. Calico’s cats. The pigeons have no idea what he’s talking about but take Bolt to Mittens. This is some sort of act of revenge as Mittens coerces the city’s pigeons into getting her food regularly. Bolt threatens Mittens and holds her over a road until she tells him where Dr. Calico is. She has no idea what he’s talking about but claims she does just to get him to stop. Bolt attaches her to his lead, so that Mittens is like his prisoner. She shows Bolt a top-secret map of the entire Earth, which is actually just a map of Waffle World locations across the US. Mittens says he must get from New York City to Hollywood to find Dr. Calico. Thinking this is the end of her involvement with this strange dog, Mittens hopes she’ll be freed, but she’s actually dragged along for the ride – quite literally.

First, the two hitchhike in the back of a U-Haul van. Mittens tries to knock out Bolt with a baseball bat she’s found in the back of this van, but she falls and knocks over a box of Styrofoam onto Bolt who freaks out and jumps out the van, taking Mittens with him. They end up in Ohio. Mittens then teaches Bolt how to beg for food at a nearby trailer park. In one of these trailers is a hamster in a ball who loves TV; his name is Rhino, randomly. He spots Bolt and being a big fan of his asks to come along on Bolt’s mission; Bolt allows it.

Their next plan to get to Hollywood is to jump off a bridge and onto a moving train. It is at this point that Mittens realises that Bolt doesn’t actually have super powers, but that he’s on a TV show. She’s horrified and tells Bolt not to jump, but he doesn’t listen. The jump down onto the train, unsurprisingly, doesn’t work out as expected and after avoiding being decapitated by a railway signal, the trio roll of the train. Mittens angrily tells Bolt he’s not a super dog. Bolt doesn’t care what she thinks and starts barking at her, to get her to continue their journey, but the barking alerts a nearby animal control worker who catches Bolt and Mittens and puts them into his van. Rhino sees all this and follows the van. Rhino gets out of his ball and opens up Bolt’s cage, allowing him to jump out. Bolt is disappointed to find that he hadn’t been able to bust himself out of his cage, proving that he really doesn’t have powers. He touches his bolt-shaped “birthmark” and realises it is just ink… Mittens was right; he really isn’t a super dog. To try and motivate Bolt, Rhino tells him that he is a hero, because he still thinks Bolt is a super dog, and that they must go and save Mittens. Bolt knows it’s the right thing to do so they head to the animal shelter. With some clever distractions from Rhino, Bolt easily frees Mittens from her cage and the three leave the centre – after Rhino, back in his ball, knocks out one of the workers and then crashes into a helium tank which blows up a car in the parking lot…

They then get on another van where Bolt tells Mittens he doesn’t know who he is if he isn’t a superhero. She tells him about how easy life as a regular dog is, with all that food and warm fires to sit by. As they travel from Ohio to Las Vegas, Mittens teaches Bolt how to be like a regular dog, since she was a house cat once upon a time. In Vegas, Mittens shows Bolt the little homes she’s made for them both, hoping they can forget this quest and just have a life out in the wild. Bolt says he has to get to Penny. Mittens is upset and tells Bolt that Penny is just an actress and doesn’t care about him; no human cares about their pet. It turns out Mittens’ owners moved away one day and left her to fend for herself. Bolt goes on to Hollywood alone, leaving Mittens to tell Rhino that Bolt said he had to face Dr. Calico alone, to keep up Rhino’s delusional. Rhino insists they go after him, because you can never abandon a friend in a time of need.

Meanwhile, Penny is heartbroken, having still not found Bolt. Her agent tells her that they have found him, but it’s actually just a replacement dog who looks like him. The Network tells Penny she’ll have to continue the show with this dog, or else the show will get cancelled and many people will lose their jobs. Talk about emotional blackmail…

Bolt finally makes it to the studio, with Mittens and Rhino making it too. Bolt hears Penny and runs over to her – but is devastated to find her hugging a different dog who looks just like him. Believing Mittens to have been right about humans all along, Bolt leaves. In actual fact, this was all just a rehearsal for the show that Mittens has also overheard, but what Bolt didn’t hear is Penny saying how much she misses the real Bolt.

In a new scene for the show, Penny is tied up, hanging from the ceiling when new Bolt arrives, but he is scared of all the actors and the whole set and runs away, knocking over the scene’s lit torches, setting the whole stage on fire. Mittens catches up with Bolt by the studio entrance and tells him that Penny does care about him. Bolt then feels that something is wrong and runs over to the studio. He gets into the building thanks to Rhino, whose plastic ball keeps a door open long enough for Bolt to get inside. Penny has managed to release herself from the ceiling but can’t find a way out. Bolt hears her coughing and follows the sound right to her. The two are so happy to be reunited, but the whole set is coming down and Penny is struggling to breathe. Penny attaches a lead to Bolt and asks him to find a way out for them. He drags her to a vent, but she is too weak to move. Penny tells him to go without her, but Bolt, ever the loyal dog, refuses to leave her. He barks near the vent to try and get help, before passing out himself.

Luckily, the bark echoes through the vent and gets to the rescue workers outside. They get in to the studio and find the two of them. Penny’s agent tells her that they can get more work from this incident, but her mother angrily tells him they quit. Penny and Bolt are rushed to hospital, with Rhino and Mittens hitching a ride there too.

We then see a girl being told that her injuries were severe and that her face had to be reconstructed. Don’t worry; this isn’t Penny. Well, not really. It’s a different actress and this is another scene from the show, which ends with “Penny” and “Bolt” being abducted by aliens. We move to Rhino who is distraught about this new reboot. I feel your pain, Rhino. Who hasn’t been disappointed by the recasting of a character in a show or by a terrible reboot? We’ve all been there! We now see that Bolt, Mittens and Rhino are living together with Penny, who has retired from acting and living a happy, normal life with her favourite dog.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Bolt is made to believe that everything that happens on the set of the TV show is real: that he has a “super bark” that can knock people backwards; that he has laser beam eyes; he can jump long distances; he has super strength. This has got to be a form of animal cruelty, doesn’t it? It’s no wonder he spends much of his time being mocked by animals in “the real world” who think he’s completely delusional, when it’s not even his fault! I feel really sorry for Bolt when he eventually realises that he is just a dog, but it is nice watching Mittens teach him how to be a normal dog, like learning to beg for food from people’s RVs on the trailer park; telling him how dogs drink out of the toilet, which Bolt is grossed out by; and saying how dogs like to curl up and sleep by the fire, which Bolt much prefers, and he starts to accept his new status in life. With his heroics by saving Penny, because apparently nobody in the crew cared enough about their star to save her, Bolt shows how he is super in normal ways, not magical ones, and it’s very sweet and touching when the firemen figure out where they are in the studio from his real life “super bark”.

John Travolta was chosen to voice Bolt. It may not seem like the obvious choice for such a sweet, naïve character, but actually Travolta does a great job with the role, giving much emotion to some of the movie’s big moments, like discovering that he’s not actually a superhero, and finding out that Penny has supposedly replaced him. Travolta is known for his early roles in movies like Carrie (1976), Grease (1978) and Saturday Night Fever (1977), with him earning Academy Award nominations for Best Actor for that role, as well as for Pulp Fiction (1994). Around the time of Bolt, he had also appeared in Wild Hogs (2007) and the movie version of the musical Hairspray (2007). More recently, Travolta has appeared in television series like The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016) as Robert Shapiro and in the comedy-action series Die Hart (2020), alongside Kevin Hart.

Mittens ended up being my favourite character, because we first see her acting like a mob boss, controlling the pigeons and making them get her food. The character of Mittens also reminded me a lot of Jessie from the Toy Story series, because it turned out she was abandoned by her previous owners who just moved away and left her too. In the scene when Mittens shows Bolt this little home she’s made for them and Bolt says he has to find Penny because she’s his “person”, Mittens cannot understand this and tells him how she was abandoned and that humans don’t care about animals. In the end though, she does get her forever home with Penny and realises that Penny does truly love Bolt.

Disney wanted someone with an authentic New York accent to voice the character of Mittens, with actress Susie Essman being given the part. Essman is best known for her role as Susie Greene in the series Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-24), as well as for her recurring voice role of Mrs. Lonstein in American Dad! (2005-present).

Rhino, the hamster – who is “1/16 wolf with a little wolverine” – is a very energetic, crazy character! Rhino spends almost the entire movie in his hamster ball, constantly in awe of Bolt. He clearly doesn’t understand what TV is, so that is his excuse for continuing the fantasy that Bolt is a famous superhero. He’s a little bit too loud for me, but I know he was a favourite with some critics. John Lasseter brought in his pet chinchilla during production for the animators to use as inspiration for the design of Rhino. The animators also adopted a hamster called Doink! who lived at the studios[1]. Mark Walton had been a storyboard artist on Tarzan (1999), Home on the Range (2004), Chicken Little (2005) and Meet the Robinsons (2007). He was originally the “scratch voice” for the character of Rhino during storyboarding, but the team gave Walton the role as they felt no-one else could do the voice as well. Walton left Disney around 2009 and has worked at Illumination since 2023.

Then there’s Penny. She is a child actress, only twelve years old, and she clearly has a difficult time dealing with all the responsibilities that go with fame. Her agent seems quite pushy, not letting her spend time with Bolt and convincing her to give interviews on all these shows like The Tonight Show to publicise the series. It’s very sad to see Penny lose Bolt, who was seemingly her only access to any sort of normal childhood, and it’s obvious that she hates how Bolt is treated by the show and how it made him hypervigilant and unable to relax. It’s such a great moment when Penny and her mother stand up for themselves by quitting show business. They then get to live a happy life away from all that pressure.

Penny was voiced by Miley Cyrus. Cyrus does well acting in those dramatic moments, like the studio fire, delivering her lines with a lot of emotion. I teared up when Bolt decided to stay with Penny when she’d collapsed from smoke inhalation and couldn’t escape. It did take me a while to get used to her voice though, as it didn’t sound as young as I was expecting – Penny is meant to be twelve-years-old after all – but Cyrus admitted in a behind-the-scenes video on the making of Bolt that her voice is quite deep, so she had to make it sound younger[2]. I did get used to it in the end, but initially I was sceptical about her being chosen for the movie, believing it to just be a marketing ploy to get younger fans back to watching Disney movies, since at the time, Cyrus was best known for her starring role in the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana (2006-11). She later starred in the movie LOL (2012) and is now one of the most successful recording artists, with some of her most popular singles being “The Climb”, “Party in the U.S.A”, “Wrecking Ball”, and “Flowers”.

