DisneyToon Studios

While I may have covered the Disney canon, I haven’t talked about other movies that Disney has released outside of the canon that they’ve produced. Generally these are all released under DisneyToon Studios or Disney MovieToons. This division was started in 1988 as a way for Disney to make straight-to-video movies and movies that aren’t part of the Disney canon. Many times the theatrically released movies are based on Disney TV shows. Their first attempt was Ducktales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. Animation took place in Disney’s Paris studio, and Larry Ruppel ended up being the only American animator to work on the film. Ruppel had worked on Disney shorts and movies before Ducktales, but many of the European animators were working on an animated movie for the first time. Quite a few of them went on to work at big animation studios like Dreamworks, and Industrial Light & Magic. The film came out shortly before the end of the TV series, though didn’t act as a series finale. While the movie did make its budget back, it wasn’t as big of a success that Disney thought it would be, so they shelved the several other Ducktales movies they had in the pipeline. Critical reception was great, however, and it remains a much appreciated addition to the Ducktales universe.

Their second theatrically released movie would be 1995’s A Goofy Movie. The movie is partially based on the Goof Troop TV series, but makes a few changes. Max and P.J. are high school aged instead of middle school, Pete’s wife and daughter are missing as are both of the family’s pets. Disney sought to make Goofy a more three dimensional character, giving him emotions and having him deal with strife, as opposed to just having him create antics. While the movie didn’t get great reviews, it’s one of those that any kid from the 90’s will fondly remember and will defend until their dying breath. This is definitely one of my favorite non-canon Disney movies. The movie was also a minor hit for Disney, grossing $35.3 million.

DisneyToons has made three Winnie the Pooh movies, though two out of the three don’t even mention his name. The Tigger Movie was the first of the trio, being released in early 2000. Meant to be a direct-to-video release, Michael Eisner, upon hearing the Sherman Brother’s score for the film, decided to release it theatrically. Paul Winchell, the original voice of Tigger, was meant to voice the character for the film, but when he came in to record, the producers found his voice too raspy. He was replaced by Jim Cummings, who was already doing Winnie the Pooh’s voice for the film. Cummings had voiced Tigger previously in the final two seasons of The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Disney Imagineers were devastated when they heard what the producers had done to Winchell, so they had him voice Tigger for the Winnie the Pooh ride at Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Critics liked the movie just fine, and it made $96.2 million against a $15-30 million budget. It is currently the most successful of the Winnie the Pooh movies. Coming out three years later, Piglet’s Big Movie had a bigger budget than The Tigger Movie, but didn’t quite earn the same. Grossing $62.9 million against a $46 million budget, this wasn’t a hit for Disney. Reviews were about the same for this one as they were for The Tigger Movie. Two years later, Disney made their latest in the DisneyToon Winnie the Pooh movies (2011’s Winnie the Pooh is part of the Disney canon), Pooh’s Heffalump Movie. Disney learned their lesson, only spending $20 million to make this movie. Grossing $52.9 million, Disney made a little bit of money on this one. Critical reception for this was the best of the three, but not quite the caliber of 2011’s Winnie the Pooh.

The first Peter Pan movie theatrically released by DisneyToon was actually the sequel to the 1953 classic. Based on J.M. Barrie’s novel, Peter and Wendy, the film had been in development for years at Disney Animation Canada. That division was closed and the movie was shifted to Disney Animation Japan and Australia, then becoming a theatrical film instead of a straight-to-video. While critics were not impressed with the movie, it made Disney some money, grossing $109.9 million against a $20 million budget. It seems the movies that are originally meant to be straight-to-video have a much lower budget. Disney realized that no one really cared about most of the characters except for Tinkerbell, so they spun the character off for her own movies. Starting in 2008, Tinker Bell started with some straight-to-video movies, but by 2012 Disney pushed the button on making theatrical movies for this popular franchise, Disney Fairies. The three Disney Fairies movies were all released in a limited amount of theaters, which seems weird since the characters are marketed so well. All three, Secret of the Wings, The Pirate Fairy, and Legend of the NeverBeast, all made around $65 million and were moderate successes for Disney, but it seems with the limited release that these were meant to be just straight-to-video.

Disney’s other DisneyToon sequel to come out theatrically was 2003’s The Jungle Book 2. Why release Return to Neverland and Jungle Book 2 in theaters and not all the recent movie’s sequels? I have no idea. I’m sure there was a method to Michael Eisner’s madness. For whatever reason, they released Jungle Book 2 theatrically, and it didn’t do too bad commercially, grossing $135 million against a $20 million budget. Like most of the Disney sequels made by DisneyToon, however, it was trashed by critics. I’ll admit that the only Disney sequels outside of the canon that I have seen are the Lion King and Aladdin sequels.

