Silly Old Daniel Does Disney: Chapter 4
Featuring an arse stuck in a door, a game-changing villain and some, frankly, appalling racism.
Hiya! So first of all, I’d like to apologise, I know I’m a bit late with my update, I’ve had an absolute avalanche of (zero) messages asking where this week’s post is, but better late than never, right? The truth is, I’ve been off work this past week, which I thought would be an absolute perfect opportunity to get ahead on this, but then I also realised maybe when I’m on holiday from my entertainment writing job, the task of writing about entertainment in my spare time becomes slightly less alluring.
I’ve actually ended up finishing this on a train from London to Newcastle. The journey got off to a bad start when I sat down and realised Leon hadn’t given me any cutlery, so I had to eat my meatball hotbox with my fingers (if you think I’m above shovelling brown rice and tomato sauce into my mouth without utensils on public transport, you’re dead wrong). Someone sat down next to me in the middle of that, and was then present as I put the remaining parts of the below list together. And now that I’m finally about to hit publish and maybe start behaving like a normal person, who uses knives and forks to eat rice dishes and spends their leisure time doing something other than weighing up the pros and cons of Lilo & Stitch, they’ve disembarked. Typical.
Anyway, excitingly, this week we’re into the top 30!! The top half of the list of films and there are some truly iconic films in the mix this time around. If you’ve not read parts one, two and three yet, then catch up with those before we start with the next 10 on my list. Starting with…
30. The Many Adventures Of Winnie The Pooh (1977)
I’ve spoken a lot about my hatred for Mickey Mouse, but did you know I’m also not a fan of Winnie The Pooh? As an individual, that is, the franchise itself is alright. The thing with Mickey Mouse is that he has zero personality, so you can really project whatever traits you want onto him. Pooh, meanwhile, has genuinely managed to pull the wool over people’s eyes, making them think he’s this cute, cuddly little fella when he’s actually selfish, stupid and thoughtless, turning up to his supposed friends’ gaffs unannounced, specifically to eat them out of house and home, to the extent he consumes every pot of honey he can lay his paws on, and gets himself stuck in their front door on the way out.
My own personal problems with the alleged “silly old bear” aside, how could you not be charmed by the dreamy, cosy, low-stakes world of Winnie The Pooh and his adorable pals? Clearly, I’m not the only one who thinks so, either, as Winnie The Pooh is not only Disney’s highest-grossing franchise (yes, above Star Wars, the Disney Princesses and even Mickey Mouse himself), but the second highest-grossing global franchise of all time (behind only, believe it or not, Pokémon). This first Pooh film from 1977 is chock full of nostalgia, and is also the perfect accompaniment to tea and toast if you’re feeling a bit under the weather for whatever reason.
Scene-stealer: I am a ride or die Eeyore stan, but to be honest, he’s barely in this film, so I’m actually giving the scene-stealer title to Rabbit, simply for how he goes on in the first segment.
If you didn’t know this already, Pooh’s “adventures” are actually three completely separate cartoons woven together to create a feature-length film. Over the years (and, actually, even over the course of Many Adventures’ 74-minute runtime) Rabbit underwent quite an unpleasant transformation, going from someone very unlucky in life, who soldiers on and tries to make the best of his lot (traits that are now more associated with Eeyore, who is actually more needlessly and almost irritatingly morose in this first film), to someone short-tempered and cranky, who’s always snapping at his mates.
Still, this very first incarnation of Rabbit, who deals with Pooh’s arse hanging through his front door by trying to make it into a fetching conversation piece (I don’t know why but this feels very, very me), will forever hold a special place in my heart.
29. Lady And The Tramp (1955)
I’ve made it clear by now that I don’t love a “dog film”, of which Disney has a bastard million, but Lady And The Tramp is, in my opinion, the best of the lot by a considerable margin. And no, it’s not just because the titular couple look so much like me and Matt.
Even someone as hardened and cobweb-hearted as myself was inevitably won over by this film, largely thanks to its central love story and the fact that Lady is one of Disney’s most inarguably cutest characters ever.