There are a few other “human characters” to mention, those being involved in the Hollywood side of Bolt. The first is The Agent. He is awful, not caring at all about what Penny wants, not being bothered by the fact that Bolt is being mistreated by the studio, replacing her dog like it’s no big deal, and then trying to capitalise on her near-death experience. He’s very pushy and he has the most annoying catchphrase: “let’s put a pin in this conversation”. Despite the terrible character, I’m actually a fan of the actor who voiced The Agent, Greg Germann. He had played the role of Richard Fish on Ally McBeal (1997-2002) and was recently cast as Dr. Tom Koracick from Season 14 to Season 19 in Grey’s Anatomy (2005-present). The reason I’m a fan of his, though, is because of his portrayal of Hades in Season 5 of Once Upon a Time (2011-18); I love Hades as a Disney villain and I was glad that someone lived up to James Woods’ voice performance in Hercules (1997).

Then there is The Director, who is another toxic reference to the world of showbusiness. All he cares about is making sure his show doesn’t get cancelled. It is on his orders that Bolt is left alone in his trailer at the end of the day and that he never gets to act like a normal dog. The Director says “if the dog believes it, then the audience believes it too”. Yeah, ok – whatever helps you sleep at night, bro. The Director was voiced by James Lipton, who produced, created, and hosted the Bravo TV series Inside the Actors Studio (1994-2019), which interviewed people in the entertainment industry, like actors and directors. Lipton passed away in 2020.

Finally, we have the actor who voices the actor who portrays the evil Dr. Calico on the Bolt TV show, who of course had to be English because all the best villains are voiced by British people! Malcolm McDowell voiced the character. McDowell is best known for playing the main role of Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971). In more recent years, he played the part of Daniel Linderman in the superhero series Heroes (2006-10) and portrayed Rupert Murdock in Bombshell (2019).

MUSIC

Unlike other Disney animated movies, Bolt does not have a particularly memorable soundtrack, but that’s probably just because it’s not a musical, in the same way that none of the movies from 2000 to 2008 were the typical Disney musical.

There are only two songs in the movie, with only one being played in the actual movie, and the other being an End Credits song. “Barking at the Moon”, written and performed by Jenny Lewis, a former child actress, who appeared in the sitcom Brooklyn Bridge (1991-93). Lewis then left acting to focus on her music career, being the lead singer in the band Rilo Kiley in 1998 before launching a solo career. She provided the voice of the Assistant Director in Bolt as well. “Barking at the Moon” plays as Rhino, Bolt, and Mittens make their way from Ohio to Las Vegas, and Mittens teaches Bolt how to act like a normal dog. This song has a very country feel to it, which is appropriate for the road trip element of the movie, but I’m not a fan of this song, probably because I’m not a big fan of country music. I do like its lyrics referencing the importance of home though and I feel like it fits in well at this point in the movie. There is a brief reprise of the song at the end of the movie.

The other song is “I Thought I Lost You” performed by Miley Cyrus and John Travolta. It was written by Cyrus and Jeffrey Steele, who was the lead singer and bass guitarist in the band Boy Howdy in the 1990s and went on to co-write many hits songs for artists such as LeAnn Rimes, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Tim McGraw. I prefer this song to “Barking at the Moon” as it sounds more like a pop song and a typical song we’d expect to hear from Miley Cyrus during her Hannah Montana days. It’s also got a nice message about reuniting with someone you thought you’d lost. “I Thought I Lost You” was nominated for Best Original Song at the Golden Globes, but lost to “The Wrestler” from the movie of the same name.

The score for Bolt was composed by John Powell, who had co-composed scores for DreamWorks movies such as The Road to El Dorado (2000), Shrek (2001) and Kung Fu Panda (2008), as well as Animal Logic’s Happy Feet (2006) prior to working on Bolt. Powell went on to compose the score for the How to Train Your Dragon film series, as well as live-action movies including Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) and Don’t Worry Darling (2022). Powell is also known for his musical work on some the Ice Age films and the Bourne movies.

Within the score, I can’t say any instrumental pieces stood out to me whilst watching the movie, unlike my experiences with other Disney animated film scores. However, the ending piece “Home at Last” is probably the one I noticed most. The score does have a good mix of intense moments, like “Rescuing Penny”, and some more reflective ones, like “A Friend in Need”, so those match the tone of the movie.

PRODUCTION

Bolt started out as an original story idea called American Dog, written by Chris Sanders, who had co-written and co-directed Lilo & Stitch (2002). After the Disney-Pixar merger in 2006, John Lasseter came on board as Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation and was tasked with overseeing production on the movie. Bolt happens to be the first Disney film to be produced completely under his guidance.

With that in mind, Lasseter gave Sanders notes on how the movie could be improved. These were rejected by Sanders who then left the Disney Studios and ended up working at DreamWorks where he co-wrote and co-directed How to Train Your Dragon (2010) instead, a movie that spanned a hugely popular franchise[3].

In February 2007, two new directors were assigned to the project. These directors were Chris Williams and Byron Howard. Williams had previously worked as a Story Artist for Disney animated films like Mulan (1998), The Emperor’s New Groove (2000), Lilo & Stitch (2002), and Chicken Little (2005). He went on to co-direct Big Hero 6 (2014) with Don Hall, as well as work on story for Moana (2016). Howard had worked as the Supervising Animator for Cobra Bubbles in Lilo & Stitch (2002) and Bear Kenai for Brother Bear (2003) before Bolt, and went on to co-direct Tangled (2010), Zootopia (2016), and Encanto (2021).

With a combination of Disney talent in the areas of story and character animation, it’s no surprise that Williams and Howard made sure to fully focus on these areas of Bolt. As is normal for any movie, some story ideas were originally conceived and then later cut, or reworked. Two of these were around Bolt’s realisation that he is not a super hero, and doesn’t have powers, like he’d been made to believe by the people behind his television series. The first idea was to have Bolt confront two mean dogs in an alleyway in Las Vegas. He would believe that his super bark and laser eyes will fight off the dogs, but it doesn’t work and he is brutally attacked. Mittens finds him hurt, but more than that, crushed that everything he thought was real and true was actually all a lie. This scene was potentially too traumatic to include in a family-friendly movie, so it was reworked. Another version of this scene was to have Bolt dive into a fast-flowing river to save Rhino who has somehow ended up in there, still in his ball. Bolt can’t get through the strong currents and hits up against rocks, needing Mittens to save him. Rhino believes Bolt did save his life, but Bolt knows he didn’t, touching the bolt on his back and knowing that he is not a super dog. Although this moment of realisation was again reworked, this moment of Bolt touching his bolt was kept[4].

As a tribute to Disney Animation’s days of 2D animation, the Art Department wanted to have painterly backgrounds that were realistic and simple, referencing a specific place or type of area, but without so much detail that it would detract from the actions of the characters. However, given that Bolt is a CG animated movie, a new type of software was created to allow for the computer-generated backgrounds to look as though they had been painted, by adding brushstroke and shadow effects to them. These backgrounds in Bolt clearly show the audience were in the US Bolt and his two friends are, such as parts of Ohio, Missouri, Kansas, and even Las Vegas, with a shot showing the Bellagio hotel and its famous fountains. The artwork is simple but realistic to the real world.

Art Director Paul Felix and Lighting Director Adolph Lusinsky also took a research trip across America, travelling 1,200 miles in two days so that they could look at the details of small towns as well as study the light in these different parts of America. For example, they looked at the Las Vegas desert to see how the heat affects how we see the landscape, and New York City has lots of buildings with floor-to-ceiling glass windows, so seeing the sunlight reflect off those gave the scenery a different light quality.

In contrast to this familiar world, we also have a few minutes of “TV world”, where we are brought into the filming of the Bolt television show. This is filled with action-packed scenes of explosions, bombs, and bad guys, as well as superhero powers, like Bolt’s super bark and his laser eyes. It’s a typical spy-style television show, but we get the added twist of seeing it being filmed, with random additional references to things like boom mics, effects teams, and dog handlers, to take us out of that “fake world” and back to reality[5]. Shame Bolt isn’t allowed to ever do that! Speaking of this studio lot, it was made to resemble the Riverside Drive entrance of the actual Disney Studios in Burbank[6].

Making Bolt was quite the learning curve for the two directors, as this was the first time either Williams or Howard had ever directed a Disney animated movie. They found it to be a very fun and collaborative experience, with ideas from all departments being taken into account for the movie’s plot, characters, animation, and effects. They even had to create a whole new technology to deal with the stretchy leash that ties Mittens to Bolt for the first part of their journey together! The team also had a huge inflatable hamster ball, or what we would now call a Zorb Ball, blown up in the Studios for the workers to run around inside, so that they knew what it was like to be Rhino the hamster – or it was just a way of goofing off, but I don’t blame them either way. Ten weeks before the end of their tight production schedule on Bolt, all the men working on the project decided not to shave their beards until the movie was completed, supposedly as some sort of motivational tactic[7]!

RECEPTION

Bolt was released on 21^st November 2008, a week before Thanksgiving. This also happens to be the exact same day that the movie Twilight was released. Awkward…

Given the bad timing of releasing Bolt that could never have been predicted, the movie did not do as well as expected at the box-office during its cinema run. It was outperformed by many other animated family-friendly movies of 2008, including Pixar’s WALL-E, DreamWorks’ Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and Blue Sky Studios’ Horton Hears a Who! Bolt was also later beaten out at the domestic box-office by Marley & Me, coincidentally another movie about a dog, albeit a live-action rom-com. Bolt was even out-grossed by Chicken Little (2005), a Disney animated movie that was panned by critics and viewers alike.

Bolt later ended its run with a domestic total of $114 million, which, combined with $196 million from international markets, came to a global total of $310 million, which may have been a disappointment to Disney executives, but doesn’t seem too bad when compared to some of the box-office bombs that Disney experienced in the 2000s.

It is also worth remembering that Bolt’s reviews and audience scores surpassed those of both Disney’s Chicken Little and Meet the Robinsons (2007)[8]. Although some felt that the story was lacking in both action and humour, others did find Bolt funny and liked many of the characters, especially Rhino, who injected a lot of energy into the plot. Many said it was a step up from Disney Animation’s previous work and felt that it was a good sign for the future of the company.

Bolt was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2008 Academy Awards, which is very significant, actually, as the last solely Disney, not Pixar, film to be nominated in this category was Brother Bear (2003). Bolt did, however, lose to Pixar’s WALL-E here. Not only that but Bolt was also nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Annie Awards, losing to Kung Fu Panda; at the Golden Globes, losing to WALL-E; and at the Kids’ Choice Awards, losing to Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. It was clearly a very competitive year for animated movies, and perhaps many viewers had decided not to give Disney a chance at the time, given their previous track record in the decade.

LEGACY

Bolt did not receive tons of celebrations on its release, so it is not surprising that the movie has not been referenced much by The Walt Disney Company since then.

