The Disney Studio didn’t just self-cannibalize its live action films across the years. The animated classics were often redone, extended, rethought, and revamped.
Mssrs Stokowski and Levine
Walt’s grand theatrical experience “Fantasia” (1940) was conceived as a work-in-progress, meaning that as a concert feature, it would be reissued periodically with new segments inserted and others retired. But, as we all know, that never happened, and the eight pieces presented by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra (Bach, Tchaikovsky, Dukas, Stravinsky, Beethoven, Ponchielli, Mussorgsky, and Schubert) remained in place, as the film hit screens again and again over the years.
The audio half the film, however, was “remade” in 1982, when the studio decided to issue a true stereo version that could benefit from the pure sound of digital recording technology. Veteran conductor/arranger Irwin Kostal rerecorded the music, using a pick-up orchestra (to much controversy). It was a formidable task: With the animation already in place, the timing of the music had to be exact, rather than the usual process of the other way ’round. Kostal also changed arrangements for “Night on Bald Mountain,” opting for the wilder Mussorgsky orchestration rather than the somewhat-more-tame Rimsky-Korsakov version used in 1940. Also, Deems Taylor’s narration was replaced by Hugh Douglas. Purists cried foul, and when “Fantasia” was re-re-released for its 50th Anniversary in 1990, the original tracks (cleaned) were restored, along with Taylor’s commentary.
But Walt’s original notion of a rotation of musical selections inspired the studio to release “Fantasia 2000.” There are eight segments again (Beethoven, Respighi, Gershwin, Shostakovich, Saint-Saens, Dukas from the original, Elgar, and Stravinski), but James Levine and the Chicago Symphony replace the 1940 musicians. Narration duties are split by popular Disney contract players of the time, notably Steve Martin, Bette Midler, and Angela Lansbury. Most exciting (Walt would have loved it!), “F2000” was released in IMAX format, meaning the full power of the marriage between image and sound could be unleashed.
Fancy Footwear
Disney animation bounced back from post-war malaise with “Cinderella” (1950), a then-$2.9 million animated version of the Charles Perrault story. “Cinderella,” with its reliance on magic and fantasy, was a perfect fit for Disney and his imaginative artists. The story was fleshed out with peripheral characters that also provided comic relief.
Apparently, though, Happily Ever After doesn’t necessarily mean End of Story. “Cinderella II: Dreams Come True” (2002), a direct-to-video release, is really three stories combined: Cinderella has difficulties in her early days in the palace, Mouse Jaq yearns to become a human, and love finds Stepsister Anastasia, who was so misunderstood all this time. Who knew?
“Cindy II” is a sad affair; the animations are flat and without a hint of the original’s depth, artistic vision, or care. The backgrounds are bland. The writing is trite. Even the vocal work sounds phoned-in. How the mighty hath fallen.
Never Grew Up
The freedom of animation also enabled Disney to bring “Peter Pan” to the screen in a way not possible by any of its prior iterations. “Pan” represents a seminal chapter in young Walt’s life, and in watching the 1953 version — particularly where the flying Pan (Bobby Driscoll) soars above London and the clouds part, revealing a dizzying point-of-view shot — the feeling emerges that he has finally achieved a deep-seated dream.
That whatever-happened-to question was raised with the Pan crew in 2002, producing the answer in “Return to
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Never Land.” Wendy has grown up and married and now has a daughter, Jane. To escape the drear of the Blitz in London, Jane dutifully listens to her mother’s tails of fairies and treasure, but is unbelieving. Her doubts remain until Hook and company kidnap her in an effort to get Peter to reveal the location of hidden treasure.
The vocal cast are all sound-alikes (some better than others) for the talents of Hans Conried, Bill Thompson, and company. They try hard, but there’s only so far that can be gotten in imitation of masters. Further, there is little of the wit and style of the original film. Oh to have even one moment in “Return to Never Land” that even approaches distantly the genius behind the 1953 scene in which Pan and Hook face off in the cavern holding Princess Tiger Lily.
He’s a Tramp… er, Scamp!