I tell you what, though, them cats are absolute pricks, aren’t they?
Scene-stealer: Not to play into society’s youth obsession… but there’s no beating Lady as a puppy, is there? Just adorable.
28. Winnie The Pooh (2011)
Well, it didn’t take long to get back into the world of Winnie The Pooh, did it? To be honest, even I was surprise to see this 2011 sequel placing higher than the original film on my ranking, but while this iteration may not be quite as culturally impactful as its predecessor, it is more cohesive, easier on the eye, with bigger laughs (one scene where they’re all stuck in a hole, with Rabbit rapidly losing patience with his idiot friends, is a particular stand-out) and, crucially, a lot more Eeyore.
Pooh is still his usual self, at one point “supervising” while his friends try to dig their way out of a mess he’d landed them in, and launching Piglet, his most anxious friend, into a beehive (as seen in the poster above), which he then beats with a stick because of a rumbly in his tumbly or some shit. Toxic behaviour.
Oh! And it’s only 63 minutes long. Someone tell the team behind Ralph Breaks The Internet it’s possible to tell a lovely story without verging into Godfather territory with the runtime.
My one con with this film is that Disney clearly spent so much time finding a perfect voice match for the original Winnie The Pooh that they just said “fuck it” when it came to the rest of the cast of characters, and let anyone who crossed their path gave it a go.
Scene-stealer: Eeyore’s storyline in 2011’s Winnie The Pooh is that he’s lost his tail, and his friends have to come up with alternatives, in a bid to win a honeypot. Pooh’s winning suggestion, the fucking moron, is a cuckoo clock. I can’t stand him.
Still, seeing Eeyore trying out his new “tael”s over the course of the film is a good laugh. He honestly just melts my heart whenever he’s on screen.
27. Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937)
I really can’t stress enough what an absolutely game-changing piece of cinema Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs is. All the way through my rewatch of it, back in December 2021, I kept thinking to myself, “how in god’s name did they make this film in the mid-1930s?”. The entire thing is drawn by hand, and it’s absolutely seamless. It’s astonishing. And remember – Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs came along before The Wizard Of Oz and Gone With The Wind, two of the most iconic movies of Hollywood’s golden age (and, indeed, all time), so when this came out in 1937, it was totally peerless. And, really, it still is.
Now I’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about why I don’t care for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. Plot twist!
First of all, there’s the main character herself. People take shots at the “Disney Princess” franchise at large, claiming the characters lack autonomy, motivation and any real personality traits. I find this argument, largely, pretty tedious, to be honest with you, but when it comes to Snow White, it’s actually bang on. She really has nought to say for herself, she’s completely defined by outdated “feminine” traits like her beauty, passivity and propensity towards domestic work (although, in fairness to her, we learn early on in the film that she’s been “put to work as a scullery maid” by her stepmother, so you could argue that her sorting out the dwarfs’ disgusting hovel is just her putting the life skills she’s acquired to use – not to mention a bargaining tool for letting her stay in their otherwise completely vile house without paying) but, most importantly, she’s just a real pain in the arse. Whose decision was it to have Snow White sound like she’s 150 years old? Why does she only speak in rhyme half of the time? Maybe there’s a reason all of her friends are woodland animals. Sometimes, I’m afraid, the problem is you.
What else? Well, as a kid, I hated the bit where the turtle takes an hour and a half to get up the stairs, and then gets immediately knocked back down again, and I hate it as an adult. I’m also baffled by the fact there’s what feels like a three-hour song and dance about the seven dwarfs learning to wash themselves for the first time (at the end of which they all waterboard Grumpy!!!!). But my biggest gripe of all is with the Prince. From the moment we’re introduced to him – when he bellows “TODAAAAAAAAY” at the end of Snow White’s song, scaring the living shite out of her – it’s clear he’s a wrong ‘un. And, fast-forwarding to the very end of the film, you can’t just go around necking on with people you think are dead, can you?