In 2009, a short spin-off movie was made called Super Rhino. It really is a short film, only around five minutes long, which sees Rhino get some super power upgrades, like laser eyes, to save Penny and Bolt from yet another encounter with the evil Dr. Calico. Rhino even goes to a concert at the end of the movie and sings that big Hannah Montana hit “The Best of Both Worlds”. But alas, it was all just a dream, and Rhino is still not a superhero[9]. Given that Rhino became the standout character from Bolt, it was a good move to make a short film based on him. Mark Walton, Miley Cyrus, Susie Essman, and Malcolm McDowell reprised their voice roles of Rhino, Penny, Mittens, and Dr. Calico here.

To promote the movie’s release at the Disney Parks, at Walt Disney World within the Magic of Animation building at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, which has since been replaced by Star Wars Launch Bay, Rhino, Mittens, and Bolt were all available to meet guests from November 2008. It is unclear how long the meet-and-greets lasted for, but it appears to have been for less than year. Ever since then, Bolt has been the only character to meet guests at Walt Disney World, and is not a regularly scheduled character – not a big shocker there. Bolt was seen as part of the Limited Time Magic: Dogs of Summer event at Magic Kingdom alongside Stitch, Pluto, and Doug in 2013, but was also randomly spotted at both Epcot and the Wilderness Lodge Resort in 2023. You can also catch a quick glimpse of a clip from Bolt as part of the Wonderful World of Animation nighttime show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

At Disneyland, there was the Bolt Pre-Parade which began in 2008, with a float featuring Bolt, Mittens, and a few cheerleaders/dancers appearing before Walt Disney’s Parade of Dreams. When that parade stopped running in 2008, the pre-parade then moved to Disney California Adventure to run before the Pixar Play Parade. The Bolt Pre-Parade used the song “I Thought I Lost You” as its soundtrack.

At Disneyland Paris, Bolt and Mittens were seen together in 2017 for a Guest Star Day, but Bolt was also seen sometime in late 2023 as a random character find. Bolt and his friends do not seem to have ever featured at the Disney Parks in Asia.

Merchandise including pins and plush toys were available around the time of Bolt’s release in 2008, but ever since then, it has been harder to find. For any fans of Bolt, it is likely that looking for merchandise around a milestone anniversary is the best bet.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Despite being the most critically and commercially successful movie from Disney Animation since Lilo & Stitch (2002) at the time, Bolt seems to have been promptly forgotten by many. Whether that is because it has always been considered lesser to the big movies of the 1990s, or because it had already been surpassed by later movies from Disney just a couple of years later, it is not clear.

It may not have been a big fairy-tale musical, or even a strangely comedic movie like Shrek (2001), but Bolt was definitely quite a few steps in the right direction. Even if you don’t like Bolt, you have to admit that is true. It did take a while for Disney Animation to figure out how to make visually appealing, interesting, and funny movies with their new medium of computer-animation, but by the end of the 2000s, it looked like they were just about there.

Bolt was a lot better than I expected, or remembered, with much more emotion to it than I’d anticipated, and that’s what I look for in any movie. It’s definitely worth a watch, and I’d like to think that I will choose to watch Bolt again some time, just because I want to.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Bolt (2008)’, pp. 143.

[2] Credit: Act, Speak! The Voices of Bolt, Disney (2008).

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Bolt (2008)’, pp. 143.

[4] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Bolt (2008) DVD (2009).

[5] Credit: Disney, “Creating the World of Bolt”, from Bolt (2008) DVD (2009).

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Bolt (2008)’, pp. 143.

[7] Credit: Disney, “A New Breed of Directors: A Filmmakers’ Journey”, from Bolt (2008) DVD (2009).

[8] Credit: Jim Hill, ‘Toon Tuesday: Disney tries to figure out why “Bolt” missed its box office target’, JimHillMedia.com, 6^th January 2009.

[9] Credit: Disney, “Bonus Short: Super Rhino”, from Bolt (2008) DVD (2009).

14th Jun 202426th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#11 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

BACKGROUND

After the Disney Studios had released their animated film Bambi in 1942, it became only too clear to Walt Disney that they would have to explore different ways of making movies.

When the US joined World War II in December 1941, the US Army tasked the Disney Studios with making propaganda films to help with the war effort. Many of the animators had also left the company to enlist in the army, so manpower was limited.

To deal with this, Disney Animation made a series of what became known as “package features”. Similarly to Fantasia (1940), these movies consisted of different animated segments joined together to make a full-length feature film. The Disney “package features” of the 1940s were sometimes made up of numerous short segments, often paired with musical accompaniments, and others consisted of just two longer stories.

That was the case for two of Disney’s movies: Fun and Fancy Free (1947) and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad also became the final film in what was to be known as Disney’s “Wartime Era”. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad consists of two different stories, each one just over thirty minutes long, which probably helps in terms of being able to focus on just two tales, instead of up to ten like in some of the previous package films.

These “package features”, although not generally remembered, either at all or for their animation quality, had a more important purpose: to keep the Disney Studios afloat. They are not be the best movies to have ever come out of the Disney Animation department, but they were good enough to keep money coming in to the Studios, and to keep the animators somewhat trained and entertained.

Despite the generally poor critical reception these package films receive, I do quite like The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and I like to watch it every Halloween for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow segment. That’s about as far and as “spooky” as I go in terms of “celebrating” Halloween! Many others also particularly like watching The Legend of Sleepy Hollow during the Halloween festivities, and the famous Disneyland ride Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride has kept the story of Mr. Toad, making The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad one of Disney’s more popular “package feature” films.

STORY #1: THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, going against its title, begins with Toad’s story. The movie begins with the usual opening credits and title song, before heading into a library, where character actor, Basil Rathbone, best known for playing Sherlock Holmes in fourteen films between 1939 and 1946, starts The Wind in the Willows section of the film. Rathbone asks: who is the most fabulous character in English Literature? He then lists a number of well-known characters, like Robin Hood, Oliver Twist, King Arthur. But no, he decides the answer to that question is J. Thaddeus Toad. I disagree with this decision.

We then go into the animated story, which follows J. Thaddeus Toad, owner of the Toad Hall estate in London, and his friends, MacBadger, Rat, and Mole, who try to keep Toad on the straight and narrow, and out of bankruptcy, but he becomes quickly obsessed with different “manias”, making him difficult to keep in line. To begin with, Toad is obsessed with his new gypsy cart which he drives around in with his horse, Cyril Proudbottom. Whilst out riding one day, Toad spots a shiny red car outside of a bar and begins a new obsession; he must have that car. Trying to stop Toad’s new mania, his friends shut him in his room and keep watch, but Toad manages to escape so he can get that car.

However, Toad is arrested for allegedly stealing this car. It turns out he actually bought it from a pack of weasels fair and square, trading Toad Hall for the vehicle, with a barman called Mr. Winky witnessing this event, but as the car was first stolen by the weasels, Toad has been blamed for the theft. Toad hopes that Mr. Winky will come to trial and resolve all of this, but that is not the case. Mr. Winky tells the court that Toad did steal the car, and Toad is found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London. Meanwhile, the weasels and Mr. Winky take over Toad Hall.

On Christmas Eve, Cyril Proudbottom goes to the Tower of London and, using a disguise, breaks Toad out of jail. He hijacks a steam train and uses that to get to his friend Rat’s house, whilst outrunning the police. At Rat’s house, Rat and Mole hope that Toad will get time off for “good behaviour” – oh please, don’t make me laugh – but when Toad shows up, they plan to prove Toad’s innocence, since the weasels do have the deed to Toad Hall so Toad must have been telling the truth about not stealing the car. They and MacBadger sneak into Toad Hall and manage to steal the deed back from the weasels and Mr. Winky, showing all the signatures on it, proving that a legitimate sale took place.

Toad is acquitted of his crimes and is free to return to Toad Hall. However, Toad has since developed a new obsession – for planes. On New Year’s Day, him and Cyril are seen flying over the estate as MacBadger, Rat, and Mole watch helplessly from the ground.

In all honestly, I don’t really like the Mr. Toad part of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad but I still make myself watch it, just to get to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It’s a good thing they save Ichabod Crane until last or I wouldn’t bother with the first half of the movie, because Toad is so unlikeable.

Toad is nothing but a brat of an aristocrat, with no responsibility, no career, no purpose in life. So instead of actually helping to keep Toad Hall, his ancestral home and bright light of the community, by keeping it and himself out of financial ruin, he decides to continue spending ridiculous amounts of money, and getting himself into trouble, destroying public property, that then needs to be paid for. He’s a mess of a character. There is nothing I find likeable about him. He’s selfish, childish, naïve, irresponsible, reckless, arrogant – need I go on? Ultimately, Toad learns absolutely nothing and instead of his road mania, where he owned a bright yellow gypsy cart, and then his “motor mania” which led to him trading Toad Hall, a £100,000 estate, for a shiny red car, he ends up being obsessed with planes, and flies off on a Wright Flyer. It was all completely pointless, really. The character of Toad was voiced by Eric Blore, who appeared in numerous musical movies, including those starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, such as Flying Down to Rio (1933), The Gay Divorcee (1934) and Top Hat (1935).

To their credit, Rat, Mole, and MacBadger do an awful lot for Toad, whether he deserves it or not. They try to keep him on the straight and narrow, but Toad is so difficult to communicate with that their advice falls on deaf ears. Toad’s horse friend, Cyril, even busts him out of jail. Cyril was voiced by J. Pat O’Malley. His voice might sound familiar as he went on to voice many Disney characters, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, plus the Walrus and the Carpenter, in Alice in Wonderland (1951); Jasper and Colonel in One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961); and Colonel Hathi in The Jungle Book (1967). Claud Allister voiced the part of Rat. Allister had previously voiced the character of Sir Giles in the live-action/animated Disney movie The Reluctant Dragon (1941), and also appeared as Paul in the movie Kiss Me Kate (1953). MacBadger was voiced by Disney animator and writer Campbell Grant, whilst Mole’s voice actor was Colin Campbell.

Disney’s Toad seems to be a lot less apologetic and friendly than he is in the original story. Originally, he doesn’t develop a mania for planes at the end, instead righting his wrongs and compensating for his bad ways. I have no idea why Disney wouldn’t have wanted Toad to learn from his mistakes at the end. It hardly sets a good example for children but there you go! The main basis of Disney’s story is more or less the same as Kenneth Grahame’s original novel, The Wind in the Willows, though the additional short stories included in the original book were omitted.

In terms of music, the only original song in Disney’s story of The Wind in the Willows is “The Merrily Song”, where Toad and Cyril Proudbottom both sing that they are “merrily, merrily on our way to nowhere in particular”. It’s actually quite a catchy song, and it sums up Toad’s whole life well: that he has no reason to get anywhere, or do anything useful. The popular New Year’s Eve song “Auld Lang Syne” also appears in this story.

