Walt Disney Feature Animation

With the help of the local second hand stores and other stores, I was able to complete the remainder (or at least most) of my Disney Feature Animation collection.

That includes *breathe, we’re going to do this now* Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), Pinocchio (1940), Fantasia (1940), Dumbo (1941), Bambi (1942), Saludos Amigos (1942), The Three Caballeros (1944), Make Mine Music (1946), Fun and Fancy Free (1947), Melody Time (1948), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Sleeping Beauty (1959), 101 Dalmatians (1961), The Sword in the Stone (1963), The Jungle Book (1967), The Aristocats (1970), Robin Hood (1973), The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, and I will resist mentioning Dad's joke about Winnie the Pooh), The Rescuers (1977), The Fox and the Hound (1981), The Black Cauldron (1985), The Great Mouse Detective (1986), Oliver & Company (1988), The Little Mermaid (1989), The Rescuers Down Under (1990), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), Tarzan (1999), Fantasia 2000 (1999), Dinosaur (2000, sometimes removed from the lineup), The Emperor's New Groove (2000), Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Lilo & Stitch (2002), Treasure Planet (2002), Brother Bear (2003), Home on the Range (2004), Chicken Little (2005), The Wild (2006, sometimes included in the lineup and I don’t have this one), Meet the Robinsons (2007, not the Robinsons from "Neighbours"), Bolt (2008), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Tangled (2010), Winnie the Pooh (2011), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Frozen (2013), Big Hero 6 (2014), Zootopia (2016), Moana (2016), Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018), Frozen 2 (2019), Raya and the Last Dragon (2021), Encanto (2021), Strange World (2022) and Wish (2023, which I do hope I get to see.)

This year, as you probably know, is 100 years of Walt Disney animation, and was celebrated with the latest movie "Wish" (2023). We also just had Walt Disney's birthday born on 5 December 1901.

The very first Disney movie I can remember seeing was 1991's "Beauty and the Beast" which is still one of the greatest films I've ever watched. The animation, characters, narrative, atmosphere, music, everything about this to me is stunning, and I can totally see why it got the nomination for Best Picture that year. And it was a mighty year for movie-making too, with films like "The Silence of the Lambs", "Cape Fear", "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and more.

If I had to pick a personal favourite, it would probably be 1940's "Pinocchio". Disney had had a stunning debut with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" but they followed it up with an even more ambitious and technologically advanced movie three years later, not to mention in the same year as "Fantasia". Again, the animation, characters, narrative, atmosphere, music, you know the drill, everything about this, is stunning. The scene where Lampwick transforms into a donkey is almost like something out of a Hitchcock film. Imagine if Bernard Herrmann had scored that part.

Someone asked me the other day if there was a Disney animated movie that I *didn't* like, and probably "Home on the Range" and "Chicken Little" would come the closest. "Home on the Range" was good enough in its own right, but this is the studio that had just brought us their comedy masterpiece "The Emperor's New Groove" at the very least. I agree with others about "Chicken Little" with the way the other characters treat him, but I don't dislike it.

What about "The Black Cauldron"? I like that too. I even managed to find a copy of the soundtrack on CD. We must have searched every video store in the vicinity back in 1998 for a copy of this, but nothing. Disney had never even released it on home media. Fortunately, they decided to that year. I would love to see the deleted footage someday.

And what is my favourite song from Disney? It's too hard to say, but every now and then I'll hear "Reflection" from the "Mulan" soundtrack and just feel like this is one of the greatest melodies for a song I have ever heard. Of course, there are many more, and "Beauty and the Beast" in the ballroom is magnificent. Alan Menken wrote, to me, his most ambitious score with 1996's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame". I've had no luck getting a copy of the American stage version, unfortunately.

Apparently they're working on a version of the fairy tale "Blue Beard". Now what on earth will that be like?

By the way, I heard recently that DVD would be phased out by Disney in Australia. That means I've collected every movie in this format, only to stumble now with "Wish". If this is really true, *that* is supremely frustrating, but if they're not selling... *sigh*.

Thank you for reading,

Ryan.