Let’s talk about consent. Consent has become a big issue when it comes to modern-day reflections on Disney’s oeuvre, and deservedly so. But while you can perhaps try to explain away some of these past grievances, Prince Charming’s motivation for kissing Snow White when he finds her lying in an actual coffin is… what, just cos he fancies it? And then she wakes up and he just sweeps her away, and that’s the end of it? Nah. He should be on some class of register, I’m telling you now.
Scene-stealer: The Wicked Queen (I like to think that, rather than Walt Disney not bothering himself to name her, this is actually her given name, first name Wicked, surname Queen, middle name Louise or Elizabeth or Marie like all good millennial lasses) is the first ever Disney villain, and she remains up there as one of the best. Not a single second of her time on screen is wasted – every scowl, every eyebrow raise, every swish of her cloak is a thing of absolute majesty. And then to cap it all, she metamorphosises into that old hag, a bit like what happened to be in lockdown, except sped up into a minute-long sequence rather than being spread out over a six-month period.
It’s hard to nail down my favourite Wicked Queen moment so I’m just going to list a few:
When she tells the huntsman to bring her Snow White’s heart “in this” and then says nothing for about five seconds while she holds out a box and the screen fades to black.
When she scurries down the spiral staircase to her underground dungeon.
When she’s speed-reading the spell book in her underground dungeon and you get to see the full extent of her fantastic manicure.
Can you imagine the gasps coming from the queers in the cinema screen when they clapped eyes on the Wicked Queen for the first time? I’m not one of those “born in the wrong era” people, but if I could go back in time, this is a moment I’d like to witness first-hand.
26. The Jungle Book (1967)
I know The Jungle Book is a classic, and I, too, am partial to a bit of the Balloo/Bagheera love. But there’s something about this film that I’ve always found a little off-putting, and I think it might have to do with the fact that, even though they’re all animals, it all feels a bit like men running around doing “men things”, do you know what I mean?
Men deserve to have their fun, too, Disney shouldn’t all just be about princesses and old bags and camp talking wardrobes. But that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it, does it?
Phil Harris’ performance as Baloo is one for the ages, though. I read recently that they’re remaking The Aristocats (in which Phil Harris pretty much reprises his Baloo performance to play Thomas O’Malley), and I struggle to think of who the modern-day Phil Harris would be? The first person I could come up with was Chris Evans (the “fit, Captain America, Knives Out knitwear” one, not the “TGI Friday, married Billie Piper when she was a literal teenager” one)? But yeah, Phil Harris is a true Disney legend, and Baloo is the jewel in his crown.
I just want to say, as well, when I was putting together the above graphic, I found an alternative poster from 1967 with the tagline: “Meet Mowgli the man cub. Ball thinks he’ll make a darn good bear. Shere Khan thinks he’ll make a d darn good meal.” How grim is that! You can see why I went with the “the jungle is jumpin’” instead, can’t you?
Scene-stealer: The Jungle Book is low on female characters, which is a shame, because when it delivers with Winifred the elephant, a fabulous and camp old dame if ever there were one, it really delivers.
25. Big Hero 6 (2014)
Baymax is obviously the runaway success story of Big Hero 6 (arguably the character is a lot bigger than the film itself), but I definitely think it’s worth a watch. It’s part science fiction, part superhero origin story, part action-adventure, so it’s not exactly my usual cup of tea, but there are some really heartbreaking scenes exploring grief and shared trauma and family and legacy that are up there.
Plus, I just want to give Baymax a big cuddle.
By the way, my first brush with Big Hero 6 was when I was covering the Oscars in 2015, and thought to myself, “god there must be a real dearth of good animated films this past year if part six of something is up for an award, and I haven’t even heard of the first five”. Finger on the pulse as always. Anyway, back to ranking films from 70 years ago I go…
Scene-stealer: There is a lass in this film called Honey Lemon who is a proper bit of me – very hopeful, very dreamy but also very booksmart – but there’s no denying that Baymax steamrolls essentially every other character in this entire film.