All the music for the songs in The Wind in the Willows were written by Frank Churchill and Charles Wolcott. Churchill had won the Oscar for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for “Baby Mine” for Dumbo (1941) and he also co-composed the score for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). He died by suicide in May 1942, before the release of Bambi (1942) for which he also wrote the music. Wolcott had previously worked as the General Musical Director for many of the “package features” at Disney, including Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944). The lyrics were written by Larry Morey and Ray Gilbert. Morey had previously co-composed the score for Bambi with Frank Churchill and worked on the music for the Disney live-action film So Dear to My Heart (1948). Gilbert had written the lyrics to the Oscar-winning song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” from Song of the South (1946) and written the lyrics for the songs in The Three Caballeros (1944) prior to this film.

It seems that The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad might have been the first adaptation of The Wind and the Willows on screen, but there have been numerous adaptations since. Julian Fellowes, creator of the period drama series’ Downton Abbey (2010-15) and The Gilded Age (2022-present) wrote a musical version of the novel in 2016, and Alan Bennett wrote a 1990 play of the novel. On screen, some adaptations include a live-action film which aired in 2006, starring Matt Lucas as Mr. Toad, Bob Hoskins as Badger, and Mark Gatiss as Ratty, as well as a 1995 animated film with Rik Mayall as the voice of Mr. Toad, Michael Gambon as the voice of Badger, and Michael Palin as Rat, with live-action sequences with Vanessa Redgrave as the Narrator.

STORY #2: THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW

For this story, we return to the library from the opening, and move on to American literature. The story of Ichabod Crane is narrated by famed singer and actor Bing Crosby, known for starring roles in such movie musicals as Holiday Inn (1942), alongside Fred Astaire; White Christmas (1954) with Danny Kaye and Rosemary Clooney; and High Society (1956), where he shared the screen with Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Louis Armstrong.

The plot for this segment follows Ichabod Crane, a tall, lanky man, arriving at the small village of Sleepy Hollow, outside of Tarrytown, New York, to become the next schoolmaster. Despite Ichabod’s strange appearance, he still finds himself able to charm the women of the village, however, the men, led by hard-man Brom Bones, do not warm to him, especially once Katrina Van Tassel, daughter of the richest farmer in the area, comes to town and starts flirting with Ichabod, making Brom, her unofficial fiancé, furious and incredibly jealous. Though Ichabod is entranced by Katrina’s beauty, he’s more interested in her family money, so is determined to win her hand – that sneaky gold-digger.

At the annual Van Tassel Halloween party, to which both men are invited, Brom tries to keep Katrina away from Ichabod, but to no avail. So, Brom decides that he’ll tell the spooky tale of the Headless Horseman, to scare Ichabod, who is incredibly superstitious and jumpy with things like that. The Headless Horseman supposedly waits in the woods on Halloween night trying to find a living head to replace his; the victim can only escape by crossing the covered bridge. Nobody else at the party is scared, but it works on Ichabod.

On Ichabod’s ride home, he is incredibly jumpy and his slow, old horse Gunpowder does nothing to speed along his journey. Consumed by fear, Ichabod’s imagination goes into overdrive, and he does encounter the Headless Horseman. After a chase through the woods as Ichabod attempts to reach the end of the bridge, we see the Horseman throw a jack-o’-lantern at Ichabod’s head, and the screen goes black…

The character of Ichabod Crane isn’t much better than Mr. Toad, since he is greedy and selfish, using Katrina to get her father’s money and to annoy Brom Bones. Before he meets her, he was using his students to get to their mothers to cook for him, so he could get free dinners, so that shows the type of man Ichabod Crane is. Even his horse doesn’t seem to think much of him! Animator Frank Thomas used his precarious experiences of horse riding to animate the scene of Ichabod riding Gunpowder at night.

Brom Bones is a typical man’s man, who thinks he deserves the respect of everyone in the town and to be able to marry the richest, most beautiful woman in the town – that being Katrina. Disney animator Andreas Deja used Brom Bones as an inspiration for his character design of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (1991), so if you know Gaston, you can imagine what Brom Bones is like without even watching the film! Katrina is flirtatious and takes advantage of her beauty, watching as men fawn all over her. She’s a woman who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to take it.

Other than a few brief sound effects, the whole story is spoken and sung by Bing Crosby. Some of these brief lines of dialogue include a “yoo-hoo”, by Katrina Van Tassel, apparently voiced by Bea Benaderet, the voice of Betty Rubble in The Flintstones (1960-63). There is also the laugh of the Headless Horseman which was provided by Billy Bletcher, the original voice artist behind Pete, the antagonist in many Mickey Mouse shorts, and the Big Bad Wolf in Three Little Pigs (1933). The animation of this character was primarily completed by Woolie Reitherman and John Sibley. Clarence Nash, original voice of Donald Duck, made many of the animals in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Pinto Colvig, original voice of Goofy, did Ichabod’s scream[1].

Some aspects of Disney’s version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are quite different to the original story by Washington Irving. One of these is that it is strongly implied that the Headless Horseman was in fact Brom Bones in disguise, playing a prank on Ichabod Crane, and that Ichabod fled the town in fear for his life. Though we are meant to be watching the events of that night play out as they did in Ichabod’s terror-stricken mind, it would appear to the audience that the Headless Horseman was in fact real. Gunpowder, Ichabod’s horse, is also found the next day, whereas in the Disney story, he seems to have vanished too to make it seem even more likely that they were taken, or killed, by the Headless Horseman. Another change is that Ichabod is rejected by Katrina in the book at her family’s party, whereas that doesn’t seem to happen in Disney’s story. Also, the ghost has a full backstory in the original story, with the Headless Horseman being the ghost of a trooper who was decapitated during the Revolutionary War.

In terms of animation, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow section used concept art from Mary Blair, who created the artwork for such places as the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World Resort, and the it’s a small world attractionand would later draw concept art for some of the “Silver Age” of Disney movies[2]. Mary Blair was a very famous artist for the Disney company, and her artwork is revered by many Disney artists and fans today. Walt Disney also visited Tarrytown to research the area, so that the animators could accurately replicate the clothing, buildings and landscapes. The church in the opening shot was made to represent the actual Old Dutch Church built in the area in the 1660s.

As well as this, some areas of the short film use recycled animation from previous Disney projects. These include images of the reeds swaying being taken from the Silly Symphony short The Old Mill (1937), and the character of Katrina Van Tassel being from the same model sheet as Grace Martin from The Martins and the Coys segment of Make Mine Music (1946). Ichabod’s horse also bears some resemblance to Cyril Proudbottom, Mr. Toad’s horse friend.

The reason I like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow isn’t for its story so much, though I do like it, but actually for its songs, all three of which are performed by Bing Crosby, with accompaniment by Jud Conlon’s Rhythmaires, who frequently collaborated with Crosby. All three numbers were written by Don Raye and Gene de Paul. Raye had written many songs for The Andrew Sisters, including “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and went on to write the song “Beware the Jabberwock” with Gene de Paul for Alice in Wonderland (1951). De Paul later contributed to the music in the 1954 musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

The first song “Ichabod Crane” introduces this odd-looking character to the audience, as he walks into Sleepy Hollow for the first time, nose in a book, not noticing everyone staring at him initially. It also shows how superstitious he is, avoiding black cats and not walking under ladders. Though he looks strange, many of the women seem to like him straight away – Brom and his lads aren’t too sure though. The next song is all about Katrina, so naturally it’s called “Katrina”. The lyrics frequently refer to her as “that little coquette, Katrina” and that she is, as we see all the men chasing after her, doing things for her without so much as a “thank you”. She’s just a flirt, and quickly gets her hooks into Ichabod.

Both of these songs are pleasant to listen to, but they are just introducing characters. The big song is “The Headless Horseman”, Brom’s story about the scary ghost that might come and get Ichabod if he’s not careful this Halloween night. It’s a very bouncy, jazzy tune, considering it’s meant to be about such a terrifying ghost. It’s a favourite of many Disney fans. Thurl Ravenscroft, original voice of Tony the Tiger for Kellogg’s, as well as one of the five singing busts in The Haunted Mansion attraction, was meant to sing “The Headless Horseman” for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Known for his deep, bass voice, it certainly made it sound spookier than Bing Crosby’s version, but for consistency they felt it was best to leave it to Crosby. Ravenscroft did later record the song though.

Oliver Wallace composed the score for all of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, having composed the scores for Dumbo (1941), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), and Fun and Fancy Free (1947) for Disney previously. Wallace also whistled for Ichabod Crane as he is riding through the woods[3].

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was adapted into a 1922 silent film, which is believed to have inspired Disney’s take on the story. In more recent years, there was a 1980 television movie, starring Jeff Goldblum as Ichabod Crane, as well as Tim Burton’s 1999 film Sleepy Hollow, which starred Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, Christina Ricci as Katrina, and Michael Gambon and Miranda Richardson as her parents. The movie won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction in 2000, and two BAFTA awards for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. From 2013 to 2017, FOX also made a crime horror series based on Irving’s story, also titled Sleepy Hollow.

PRODUCTION

Although not a particularly popular form of Disney animated movie, either with the general public or with Walt Disney himself, the package films were a “necessary evil” in order for the Disney Studios to continue to generate some much-needed income during the wartime era.

The rights to The Wind in the Willows, written by British author Kenneth Grahame and first published in 1908, were acquired by Disney in June 1938. A basic script and the song “The Merrily Song” were already developed by 1941, however, the project was then put on hold in October of that year. Development would not resume on this story until World War II ended in 1945[4].

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was a short story published by American writer Washington Irving in 1820. It is based on a German folk tale, with the setting being moved to 1790 upstate New York. Disney began adapting Irving’s work in the early 1940s, but, like The Wind in the Willows adaptation, this was also put on hold when the United States joined World War II in 1941. Work later resumed once war ended.

These two stories were meant to become feature-length films; however, they did not contain enough content to make them the desired length so in 1947, following the format of previous 1940s Disney animated movies, they were paired together. The original title for this movie was to be Two Fabulous Characters, with the character of Jiminy Cricket acting as a host and introducer of the two stories, as per his role in Fun and Fancy Free (1947)[5].

This ultimately didn’t happen, and celebrity narrators were chosen instead, potentially as a way of increasing viewership. Basil Rathbone, well-spoken and eloquent, pairs well with the quintessentially British tale of The Wind in the Willows, whilst Bing Crosby’s warm voice and strange ad-libs, such as calling Ichabod “Old Ichy”, lightens the slightly dark material of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was also announced in 1948 that Bing Crosby and his four sons would be filmed in live-action, gathering around a radio to listen to their father tell the tale of the Headless Horseman as an introduction to the story within the film. This introduction was never filmed[6].