Disney/Pixar knew with Cars that they had a winning franchise. That’s why they decided to start the second set of Pixar sequels with Cars 2. While Cars 2 was a burning dumpster fire, Disney/Pixar made a lot of money off of it, so they decided the next best thing to another Cars movie, as a movie in the same universe based around planes. The two Planes movies, Planes and Planes: Fire & Rescue were not made with Pixar, but were co-written and executive produced by Pixar boss, John Lasseter. Lasseter also directed both Cars movies. Like most of the theatrically released DisneyToon movies, they initially wanted to release it straight to video, but decided they could make a lot more money this way. Both Planes films did not do well critically, with Fire & Rescue performing a little better. Disney was smart to release both theatrically, as the first grossed $239 million against a $50 million budget and the second grossed $151 million against a $50 million budget. Disney also sold a whole bunch of merch. I like John Lasseter a lot, but I can’t tell if he genuinely likes making these movies, or if he just knows that Disney/Pixar will make tons off of them.

DisneyToon continues to crank out movies, though they have slowed down as of late. There is a planned second sequel to Planes and I can’t imagine that they are done with Disney Fairies. Since 2008, the studio has ceased making anything besides Tinkerbell and Planes movies, so we’ll see if they go back to making sequels to all their movies or not. It’s going to thin out in that department, I believe, since Disney is actively allowing their main studio to make sequels, like Wreck-It-Ralph, or Frozen. It pains me to see all these sequels, but they apparently make money, so that’s where Disney is at right now. *As of June 29th, 2018, DisneyToon Studios has been closed down. The studio was under close supervision by John Lasseter, who has recently left the company after allegations against him came to light. It remains to be seen if the approximately 75 artists will be shifted over to the other two animation studios. A Planes movie was in development for 2019 but has been cancelled with the dissolving of the studio. It's not too hard to see why this happened with output decreasing so much over the years, but I'm sure they'll come up with another studio to make all of Disney's lesser properties.

Top 10 Best Disney Songs (1937-1988)

This was a hard list to make, so I decided to take all the weight off myself and ask others their opinions on top of mine. That being said, these choices are not the same as my own Top 10. There are a few rules to this list. First off, all songs are from the Disney canon. Secondly, they are all songs written for their respective movies, not a song like "Night on Bald Mountain." I decided to split up my lists, since there are far too many to just squeeze them down to ten. Enjoy!

10. "Bella Notte" (Lady and the Tramp)

Bella Notte translates to "Beautiful Night" in Italian, in case you were wondering, which makes sense since Tony sings it in the first line. This song is probably one of the most iconic love songs in Disney, and probably everywhere. It's a beautiful song, and an even more beautiful scene. Who can forget the famous the Spaghetti Kiss? The scene is so famous that it's been parodied numerous times over the years. It's a short song, which they remedy by singing it twice, once by Tony, and another by a chorus. Whether you like this movie or not, you have to admit that this song is pretty moving.

9. "Winnie the Pooh" (The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh)

This song is a childhood favorite of many and it's easy to see why. It's very catchy and just a lot of fun. Also, who doesn't love Winnie the Pooh? For me, this right up there with another certain Winnie the Pooh song. This song serves as the opening to both The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and its sequel Winnie the Pooh. We're going to go with the original song as the better one just because it's a classic. The newer version was sung by Zooey Deschanel. I always like the opening because of the Winnie the Pooh character stuffed animals and the zoom in on the book, which contains the map of the 100 Acre Wood, complete with misspellings and backward letters.

8. "I Wanna Be Like You" (The Jungle Book)

This is probably one of the swinging-est, jazzy songs Disney has ever produced, and it is awesome. This is one of my personal favorite Disney songs, and it's easy to see why. This song just makes you want to dance, and sing-a-long. King Louie is a great character and this song just makes him cooler. The Sherman Brothers penned this song, while Louis Prima provided the vocals. The Sherman Brothers based it off of Prima and his band, who were huge hits in Las Vegas with their Dixie-Land style Jazz music. It was a winning combination, as this song, along with the rest of The Jungle Book soundtrack is considered one of the better all around musicals of pre-Renaissance Disney.

7. "You Can Fly" (Peter Pan)

This is probably the most well known song in Peter Pan, and it's a good one. No other song has made anyone want to fly more than this one. Every child has tried it at least once: they've stood on the edge of their bed, thought of a happy thought and jumped, hoping to fly off instead of awkwardly hitting the floor. This is another trademark of Disney music, popping up in ads and Disney theme parks. It's not my favorite Peter Pan song (that goes to "Never Smile at a Crocodile"), but it's a million times better than the embarrassingly racist, "What Makes the Red man Red?"