“Lady and the Tramp” (1955) stands as one of the Studio’s most consistently heart-warming and entertaining features. It’s the tale of a middle-class cocker spaniel in love with a cross-the-tracks mutt. She doesn’t always appreciate his blue (dog) collar ways, but when the chips are down, she knows she can count on him.
The original ends with Lady and Tramp having a litter, and in 2001, one of those pups, Scamp, got his own story in “Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure.”
Scamp is more like his father than his mother and wishes for the care-free leash-less life. He takes off on his own and encounters the Junkyard Dogs. He also meets Angel, a female dog, with whom he recreates many of the dating episodes of his parents (notably, a spaghetti and meatball meal).
While not as awful as other direct-to-video offerings, “Scamp’s Adventure” does suffer from some flat animation and rather obvious scripting. Also severely lacking is the film’s score — an inestimable asset of the 1955 edition. “Welcome” sets a nice Victorian tone, but a number of the other songs forget their time period and setting. And nothing is as memorable as the original’s “Siamese Cat Song” or “Bella Notte.”
A Pooh or Two
The books of A.A. Milne were brought to the screen by Disney in 1966 with the short “Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree” (released with “The Ugly Dachshund”). With narration by Sebastian Cabot and vocalizations from Disney vet Sterling Holloway, the look and feel of the film was very much in style with the original illustrations by Ernest H. Shepherd.
The score by the Sherman Brothers (“Mary Poppins”) brings a true charm to this story of a bear of little brain who gets stuck in Rabbit’s hole after gorging on honey. The Shermans were instrumental in getting Pooh to the screen, consulting for hours while working on Poppins with designer Tony Walton (Julie Andrews’ then-husband), who helped them get a feel for these classic British characters and the story.
Once they had it right, it made sense to continue; therefore, “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day” came along in 1968, bounding ahead with a new Milne character, Tigger. Tigger got more of his own story with “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger, Too!” in 1974.
The shorts were combined in 1977, with some bridging animation and reshuffled Sebastian Cabot narration, as “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.”
In 1984, Disney tried Pooh again — despite the loss of much of the original vocal cast — with “Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore.” It was released with a “Sword in the Stone” reissue.
From 1988 to 1991, The Hundred Acre Woods denizens were on the small screen in “The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh.” It shuffled around from The Disney Channel to ABC for a while, but it remained very popular.
A number of seasonal specials and direct-to-video offerings marched out of Christopher Robin’s toy box and into stores over the next handful of years. But in 2000, Disney got Pooh and company back into theaters with “The Tigger Movie.” Thankfully, John Fiedler, from the 1966 cast, was still in good enough health to play the put-upon Piglet, but Paul Winchell’s pipes were insufficient, leaving him to say TTFN to the film franchise. He did, however, return for Tigger’s voice for the WDW dark-ride attraction. And the Shermans were recalled to the Studio (first time since 1971’s “Bedknobs and Broomsticks”) to add more of their signature tunes, including extra verses to the infectious “The Wonderful Thing about Tiggers.”
More big-screen shenanigans with the Hundred Acre Woods gang came in 2003, with “Piglet’s Big Movie.” Again, Fiedler was on hand to provide a trademark stutter to the li’l porker, a job he held for the last time with “Pooh’s Heffalump Movie” (2005), having passed away in June 2005.
The DTV arm of the Pooh franchise has been almost too prodigious to catalog, as episodes of the TV show were repackaged, reheated, and re-served. “Pooh’s Grand Adventure” in 1997 and “Winnie the Pooh and Springtime for Roo” in 2004 are typical examples.
Wanna Be Like Them?
“The Jungle Book” (1967), the last animated feature to bear Walt’s personal imprimatur, uses only a smattering of Kipling but makes for an enjoyable 78 minutes. The cast — Phil Harris, Sebastian Cabot, George Saunders, and Sterling Holloway in particular — go a long way toward making the feature captivating.
The jungle came alive for real in the 1994 live-action remake: “Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book.” Mowgli (Jason Scott Lee) is raised by wolves, exits the jungle for civilization, falls in love with a girl, is humiliated cruelly, and returns. Along the way, he’s pursued for his knowledge of a temple overflowing with riches. The live action version is not nearly as frenetic as the original and therefore might pose an attention problem to younger children, but as an action-adventure for preteens, it more than redeems itself.