RECEPTION

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad was released on 5^th October 1949 in the US. As with many of Disney’s “package features”, it received mixed reviews. Much of the public felt that, although the majority of these movies were fine to watch and entertaining enough, they were not fully satisfying, and the animation was generally not particularly impressive.

In the case of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, it seemed to be one of Disney’s better “package features” at the time, with critics enjoying the narration of both Crosby and Rathbone and felt that it was an entertaining film, overall. The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad even succeeded in winning an award; it won the Golden Globe for Best Cinematography – Color in 1950.

Viewers from both then and now are split over which story of the two is “the best”. Some prefer The Wind in the Willows’ mayhem and colour over The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; however, others feel the opposite way, preferring the spookiness of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – which also happens to match my own opinion. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’s Halloween setting allows it to be watched annually at a set time of year, so it is a regular viewing event for some, but the cult classic ride of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride at Disneyland has kept that story alive in the mind of others.

In 1955, The Wind in the Willows and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow stories were both shown separately on the television series Disneyland, with The Wind in the Willows being shown first in February 1955, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow airing in October of that year, likely to coincide with Halloween. A 14-minute segment all about the life of author Washington Irving was shown alongside it. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was later released as a 33-minute feature in theatres in September 1963[7]. The Wind in the Willow was then re-released to theatres in 1978, retitled The Madcap Adventures of Mr. Toad, to accompany the theatrical release of the Disney movie Hot Lead and Cold Feet (1978).

In the 1980s and 1990s, the two stories were then paired back together and released on VHS, before being released on DVD in 2000, and subsequently re-released numerous times on DVD and Blu-Ray, usually around a milestone anniversary.

LEGACY

On screen, the characters of Mr. Toad, Mole, and Rat later ended up in Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983). Mole and Rat appear as collectors for the poor, whilst Mr. Toad was cast as Fezzywig, Scrooge’s first employer. Mr. Toad also appeared in a couple of episodes of the House of Mouse (2001-03).

At the Disney Parks, the biggest reference to any story within The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is Mr Toad’s Wild Ride, a dark ride attraction. It was an opening day attraction at Disneyland on 17^th July 1955, and continues to operate today, being a cult favourite of many park-goers. It consists of guests boarding 1900s era motorcars and driving recklessly around the English countryside like Mr. Toad. The journey begins with the cars careening through set pieces designed to represent areas from the movie, such as Toad Hall itself, through the village streets, across railway tracks as you’re chased by the police, through Mr. Winky’s pub, and then into a courtroom where you are sentenced to imprisonment. However, that was never good enough for Mr. Toad, so the vehicles escape their prison cells and drive back through the village, coming to the railway again where the drivers are not so lucky and they proceed to end their journey in a Disney depiction of hell. It’s a strange route through events of the movie as it doesn’t recreate them particularly faithfully, with the scene of Hell being completely new to this story. This scene was added to the ride to show the dangers of reckless driving – and that’s one way to put some people off driving for life! Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride was later updated in 1983 to add new effects. Also at Disneyland, a miniature version of Toad Hall can be seen on the Storybook Land Canal Boats and the Casey Jr. Circus Train attractions.

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride then became an opening day attraction at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, opening on 1^st October 1971. However, due to the popularity of Disneyland’s version, Magic Kingdom’s ride opened with two completely separate tracks which gave guests different experiences of the attraction. For example, one track followed a similar version to Disneyland’s attraction, ending in a recreation of hell after being hit by a train. The other track passed through three original scenes, those being Toad’s trophy room, the kitchen, and a gypsy camp – but it still ended with the vehicle being “struck” by a train and proceeding to take a ride through hell. Walt Disney World later added four-person vehicles to the attraction, instead of the two-person cars that Disneyland has.

In 1997, at Walt Disney World, it was announced that Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride would be replaced with a dark ride attraction based on Winnie the Pooh and his friends, since these characters were incredibly popular at the time, with their merchandise even outselling that of Mickey Mouse. This announcement did not go down well with some people who fought to save Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, with actual demonstrations, petitions, and media attention being brought to the fight. But it was to no avail as Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride officially closed at Walt Disney World in September 1998, with The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh opening in its place in June 1999. Within The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride, during the scene of Owl’s house, you can see a picture of Mr. Toad handing over the deed to “the property” to Owl, as well as another picture of Mole tipping his hat to Winnie the Pooh, just to show that this was all a legitimate transaction and that Mr. Toad was happy to make the move! A statue of Mr. Toad can also be found in the Haunted Mansion pet cemetery. What a fun way to really annoy and taunt all those that wanted Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride to stay!

Disneyland Paris was meant to have a version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride when its park opened in April 1992, which would have supposedly been truer to the events of the actual film, with no mention of hell and just Toad flying in his plane as the ending, but it was never built. Instead, Disneyland Paris just got the Toad Hall restaurant, which serves the typically British dish of fish and chips, with its building designed to look just like the attraction building at Disneyland, i.e., a recreation of Toad Hall[8].

But don’t think The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has been forgotten at the Disney Parks, because it hasn’t, though it’s only really the US Parks that reference it. At Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, at the Liberty Square area of the park, you can eat at a quick-service location called Sleepy Hollow Refreshments. It doesn’t serve anything spooky, mostly variations on waffles and funnel cakes, but its exterior building was made to resemble the two-room cottage that Washington Irving purchased in Tarrytown, the location that inspired his story. You might see outside Ye Olde Christmas Shoppe a sign for a neighbouring building that highlights the location of “Music & Voice Lessons by appointment, Ichabod Crane, Instructor”, as per one of his jobs in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

At Halloween, during Disney’s events, they like to make sure the Headless Horseman gets his moment in the spotlight. Every year, during both Mickey’s Boo To You Halloween Parade at Walt Disney World and during Disneyland’s Frightfully Fun Parade, the Headless Horseman, riding a horse and carrying a jack-o’-lantern rides down the parade route to signal the official start of the parade. There is one difference between these two appearances, and that is that Ichabod Crane can be seen ahead of the Headless Horseman, running in fear, at the beginning of Disneyland’s Halloween parade. Ichabod Crane does not seem to have ever done this at Walt Disney World for some reason.

At Walt Disney World, there also used to be an event held during the Halloween season at Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, where The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was shown inside the Tri-Circle-D Ranch stables. The event even included a meet-and-greet with the Headless Horseman. This ticketed event began in 2017 and returned in 2018, but it is not a regular event now. There’s hope that it may come back one day. In the same area, there used to be a Haunted Hayride event which had the Horseman chasing the carriages into the night. These later became known as Haunted Carriage Rides, before being discontinued completely from 2012.

There were also experiences related to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow that never happened. One of these was an idea submitted by Imagineer Ken Anderson in 1957 to use the Headless Horseman in the scary finale scene of the haunted house attraction that was being devised for Disneyland. This ultimately didn’t happen, and the haunted house later became The Haunted Mansion. When Liberty Square was being built in 1970 for Walt Disney World, Imagineer Tony Baxter pitched the idea of a whole dark ride based on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for the new land. Guests would have ridden through scenes from the story whilst sitting in hollowed out jack-o’-lanterns apparently[9].

Shanghai Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland do not seem to reference the characters of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, not even during the Halloween season, which is perhaps not surprising. More surprising is that at Hong Kong Disneyland, there was a scary walkthrough attraction for Halloween named The Revenge of the Headless Horseman, which ran for Halloween from 2011 to 2014.

Merchandise for The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad is not overly prevalent, however, for the Disney100 event as part of their Disney Decades Collection, for the 1940s, there were two toy sets available to purchase; one of Mr. Toad, and another of the Headless Horseman. Halloween is a good time to try and find something relating to the characters of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and milestone anniversaries of the release of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad should lead to new merchandise lines.

FINAL THOUGHTS

After the wartime era of Disney had ended with the release of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in 1949, some felt that Walt Disney had lost his vision and direction, and that he was no longer relevant on the film-making stage. He was even called a “hack” by some. Fortunately, he would recover his reputation with Cinderella in 1950, which would be a critical and financial success.

Though the animation in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad film lacks detail and realism, clearly showing it was cheaper to make, I don’t think that is a bad thing, as it doesn’t take anything away from the story, and is bright and cheerful. I don’t think The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad should be overlooked and anyone that hasn’t seen it should go and give it a watch.

It might be just another Disney “package feature” but it’s definitely the best one.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Disney’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1949)’, CartoonResearch.com, 30^th October 2020.

[2] Credit: Eric Goldberg, ‘D23 Creepy Classics: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, part of Halloween Hullabaloo’, D23 YouTube Channel, uploaded 15^th October 2020.

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Disney’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1949)’, CartoonResearch.com, 30^th October 2020.

[4] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)’, pp. 31-33.

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

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)’, pp. 31-33.

[7] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Disney’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1949)’, CartoonResearch.com, 30^th October 2020.

[8] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

[9] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

7th Jun 202427th Jun 2024 by The Disney Purist

#4 Dumbo (1941)

BACKGROUND

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) proved to the world that good stories could be told in the form of animation. Pinocchio (1940) is remembered for its impressive visual effects and detailed artwork. Fantasia (1940) pushed boundaries by perfectly synchronising classical music with differing animated sequences. Bambi (1942) painstakingly recreated natural landscapes and realistically animated animals.

Dumbo, on the other hand, released a year prior to Bambi, is not known for its artistic merits, not as much as the other four movies in Disney’s “Golden Age”. Instead, it is seen as one of the most emotional and heartfelt movies to have ever come out of the Disney Studios.

It is also known for being the film that managed to lift the Disney Studios out of financial difficulty, and for recapturing audience attentions again. Pinocchio and Fantasia had not been successful at the box-office. This was due, in part, to World War II disrupting their movie distribution. Fantasia had also not interested the general public, and even managed to anger some music critics for its rearrangements of classical music pieces.

The Disney Studios needed a guaranteed hit, and one that wouldn’t cost nearly as much as their previous movie releases. They needed to find a story with a simple plot, something that would be easy to adapt, and they couldn’t have as much focus on the artistry of animation; that would cost too much.

Luckily, a short story about a small elephant with big ears overcoming self-doubt would prove itself to be a great movie for Disney Animation’s next movie. With its heart-breaking moments and relatable troubles, it touched viewers who even today continue to name Dumbo as one of Disney’s best ever movies.

Dumbo has never been one of my favourite Disney movies though. I think Dumbo is a very cute character, but it’s not nice to see something so little and cute being bullied because of its appearance. The story has some surprisingly dark and sad moments, so it’s not exactly light-hearted entertainment by today’s standards, when Disney’s most treasured animated movies these days tend to be those musicals of the 1990s, or even more recent ones of the 2010s and 2020s.