6. "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" (Cinderella)

No other phrase is more synonymous with magic, save for abrakadabra or alakazam, than bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. This song, if you haven't noticed, is almost completely gibberish, and it's still good. The song ended up being a hit in its own right, later being performed by Perry Como and the Fontane Sisters. Cinderella has plenty of good songs, but I think this one made it on the list because it's probably the most fun. The scene is great too, with everyone getting turned into different things. This is one of those songs that makes people wish that they had that backup, a fairy godmother if you will, when things go terribly wrong.


5. "He's a Tramp" (Lady and the Tramp)

As you can see, I'm letting a few repeats on the list. This is definitely the coolest song in Lady and the Tramp, with it's bluesy feel and the outstanding vocals by Peggy Lee. Lee also did many of the other songs in this movie, but this is the highlight. "He's a Tramp" was actually a very late addition into this movie, being submitted by Peggy Lee and Sonny Burke. Disney liked it so much that they fit it into the movie by putting it during the pound scene. I always liked this song, mostly because it gave me a reason for singing in dog howls, but I hated the immediate scene after it. Lady finds out that Tramp has had quite a time with the ladies before her and decides to shun him. Still, it's a great song, and I can see how it made the list.

4. "Bare Necessities" (The Jungle Book)

As I said before, The Jungle Book is full of great tunes, and this is probably the best known one from it. Sung by Phil Harris and written by Terry Gilkyson, this song is the only hold-over from an earlier draft of The Jungle Book. Gilkysons songs were considered too moody for the picture, so Disney got the Sherman Brothers to take over. The crew begged Disney to let them keep it, and boy are we glad they did. This song is a ton of fun and has Disney written all over it. I've always considered this to be the pre-cursor to Hakuna-Matata. The song revolves around Baloo trying to convince Mowgli that any thing you need will come right to you, so don't bother worrying about anything. That is sound advice! Baloo is one of my all time favorite Disney characters, and he basically makes an appearance in another movie (Robin Hood) and a TV show (Talespin). He's the prototypical fun uncle, and this is his lazy anthem.

3. "Cruella De Vil" (One Hundred and One Dalmatians)

"Cruella De Vil" is the most iconic villain song Disney has. The biggest difference between this villain song and the others is that this one is sung not by a villain or their henchman, but a protagonist. Songwriter Roger Radcliffe (Bill Lee) pens the song on the spot after meeting his wife's boss, Cruella De Vil. The song is equal parts funny and terrifying, depending on what age you are. The song is also the only main song in this whole movie, save for an outro and a TV commercial, even though one of the characters writes songs for a living. Luckily the song is so great that it makes up for the lack of other musical interludes.

2. "Once Upon a Dream" (Sleeping Beauty)

There had to be a song from Sleeping Beauty. They're all good, but this whimsy song takes the proverbial cake. It has a great duet, a chorus, and woodland creatures pretending to be a person. Disney decided to make a nod to Snow White's "I'm Wishing/One Song" by having a Prince unexpectedly becoming part of the song. This song also sticks out because they use it in the opening credits. The songs in this movie are about the only bright and happy things, as this is one of the darker Disney films, so it's nice that the songs aren't crazy depressing. That being said, with the new Maleficent movie coming out, "Once Upon a Dream" has been redone, albeit in a darker, moodier way.

1. "When You Wish Upon a Star" (Pinocchio)

I'm sure a lot of you saw this coming. This song is heard almost anytime you see a Disney commercial, it's logo, or watch one of its movies. It's probably the most beautiful and hopeful song Disney, or anybody has ever made. It, like Mickey Mouse, has become an icon of the Disney company and is instantly recognizable. This song best represents the true essence of Walt Disney, a dreamer if there ever was one. This was far and away our top choice for best song before the Disney Renaissance. Is this the greatest song Disney has ever made? According to AFI it is, but what do you think? Is this better than the rest of the Disney song library?

Disney's Winnie the Pooh

Disney went from spending over $250 million on Tangled and taking a huge risk, to spending $30 million on a movie they've basically made before based on a tried and true character. Disney's gamble may have paid off for Tangled, but it's obvious that they decided to go for a safe and cheap bet for their next film, Winnie the Pooh. Yes, one of the few sequels in the Disney canon and also one of the few package films. I say package film because it is a collection of stories instead of one linear tale. Production began on Winnie the Pooh way back in 2009 with John Lasseter announcing that they wanted to make a movie that would "transcend generations." Honestly, unless they made a movie with Mickey and the gang in it, Winnie the Pooh is probably the only character that they could use to technically do that. Winnie the Pooh has been around since the late twenties and Disney started making movies about the honey obsessed bear in 1966. Winnie the Pooh has also had TV shows on during the 80's like Welcome to Pooh Corner, and The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. I personally grew up watching the latter. They've even had Winnie the Pooh movies and TV shows in the 2000's. For being such an old character, Pooh bear is heavily ingrained in our culture. He may not be as popular as some other cartoon characters, Disney or not, but you can't go to a kid's store without seeing some sort of Winnie the Pooh merchandise. There's just something about that bear.   My point is that Lasseter knew what he was talking about when he wanted a movie that could transcend generations. Every generation that is alive has had a connection with this bear. This movie could easily be seen by anyone, no matter what age they are, which is what makes this movie such a safe bet.

