Back last fall when Brandie originally came up with the idea for Saturday Morning Cartoons (and used it to talk me into joining True Classics), I was telling my sister about it and her first response was, “I love The Rescuers Down Under. You should do that one.” So here you go, Sissy: a post…
By the late 1980s, it seems that the studio Mickey Mouse built had reached a crossroads. The Walt Disney animation legacy was in danger of being shuttered forever after a series of critical and commercial flops, while simultaneously undergoing an upheaval in its animation department as the revered “Nine Old Men” retired and were gradually…
Yup … for two weeks in a row, the Saturday Morning Cartoons post title is a villain quote. Oliver & Company (1988) is Disney’s animated and “animaled” take on Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (if you must indulge in the Dickens canon, this is probably the way to go). Oliver the abandoned kitten meets Dodger,…
This weekend’s Saturday Morning Cartoon is one of my favourite Disney animated films: The Great Mouse Detective (1986). A rodent version of Sherlock Holmes, Basil of Baker Street is after the evil Professor Ratigan, the world’s worst criminal who manages to stay one step ahead. Basil plays homage to Basil Rathbone, the enigmatic portrayer of Holmes:…
The Black Cauldron is an odd installment in the Disney canon. The animation took an abrupt turn, possibly not for the best, but it really does reflect the common animation for the time–1985. I wish I could say what they were doing that made it different–media, camera, lighting, or what–but I’m not knowledgeable enough about…
“My name’s Copper. I’m a hound dawg.” I love this part of The Fox and the Hound–the whole scene. Rewatching it to do this blog, I really started to think how depressing it really is, though. Many Disney films start with something sad, particularly the loss of a parent or something similar. This is backwards.…
Hands held high/Touch the sky./ You mean everything to me. My experience with The Rescuers (1977) happened a little backwards. I grew up with the audiotape (you know, the ones where they use clips from the film and narrate the story), but I was older before I actually saw the movie. So when I watch…
Winnie the Pooh has been a family favorite as far back as I can remember–from my Winnie the Pooh books and my brother’s toys to calling my sister Eeyore when she was in a particularly pessimistic mood. We also grew up watching the various spinoff shows that aired in the late 80s and 90s (to…
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