Still, Dumbo was a milestone moment for Disney Animation, and its success helped the Disney Studios to stay afloat during a particularly difficult decade for the whole world.

PLOT

The story of Dumbo begins with baby animals being delivered by stork to animals in a travelling circus in Florida during wintertime, through storms and blustery weather. Sadly, one of these animals, Mrs. Jumbo the elephant does not receive her baby at this time.

The next spring, after the animals have been herded onto the circus train for their next set of engagements, one of the storks arrives late to deliver Mrs. Jumbo’s baby. After signing for her “package”, the customary “Happy Birthday” song is sung by the stork. Mrs. Jumbo opens up the bundle and sees her baby, which she has named Jumbo Jr. The other female elephants are eager to see, and at first, find it to be a cute little thing. But when little Jumbo sneezes, he reveals his huge ears. At this point, the female elephants all start to make fun of Jumbo, giving him the cruel nickname of “Dumbo”. Mrs. Jumbo doesn’t care what they think though, and vows to protect her baby no matter what.

Once the circus arrives at its next stop, it soon becomes clear that Dumbo’s large ears cause him to be quite clumsy, as he constantly trips over them. A group of teenage boys come to the circus and mock Dumbo, and despite Mrs. Jumbo’s attempts to shield him from view, one of the boys continues to torment Dumbo, to the point where Mrs. Jumbo picks up the boy and spanks him in front of all of his friends. Good for her, you might think, but the Ringmaster doesn’t see it that way, and begins to whip her in an attempt to stop this. Instead, Mrs. Jumbo throws the Ringmaster into a bucket of cold water, and is then locked up in a tiny cage and labelled a “mad elephant”.

This leaves Dumbo alone with the horrible female elephants who ignore him. But not for long, as a little mouse, Timothy Q. Mouse, arrives to stop these elephants from being cruel to Dumbo, telling them not to pick on little guys. Timothy scares the elephants away, as only a mouse can do, and tells Dumbo he’ll look after him, and that he could be a great circus star. That night, Timothy whispers into the Ringmaster’s ear whilst he’s sleeping, telling him to make a finale act of a pyramid of elephants where Dumbo will stand on top.

The next day, this pyramid of elephants is shown to a paying audience. After some difficulty, the pyramid, albeit a less than steady one, is complete and Dumbo, with his ears tied up, goes out to do his act, however, he gets stage-fright and tries to walk away. Timothy forces him to go out there, but as he runs towards the springboard that will catapult him to the top of the pyramid, his ears become untied and he trips, bouncing into the bottom of the pyramid, causing all the elephants to fall. The audience runs away in fear and the circus act is ruined. Because of Dumbo’s clumsiness, he is then demoted to being a clown instead.

As a clown, Dumbo is made a laughing stock, forced to ascend a high platform and then jump down into a bucket of pie filling. Dumbo is a hit as a clown, but he hates his new job. Timothy tries to convince him that this success is a good thing, but it doesn’t work; nothing will cheer Dumbo up. So, Timothy takes him over to Mrs. Jumbo’s cage so he can see his mother for a little while, except the cage is so tall that Dumbo can only interact with his mother’s trunk, in one of Disney’s most heart-breaking movie moments.

We then hear that the clowns want to raise the height of the platform to crazy levels so that their act can be even better, and they deduce that Dumbo won’t care because “elephants don’t have feelings”, since they are made of rubber… The clowns then proceed to accidentally poison Dumbo by carelessly allowing a bottle of champagne to fall into his water. After Dumbo gets hiccups from crying, Timothy leads Dumbo over to his tainted water supply, and the two become drunk, hallucinating about weird pink elephants.

The next day, the two find themselves waking up in a tree next to a gang of crows. That must have been some wild night! Timothy deduces that Dumbo must have flown them up to that tree, but the crows laugh at this theory, finding it absurd. After hearing that Dumbo was torn away from his mother, that everyone has isolated him because of his big ears, and that the circus has made him into a clown, the crows feel bad about what they have said and decide to help. They give Timothy a “magic feather” to give Dumbo the confidence to fly. Sure enough, it works – Dumbo can fly! Timothy plans for Dumbo to surprise everyone at the circus that night with his new talent.

As Dumbo is placed on the high platform as part of the clown act, due to jump down to the bucket below, Dumbo is ready to show he can fly – but he drops his feather midway down and loses all of his confidence. Timothy quickly tells him the feather wasn’t actually magic and that he can fly without it. At the last moment, Dumbo has faith and opens his ears, and flies all across the circus tent, terrorising the clowns below and blasting peanuts into the faces of the elephants that tormented him. Serves them right.

The movie ends by saying that Dumbo has become a major celebrity, with his ears even being insured for $1 million. Timothy becomes Dumbo’s manager and gets him a Hollywood contract. We then see the circus train going to its next stop. Dumbo flies behind it with the crows, before reuniting with his mother in their own private coach on the train.

CHARACTERS & CAST

Dumbo is a cute little elephant with big ears who becomes a huge star. Dumbo is an incredibly sweet character, and I think his hiccups are adorable. However, nobody else seems to see it that way because he’s “different”. I can definitely relate to Dumbo as a character, as I’m sure many people can. It’s not easy growing up when there’s something about you that makes you different from everyone else. I was the short kid with big ears and funny teeth at school. And kids can be cruel – but in this case, it’s not just the kids; the adults do it too. Although all the other female elephants initially think he’s the sweetest little baby they’ve ever seen, the minute his ears are revealed, they bully and tease him. It’s awful to see this, and then it gets worse, when the teenage circus-goers begin to torment him, which leads to Mrs. Jumbo attacking the kids. Who can blame her really? No-one dies, it’s not a big deal. Yet the Ringmaster locks up Mrs. Jumbo, separating Dumbo from his mother. If it weren’t for Timothy Q. Mouse, I don’t know how Dumbo would have survived all that. But luckily, that’s not the case and Timothy gives him the confidence to believe in himself that he can fly, which certainly shuts everyone up in the end. The movie has a nice message about accepting yourself as you are and showing that everyone has a talent.

The character of Dumbo was designed by animator Bill Tytla, who was best known for animating Stromboli in Pinocchio (1940) and Chernabog in Fantasia (1940). Since Dumbo does not speak at all in the movie, it was incredibly important that his thoughts and feelings were able to be read purely through his facial expressions. Tytla used his two-year-old son Peter as inspiration for this aspect of the character, giving Dumbo that innocent quality to him. In the 29^th December 1941 edition of Time magazine, there was an interview with Tytla about the fact he used his son as inspiration for the design of Dumbo, however, people seemed to take this fact literally, which led to Tytla’s wife, Adrienne, writing a letter to Time, which was published in their 2^nd February 1942 edition of the magazine. She said that she did not enjoy the jokes about how her son must resemble an elephant to have been the design inspiration for Dumbo, and included a picture of her son to prove he did not. After this, Peter received many fan letters, but it also got the attention of Walt Disney, who visited Adrienne to not-so-subtly, but kindly, inform her that she should ask permission the next time she wishes to discuss Disney matters with the press[1].

Dumbo has remained a popular character with Disney fans for decades now, but there is something a bit problematic about this. Although the main character is referred to as Dumbo for most of the movie, it’s his name on the title of the movie after all, and it’s the name we all know the character as, in actual fact his name is Jumbo Jr. If you think about it, aren’t we continuing the elephants bullying by calling him this? It’s been over eighty years now, so I guess that ship has sailed.

Similarly to Jiminy Cricket’s role in Pinocchio (1940), Timothy Q. Mouse is the confidante of Dumbo, and, since Dumbo does not talk, Timothy becomes his voice, standing up for him against the bullies. He takes Dumbo under his wing and plans to make him a big star, so that no-one will ever laugh at him again. Timothy Q. Mouse is the eternal optimist, determined to make the world a better and more understanding place. What a dream that would be… Disney’s Dumbo is based on an original story written by Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl. The biggest difference between the two stories is that there is no mouse named Timothy. Instead, Dumbo is helped to stardom by a little robin named Red[2]. Animator Fred Moore did much of the animation work on Timothy, managing to mix the comic and the more sympathetic scenes well. Moore had animated most of the character of Lampwick in Pinocchio (1940) before this.

Edward Brophy voiced the character of Timothy. Brophy worked with Buster Keaton on a few of his movies, like The Cameraman (1928), Doughboys (1930) and The Champ (1931). later appeared as the sidekick, Goldie Locke, in a couple of movies within The Falcon film series, which starred Tom Conway.

Although not hugely present in the movie, Mrs. Jumbo is a major supporting character for Dumbo. She is protective of him right from the outset, shielding him from the comments of the other elephants, and then beats up the horrible kids that start to make fun of Dumbo, which unfortunately means that she is taken away from her son and locked up…It’s a difficult series of events to watch, and you can feel how depressed both Mrs. Jumbo and Dumbo are at being separated from each other. It’s just good that they are reunited at the end of the movie.

Verna Felton voiced the characters of both Mrs. Jumbo, who only has the one line in the movie, when she names her son, and Elephant Matriarch, the leader of the other elephants who makes many of the nasty jokes and comments about Dumbo and his ears. Felton went on to voice characters for other Disney animated movies: wholesome, helpful ones, like The Fairy Godmother in Cinderella (1950) and Flora, one of the Good Fairies, in Sleeping Beauty (1959), as well as cruel, villainous ones, including the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp (1955).

Another voice actor who first appeared in Dumbo and later voiced other beloved Disney characters is Sterling Holloway, who voiced Mr. Stork. Holloway went on to voice the characters of Adult Flower in Bambi (1942), the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland (1951), Kaa in The Jungle Book (1967), and Roquefort in The Aristocats (1970). He was also the original voice of the lovable Winnie the Pooh.

Now for the last set of characters to mention. Let’s talk about the crows. The crows have come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years, due to some seeing the characters as perpetuating stereotypes of Black people. According to Disney, the crows were meant to accurately portray the “backchat” and “back and forth” between band leaders and their performers, which is frequently heard on band recordings of this era, including those of Louis Armstrong. It was never intended to be seen as stereotyping, with the only intention being to faithfully recreate the spirit of that type of music, as the crows’ main role in Dumbo is to perform the song “When I See An Elephant Fly”. They are also quite a sympathetic group of characters, who come to identify with Dumbo and help him to succeed.