The animated “Jungle Book 2” came to theaters in 2003. Suffice it to say that by the time the Oscar-winning song “The Bare Necessities” is reprised for the third time, it’s clear: A re-release of the 1967 original film would have been preferable.
Mice in NY and Oz
“The Rescuers” (1977) brought Margery Sharp’s novel to the screen, as Penny (Michelle Stacy), a hapless orphan, is kidnapped to help a greedy villain, Madam Medusa (Geraldine Page) find a valuable diamond. Penny scribbles a plea for help and tosses the note in a bottle, which eventually lands in New York, where the Rescue Aid Society sends help in the form of two mice: Bianca (Eva Gabor) and Bernard (Bob Newhart).
The pace is easy-going — a little too easy-going in spots — but there’s comedy and excitement in an animated feature that echoed some of the more memorable work Walt oversaw himself.
In the 1990 sequel “The Rescuers Down Under,” Bernard and Bianca (Newhart and Gabor again) are hot on the tail of McLeach (George C. Scott), a ruthless poacher intent on killing a golden eagle in Australia. A young boy and an Aussie kangaroo rat are on hand to help.
By 1990, the next crew of Disney animators was finding its footing, vaulting off the success of “The Little Mermaid,” and becoming more comfortable with the artistic abilities their new computer programs were providing. The many breath-taking sequences in “Down Under” (when Cody soars on the back of the eagle, for example) are prime examples. Some of the simplicity of the original is gone, but then again, so, too is the awkward song-over-a-montage technique for bridging gaps in continuity. Both films, however, stand tall as excellent entries in the Disney canon.
Everything’s Ducky
The DuckTales TV series that had been a hit since 1987 on the Disney Channel received a big-screen treatment in “DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp” (1990). The TV show involved Scrooge McDuck (Alan Young) and various adventures with nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie (all Russi Taylor).
“Treasure of the Lost Lamp” took the crew to Egypt to find the treasure of Collie Baba. They are pursued by Murlock (Christopher Lloyd) and his sidekick Dijon (Richard Libertini).
The quality of the animation (from Disney’s French offshoot Disney Movietoons) is a step up from the television forebear, but not a big step up.
Hunting Wabbits
In 1988, the Studio cooperated with Steven Spielberg and his staff to bring Gary K. Wolf’s comic-strip- style novel “Who Censured Roger Rabbit?” to the screen in a whiz-bang spectacle of blended live-action and animation. The movie opened with a Warner Bros. homage short (“Somethin’s Cookin’), wherein Baby Herman (Lou Hirsch, adult) is being saved from all kinds of Tex Avery kitchen mayhem from the frenetic Roger Rabbit (a spluttering Charles Fleischer). The cartoon, from its Looney Tunes cornucopia title card to its Carl Stallings-ish score, certainly held out a great promise that Disney/Amblin could continue to cooperate on more Roger.
And as a lead-in to “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” in 1989, that’s exactly what happened with the RR short “Tummy Trouble.” Baby Herman accidentally swallows his rattle, and a breakneck trip to the hospital ensues. Roger’s second short holds itself well against its forebear, and the beginnings of a terrific franchise appear at the ready.
“Roller Coaster Rabbit” was attached to “*** Tracy” in 1990. Roger and Baby Herman chase a red balloon at an amusement park with amusing results.
“Trail Mix-up” was an opener for 1993’s “A Far Off Place,” and Roger and his ward face dangers during a picnic.
All four RR installments (including the one in “WFRR,” which is snuffed aborning) are side-splittingly funny. They masterfully capture the spirit and fun of their big studio ancestors and could easily have continued delighting both the kids of the day and their boomer parents, who fondly remember shorts as a standard bill-of-fare.
Some other RR projects were discussed, including a sequel to “WFRR” (“Who Discovered Roger Rabbit?” — green-lit as far back as 1989, even proposed as DTV, but never advanced) and several more installments of the shorts (“Hare in My Soup,” “Cotton Swabs”). But once Katzenberg shuttled himself off with Spielberg to create DreamWorks, Roger sadly fell victim to the enmity between the two studios and the carping of the lawyers.
Next up: Dan continues his listing of Disney animated sequels.