My sister already went through the history of Winnie the Pooh in her post about The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, so I won't go into that again. So, unfortunately there is not much to say about this movie. It consists of the stories, "In Which Eeyore loses a tail, and Pooh finds one,""In which Piglet meets a Heffalump," and "In which Rabbit has a busy day and we learn what Christopher Robin does in the mornings." Hmmmm...don't know about that last one. All the stories are taken from A.A. Milne's books, so don't think these are some new-fangled stories Disney pulled out of nowhere. What's also nice is that they brought Burny Mattinson on board, a veteran Disney animator who played a big role in the 1974 film, Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too.

OK, I'm going to tackle the voices now, and it's going to be a little more in depth than usual. Winnie the Pooh's characters have gone through many voice actors throughout the years, but there aren't even that many left from The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, which disappoints me. Jim Cummings has been the voice of Winnie the Pooh and Tigger since 1988, though he shared voicing Tigger with Paul Winchell until 1999. These are the only characters that are voiced by the same person as the TV series I grew up with. Piglet is voiced by Travis Oates. Oates took over for John Fiedler when he died in 2005. Fiedler had done all of Piglet's voice work before that point. That makes me very sad. Oates doesn't do a bad job, he actually sounds a lot like Fielder. Tom Kenny, AKA the voice of Spongebob Squarepants voices Rabbit. The last voice of Rabbit, Ken Samson isn't dead or anything, Disney just decided not to have him do the voice. Which is terrible. I'm sorry, I love Tom Kenny and all, he's an excellent voice talent, but he isn't rabbit. Rabbit is far too goofy in this movie. Rabbit is supposed to be uptight and the "straight man" in the comic duo that he and Pooh encompass. Kenny gets his voice somewhat close to Samson's, but not enough for me, or anyone from my generation to know that it's someone completely different.

Along the same vein is Craig Ferguson as the voice of Owl. Andre Stojka has been Owl's voice since the eighties, but apparently Disney wanted someone fresher. Ferguson, like Oates, actually pulls off the voice very well, so it's not as noticeable that it's a different voice actor. Bud Luckey, who has mostly done voices for Pixar films, voices Eeyore, another substitute for a voice actor from the eighties series. Am I missing something? Was there some dispute between all the original cast members and Disney? Kanga and Christopher Robin have been voiced by a ton of people throughout the past three decades, so I don't care as much about the changes. Plus, Christopher Robin's voice sort of has to keep getting new voice actors. And nobody cares about Roo, so there. Acting as narrator to the stories is none other than John Cleese. This is awesome, and I don't need to say anything more about it. I'm sorry if it seems like I was a little nitpicky with the voice actor thing, but I loved The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh as a child, and to see most of the cast still around but not asked to voice their characters seems like blasphemy to me personally. I know it's stupid, but I like voice actors to stay the same if possible. I stopped watching Dexter's Lab because they changed the voice actor for Dexter. Couldn't stand it. Anyway, that's my rant, and I'm sticking to it. Hey...wait a minute...where the heck is Gopher!?

Winnie the Pooh opened on July 15th 2011 and went on to gross a total of $33 million, only a little more than they spent to make the movie. It probably would have done better had it not been competing with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II. Oh well. I'm sure Disney didn't expect it to be a blockbuster hit. I'm sure they were happy it at least made them a little money. How did they make the movie so cheap in the first place? The fact that it's only an hour long helps. It was originally going to have five stories, but it was shortened to three. The length, incidentally, was about the only thing critics had a problem with. Critics praised the animation, the voicing, and the script. Critics also pointed out the ability for children and adults to enjoy the movie, which is a rare feat nowadays. I'm telling you, the generation gap is getting further and further apart. Critics likened it to a love letter to the old days of Disney animation and storytelling, and I have to agree with them. It's hand-drawn, animated by a veteran of past Winnie the Pooh films, and involves original stories from A.A. Milne. It's the complete antithesis to the current way of doing things. No original materials, all CGI, and all gimmicks like 3D. All this movie is is good storytelling, great characters, and great animation. And if that's not old fashioned Disney, then I don't know what is.

Well, that wraps up our look at the Disney Animated Canon. It took us a little bit longer than we thought, but we finally made it. Don't worry, we'll revisit Disney plenty of times and make a new post about new canon movies. Otherwise, it's on to other topics in the world of cinema. If there is something you want my sister or I to write about, drop us a comment or e-mail us. Thanks for reading!