Mainly because of the crows’ sequence, Dumbo on Disney+ begins with a warning message, highlighting the potential negative stereotypes within the movie. As time goes on, there will always be parts of “older” movies that do not age well. Providing we know the context of the time, I do not personally take issue with it, but I can see why others would. The only issue I have with this scene is that Cliff Edwards, a white performer and original voice of Jiminy Cricket, provided one of the crows’ voices, which doesn’t sit well in today’s world. The other crows were performed by Hall Johnson, who was a highly regarded African-American choral director, and members of his Hall Johnson Choir. Johnson didn’t seem to find anything racist in the work they were doing for Dumbo and was happy to continue his involvement in the movie[3]. Others, including Disney animator Floyd Norman and Whoopi Goldberg, have previously come out in defence of the crow characters.

The animation of the crows was completed by animator Ward Kimball, who had previously animated the character of Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio (1940). To help with capturing realistic movements, live-action recordings were taken of the Jackson Brothers, a vaudeville act, dancing and these were used as inspiration for some of the sequence[4].

MUSIC

The score for Dumbo was written by Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace. Churchill had worked on the soundtrack for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) and had also contributed to the music on many other Disney projects from the time he joined the Studios in 1930, such as the song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” for the Silly Symphony short Three Little Pigs (1933). After his work on Dumbo, Churchill composed music for Bambi (1942) and the song “Never Smile at a Crocodile”, which is a deleted song from Peter Pan (1953) and was co-written with Jack Lawrence. Churchill sadly passed away from suicide in May 1942, just three months before the release of Bambi.

Wallace joined the Disney Studios in the 1930s, composing the film scores for many of the Disney animated films, and some live-action ones, until his death in 1963. These included Cinderella (1950), Peter Pan (1953) and Lady and the Tramp (1955), as well as Dumbo. Churchill and Wallace won the Academy Award in 1942 for Best Original Score for their work on Dumbo. Some standout pieces from the score in my opinion are the “Main Titles”, which sounds just like the music you’d hear at a circus, and “The Dumbo’s Triumph”, which plays as Dumbo finally shows everyone just what he can do and gives those that bullied him their “just desserts”; it really is a triumphant ending to the movie.

Then there are the seven songs that make up the rest of the music on Dumbo. These were written by Churchill and Wallace, with lyrics from Ned Washington. Washington contributed the lyrics to songs in Pinocchio (1940), winning the Academy Award for Best Original Song along with Leigh Harline, and after Dumbo, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song again for “High Noon” from the 1952 film High Noon.

The first song is a bouncy little tune called “Look Out for Mr. Stork”, as all the circus animals, except Mrs. Jumbo, receive their babies from the storks. It’s not a big moment in the movie, so it’s not overly memorable but it’s not a bad song. Another similar song is “Casey Junior”, which plays as the circus train heads to its next stop, going through rain, storms, and hilly terrain to get there. These two songs were performed by The Sportsmen, who also performed one more song in Dumbo: “Pink Elephants on Parade”.

There are two remaining “small” songs in Dumbo to mention. The first is “Song of the Roustabouts”, which is another quite troublesome song, as it seems to feature Black railroad workers putting up the circus tent in an awful storm, with a couple of the lyrics seeming to reference that this is in fact slave labour… It is not clear what ethnicity the workers are, as the scene takes place in darkness and shadow, but it’s not a nice scene to watch anyway, as the animals are also being forced to put up this tent in the pelting rain and slippery rain. The song was performed by The King’s Men singing group. Finally, we have “The Clown Song”, which is just a few lines about how the clowns want a raise from their boss.

“Pink Elephants on Parade” is one of the bigger songs in Dumbo, and one of the most memorable, not even for its music, but for its abstract, bizarre animation. Within this scene, a drunk Dumbo hallucinates about all these strange elephants. They change shape and colour quickly and without warning. It’s quite disturbing, but this style of animation was ahead of its time in terms of colour, form, and surreal imagery, with surrealism being popular in the USA around the 1930s, when Dumbo was being made[5]. This is probably the stand-out part of Dumbo in terms of its artistic style, with the rest of the movie seeming less sharp and detailed in places, and backgrounds being simple watercolours. I don’t know how Dumbo wasn’t completely traumatised by having these images in his mind; I would’ve been!

“Baby Mine” is the most memorable song within Dumbo without a doubt. It’s the emotional tear-jerker moment of the movie, as we see Dumbo trying to spend some time with his mother after being separated from her. Since the cage Mrs. Jumbo is locked in is so high up, Dumbo can only interact with her trunk, and the moment when she rocks him is the sweetest part. It is incredibly sad to see Dumbo this upset and confused about why he can’t be with his mother. You wouldn’t believe it but actually in this scene Timothy Q. Mouse says “I hope she’s in” when they go to visit Mrs. Jumbo. He has no tact. Hello, she’s locked in a cage; of course she’s in! “Baby Mine” was sung by Betty Noyes, who ironically dubbed two of Debbie Reynolds’ numbers in Singin’ in the Rain (1952). “Baby Mine” went on to win the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 14^th Academy Awards in 1942. It has been covered by artists such as Michael Crawford, Bette Midler, for the movie soundtrack of Beaches (1988), and Sharon Rooney and Arcade Fire for the End Credits of the live-action Dumbo (2019).

The other most popular song in Dumbo is “When I See An Elephant Fly”, which is sung by the crows as they laugh about how an elephant couldn’t possibly fly. It has some very nice harmonies, and it is incredibly catchy, although the controversy surrounding the characters of the crows has somewhat tainted this song. It was performed by Cliff Edwards and The Hall Johnson Choir. A reprise of the song also comes at the end of the movie.

PRODUCTION

The original story of Dumbo was first written by Helen Aberson with illustrations by Harold Pearl in 1938. It was intended to be used for a novelty toy called a “Roll-A-Book”. These Roll-A-Books featured a few illustrations which appeared on a short scroll inside a box. By twisting a wheel on the box, it would reveal the next drawing, however, there are no known copies of this Dumbo Roll-A-Book, presumably because only a prototype was made before the rights were purchased by Walt Disney in 1939, having been brought to his attention by Kay Kamen in Disney merchandising who had seen the prototype. It was not unusual for Disney to purchase the rights to an unpublished story. The story was then passed over to Disney story men Joe Grant and Dick Huemer to adapt it for the screen. At some point around 1939, a 36-page book of the Dumbo story was published, with only a mention of Disney on the copyright page. It only sold just over 1,000 copies.

At the time of Disney’s development on Dumbo, Aberson and Pearl were a married couple, however, they later had a troublesome divorce, which led to Pearl attempting to claim that he was the sole creator of the Dumbo story years later. In actual fact, it is unclear exactly what Pearl contributed to Dumbo as it soon became clear that artist Helen Durney completed the original illustrations, not Pearl. It is possible Pearl had made rough sketches that had been enhanced by Durney. Pearl never wrote another children’s book, instead choosing to go into journalism; he died in 1975. Helen Aberson died in 1999 and did write more children’s books during her lifetime, though seemingly none of them were published. Aberson felt that proper credit for her contributions on Dumbo were not given by Disney[6].

With the rights to Dumbo in the hands of the Disney Studios, Joe Grant, one of Walt Disney’s most trusted story men, and Dick Huemer set to work on adapting the story for their next animated movie in early 1940. Grant had been brought to the Disney Studios in 1933 to work on the short Mickey’s Gala Premier (1933) and later worked on Fantasia (1940) along with Dick Huemer, who had worked on the Silly Symphonies prior to that. They made some early changes to the original short story, such as deciding to make Dumbo’s sidekick a mouse instead of a robin since elephants are meant to be scared of mice. Supposedly, the two wrote their story treatment and gave Walt just one chapter of the story at a time to keep him interested and wanting more.

Also around this time, the Disney Studios’ operations were moving into their newly built studios in Burbank, which had been built using the extraordinary profits from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). This makes Dumbo the first Disney animated feature film to have been solely produced at the Burbank Studios.

After a month of development, Walt looked at progress on the story and knew it would work. It was a simple story, and one that could be developed easily and for less money. With World War II raging on in Europe, cutting off around three-quarters of Disney’s overseas income, Walt Disney knew they needed a lower budget movie to hopefully bring them financial success after the box-office disappointments of Pinocchio (1940) and Fantasia (1940). By Autumn 1940, the movie had begun animation, and it was fully completed by the time of the infamous Animators’ Strike in May 1941, whereby the Studios lost many major animating staff including Bill Tytla and Art Babbitt. The strike was later settled in September 1941, but the controversy surrounding it had damaged Walt Disney’s reputation somewhat.

Luckily, Dumbo was not an expensive movie to make. It benefitted from having simple backgrounds, bright colours, a short, easy-to-adapt story, and less detailed animation. Disney’s next animated release, Bambi (1942), would be the complete opposite of Dumbo, with the animators focused on realistically recreating nature in the artwork. Many of the animators who had worked on the original Silly Symphony series of shorts, those who were more “cartoony”, therefore ended up on Dumbo. This turned out to be most of the “Old Guard”, like Art Babbitt and Bill Tytla, with many of those who would become known as the “Nine Old Men” working on Bambi, except for Ward Kimball, whose artistic style was better suited to Dumbo[7]. The animators spent time studying real elephants though, to understand how the animals move. There was also some research on circus attractions of the time, with traditional graphic posters being seen frequently within the movie, as well as during its opening titles. Mrs. Jumbo, Dumbo’s mother’s name, although originally Ella in Aberson’s story, is a reference to the famous Barnum and Bailey African elephant who was the largest elephant in captivity and became an international star. Disney were also inspired by the Ringling Bros. circus attractions, with John Ringling’s Greatest Show on Earth being based in Sarasota, Florida in the winter, as Dumbo’s circus also is[8].

In terms of the story, unlike many other Disney animated films that have numerous deleted sequences, Dumbo had very few story changes during its eighteen-month production. However, one of these was later discovered in Disney’s Animation Research Library. It was a small sequence where Timothy explains to Dumbo why elephants are scared of mice: because back in prehistoric times, mice were huge and used to torment the elephants constantly. Despite elephants now being bigger than mice, their trauma has stayed with them since an elephant never forgets[9].

RECEPTION

With Dumbo’s final budget being less than $1 million, Dumbo stood to make big financial gains at the box-office, although it took some convincing for Disney’s Dumbo to be released just as it was. RKO, the distributor of Disney’s movies at the time, complained about the length of the movie, since Dumbo was only just over 60 minutes long. Walt refused to lengthen the story to satisfy their demands, not wanting to pad out the story with unnecessary plot points, so RKO had to distribute the movie as it was[10].

Luckily, the audience didn’t seem to mind that, and Dumbo did in fact do well at the box-office when it was released on 31^st October 1941. Considering much of the world was in the midst of war, it seemed to be the perfect way to escape from the horrors of realities for a while. Dumbo made around half a million dollars in profit, which helped to ease some of the Disney Studios’ financial difficulties.

The story of Dumbo was praised for its moral message, about not judging by appearances and not letting your circumstances determine your life choices. It was also found to be endearing and compassionate, with bright colours, humour, good music, and memorable characters. This type of movie was more what the people had come to expect and love from Disney, unlike Fantasia (1940).

Sadly, the celebrations didn’t last long. After the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7^th December 1941, the US were compelled to join World War II. The US Army moved into the Disney Studios lot, and asked Disney to contribute to the war effort by making propaganda films. Some of the staff obviously enlisted in the army as well.

Time magazine had planned on putting Dumbo on the cover of one of their December 1941 editions, after the successful theatrical release of the film in October. A black-and-white portrait of Dumbo had been drawn, ready for Dumbo to be the first non-human cover model for the magazine, which would have proclaimed him “Mammal of the Year”. This magazine was scheduled for 29^th December 1941. However, after joining the war, it was seen that having Dumbo on the cover of Time would not be fitting for the new world that the US had just found themselves in. Instead, on 29^th December 1941, a portrait of General Douglas MacArthur appeared on the cover, although a story was still printed in the magazine about the development of Dumbo[11].

LEGACY

Dumbo was later re-released into theatres in 1949, 1959, and again in the 1970s. In 1955, Dumbo was also aired as part of the Disneyland television series, albeit in an edited form. It has been shown on television in full as well.

A television series that used the movie Dumbo as a basis was the Disney Channel series Dumbo’s Circus. It was not an animated series, but used human-sized puppet suits of Dumbo and other circus animals, including a lion, a koala, and a dog. Dumbo could now speak and had started his own circus with these other talented animals. The show aired from 1985 to 1986. Dumbo as a character has also made cameo appearances in the movies The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988).

Because the animated version of Dumbo will remain a beloved addition to the Disney animated classics for many more decades to come, as well as being remembered as the most financially successful Disney animated movie of the 1940s and potentially the most emotionally touching movie to come out of the Disney Studios, that made Dumbo the perfect candidate to get the live-action remake treatment.

Tim Burton directed the 2019 live-action remake of Dumbo, starring a CG elephant as the title character of Dumbo, who appeared alongside human actors such as Michael Keaton and Colin Farrell in new roles, and Danny DeVito as the Ringmaster. There are no talking animals here whatsoever, and the plot features a strong message around the poor treatment of animals in the circus. It also involves more historical context to the location and setting of the movie, unlike the animated Dumbo. New music was written for the movie, although “Baby Mine” did still feature in the 2019 remake. Dumbo (2019) was not a successful movie, critically or financially.

Outside of this, there was going to be a Dumbo II, which probably would have been a direct-to-video sequel. A sneak peek of this movie featured on the 2001 DVD release of Dumbo; however, the movie was ultimately cancelled in 2006. After Disney’s acquisition of Pixar, John Lasseter became the Chief Creative Officer of both Pixar and Disney Animation, and at this point he cancelled many sequels to Disney animated movies. The direct-to-video sequels have never had a good reputation, for story or animation quality. But this bonus feature on the 2001 DVD clearly shows that Dumbo II was in development, with animators informing the viewer that the sequel was to be set soon after the original movie, with the plot following the circus animal children, including Dumbo, becoming separated from their circus home and ending up lost in New York City. Timothy Q. Mouse was set to return, along with a number of new animal characters.

At the Disney Parks, Dumbo the Flying Elephant is a very famous and beloved Disney attraction, with a version still operating at all six of the Disney Resorts. It features elephants attached to mechanical arms that spin around a hub section, whilst guests control the height of their vehicle. The original version obviously appeared at Disneyland. It was supposed to be an opening day attraction, however, the ride had many mechanical issues meaning that it could not open on 17^th July 1955. It opened almost a month later on 16^th August 1955. The original ride featured ten elephants, all with hinged ears that were supposed to move but they never worked properly. In 1983, the attraction was moved from its initial location to become part of New Fantasyland. Unfortunately, two mechanical issues with the ride caused two separate guest injury incidents in 1989 and 1990 which led to Disney wanting a new updated version of the ride. Luckily, one had already been built for Euro Disneyland, but since the opening of that park was still two years away, this ride was instead taken to Disneyland and installed there. This update increased capacity by adding six more elephants. Fun fact: President Harry S. Truman reportedly refused to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant in 1957 due to the elephant being a symbol of the Republican Party[12].

Apparently, the original concept for Dumbo the Flying Elephant was for the ten flying elephants to be ten pink elephants, as per the movie, however, it was decided that perhaps using Dumbo’s drunken hallucination as the basis for a children’s ride wasn’t the best idea! The ride later opened at Walt Disney World Resort for its opening day on 1^st October 1971, though the elephants had no hats, and Timothy Q. Mouse standing on his disco ball was not there either; these features were added two years later. In 1993, Walt Disney World’s Dumbo the Flying Elephant increased capacity from ten to sixteen vehicles. It was then moved in 2012 to the new area called Storybook Circus, as part of the New Fantasyland expansion, taking the over the area once known as Mickey’s Toontown Fair. Timothy now sits above the entrance to the ride[13]. Storybook Circus is meant to resemble a travelling circus, with the pavement complete with animal footprints and even some faux peanut shells stamped into it to really give that circus feel. As well as the Dumbo attraction, where a second identical attraction was added, along with an indoor play area in the queue, this area has the Casey Jr. Splash ‘N’ Soak Station; a new interactive experience called Smellephants on Parade, which consists of a short trail of elephant statues with different scents on them; the Barnstormer coaster; and Pete’s Silly Sideshow character meet-and-greet location.

The concept for Storybook Circus was originally proposed as part of an expansion to Disneyland’s Fantasyland in 1976. The proposal involved show buildings decorated with striped circus tent awnings, and bunting and posters everywhere. There would have been a clown-themed restaurant, a small merry-go-round called Circus Parade, using circus animals instead of the classic horses, as well as Dumbo the Flying Elephant and Casey Jr. Circus Train being relocated there. Other attractions such as Mickey’s Mad House, a Wild Mouse coaster, and an Audio-Animatronics show on a moving track called Circus Disney, did not appear. Finances for the land had been diverted to other Disney Park locations, such as Epcot and Tokyo Disneyland, which both opened in the early 1980s[14].

At Disneyland Paris, they have also had Dumbo the Flying Elephant since their park opening on 12^th April 1992, which had sixteen elephant Dumbos from the start. There is a Casey Jr. Circus Train here, based on the one in Dumbo, called Casey Jr. – le Petit Train du Cirque, giving guests a view of what can be seen on Le Pays des Contes de Fées, their version of the Storybook Land Canal Boats. Disneyland also has the Casey Jr. Circus Train, which takes guests on a tour of the fairy-tale sights that feature on their Storybook Land Canal Boats. You can also find Dumbo the Flying Elephant at Shanghai Disneyland, again with sixteen elephants and as an opening day attraction, although this is the only version of the attraction not to be found in Fantasyland; it is actually situated at Gardens of Imagination. There is also the circus-themed snack bar Timothy’s Treats here.

At Hong Kong Disneyland, another sixteen-vehicle Dumbo the Flying Elephant has been found here since opening day on 12^th September 2005. Tokyo Disneyland has also had Dumbo the Flying Elephant since its opening day on 15^th April 1983, but this version is different to all the rest – and that is because it is the version of Dumbo that existed in 1983. It only has ten Dumbos and still features Timothy Q. Mouse spinning on his disco ball.

In terms of meet-and-greets, Dumbo has surprisingly been seen in recent years, though only at Disneyland as part of their Disneyland After Dark: Throwback Nite in April 2023. Dumbo had been a meet-and-greet character many years before, but is now an incredibly rare character to see. Dumbo is still a frequent character used within Disney merchandise lines, and songs or characters from the movie can be seen in some parades and nighttime shows such as the Festival of Fantasy Parade at Walt Disney World

Dumbo also made appearances in experiences that now no longer exist. During Magical: Disney’s New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations which ran at Disneyland from 2009 to 2014, Dumbo could even be seen flying over Sleeping Beauty Castle as the song “Baby Mine” played. There was also a series of floats in the Main Street Electrical Parade for Dumbo, with Dumbo even riding on one, and Dumbo began the Flights of Fantasy Parade at Hong Kong Disneyland. Dumbo and Timothy Q. Mouse were also seen playing the tuba as part of the Disney character orchestra during the Mickey Mouse Revue, which ran at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom from 1971 to 1980, before moving to Tokyo Disneyland, where the show ran from 1983 to 2009.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Dumbo’s constant presence in the Disney Parks in the form of Dumbo the Flying Elephant in particular has given countless children and adults memorable experiences of what it feels like to actually fly, remaining a very popular attraction all over the world.

Thanks to a touching message about accepting others for how they are and believing in the “underdog”, Dumbo has remained popular ever since its release dates, despite Dumbo being quite a sad film. It highlights the importance of family, and most importantly that unbreakable bond between parent and child.

Dumbo has become a quintessentially Disney story, one that helped families at a time of great distress and uncertainty in the 1940s, as well as continuing to be watched by families over the decades simply for its comforting nature.

REFERENCES

[1] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 10: Final Edition (2021), ‘Dumbo’s Mothers’, pp. 234-241.

[2] Credit: Wade Sampson, ‘The Original Story of Dumbo’, JimHillMedia.com, 27^th December 2004.

[3] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Debunking Meryl Streep, Part Two’, MousePlanet.com, 26^th February 2014.

[4] Credit: Disney, Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo (2010).

[5] Credit: Jim Fanning, The Disney Book: A Celebration of the World of Disney (2016), ‘Little Elephant, Big Heart’, pp. 48-49.

[6] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 10: Final Edition (2021), ‘Dumbo’s Mothers’, pp. 234-241.

[7] Credit: Disney, Taking Flight: The Making of Dumbo (2010).

[8] Credit: Jim Korkis, Everything I Know I Learned from Disney Animated Feature Films (2015), ‘Dumbo (1941), pp. 10-12.

[9] Credit: Disney, “Deleted Scenes”, from Dumbo (1941) 70^th Anniversary DVD (2011).

[10] Credit: Jim Korkis, The Vault of Walt Vol. 10: Final Edition (2021), ‘Dumbo’s Mothers’, pp. 234-241.

[11] Credit: Andrew R. Chow, ‘How Dumbo Almost Ended Up on the Cover of TIME’, TIME (online), 29^th March 2019.

[12] Credit: Werner Weiss, ‘The Original Dumbo Flying Elephants’, Yesterland.com, 17^th December 2021.

[13] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Dumbo at the Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.

[14] Credit: Jim Korkis, ‘Dumbo’s Circusland at Magic Kingdom’, YourFirstVisit.net, date unknown.