The part where he’s trying to creep home quietly with “low battery” while acting completely pissed is genuinely laugh-out-loud brilliant. I talk a lot about how I think Disney should go back to hand-drawn animation, but I think Big Hero 6 – and Baymax in particular – is proof that you can still make a character dynamic and multi-layered and loveable in CGI (even when the character in question is a giant fuck off robot).
24. Tangled (2010)
When I first decided I was going to rank the Disney films as I rewatched them, I had assumed Tangled would be pretty near the top. Obviously, 24 out of 61 films is still pretty good going, but I thought it’d have done better, if I’m honest. But when I rewatched it, I have to admit I was a little bit whelmed.
Like, if we start with the positives, yes, there’s a very camp villain (probably Disney’s last straight-up traditional villain, sadly), there are some fabulous musical numbers, Rapunzel’s hair looks beautiful and it is a love story you find yourself rooting for.
But Tangled just never quite pushes through to god-tier for me. Revisiting it, the animation is still a little bit rough around the edges, and CGI rough-around-the-edges is a lot less charming than hand-drawn rough-around-the-edges. I also hate how much emphasis there is on Flynn (why is he even in the above poster??) – he’s a fun character, but putting him so much at the forefront feels like such a cynical attempt to try and keep boys on the hook that it almost takes you out of it. And I’m sorry, but I See The Light just falls way short, when you compare it to greats like Kiss The Girl, Something There and, of course, Song Of The Year winner at the 1994 Grammys A Whole New World. It’s a pretty enough sequence, but it’s supposed to be a life-changing, epic, emotional moment for Rapunzel and Flynn, and ends up being the most boring moment of the film. When Will My Life Begin? and I’ve Got A Dream are so packed with humour and action, and Mother Knows Best brings high-camp, I See The Light is just two people sat in a boat.
Most offensively of all – why does her hair have to change to brunette when it loses its magic? Rude. Oh, and that choppy bob she ends up with at the end of the film is unforgivable, too.
Scene-stealer: Rapunzel’s long-suffering animal companion Pascal. That meme from When Will My Life Begin? where she’s using him as a mannequin for her sewing project never fails to raise a smile from me.
23. Peter Pan (1953)
So, I was never a fan of this one when I was a kid. To be perfectly honest, I always thought Peter Pan needed to just pull himself together and grow up, although watching back-to-back Friends and Will & Grace episodes far younger than I had any business doing so made me yearn to be in my 30s when I was a child. And now, here I am in my 30s, devoting my free time to writing about kids’ films. Maybe let’s not pull too much on that thread right now, actually.
Because it passed me by in my younger years, I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed Peter Pan as an adult. True, I still think the main character is a total weirdo, and Wendy’s two brothers are complete dweebs, but I have a lot of time for Wendy herself, who we meet at a transitional point in her life that I think even a lot of us adults can relate to. I also just love the look and feel of Neverland in this film, and obviously there’s just endless fun to be had with all of the bits with Captain Hook, his right-hand Mr Smee and that stupid Crocodile.
I do need to talk about something genuinely serious for a moment, though. When you watch certain films on Disney+, particularly ones from around this period, you’ll sometimes be greeted with a content warning that informs you that what you’re about to watch “includes negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures”. Even a couple of the films already mentioned in this post, like Lady And The Tramp and The Jungle Book, feature this introduction, thanks to the harmful and offensive stereotypes of Asian and African-American characters showcased within them.
“These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now,” Disney say. “Rather than remove this content, we want to acknowledge its harmful impact, learn from it and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.”
Fuck me, though, parts of Peter Pan are just so, so offensive, so unpleasant and impacted my enjoyment of the film so much, that I can’t believe they’ve never been removed for past re-releases, especially as lifting that godawful musical number What Makes The Red Man Red? (if you think that title sounds like a yikes moment, wait till you find out the actual explanation) clean out of the film would not change the plot in any way.
Were it not for its appalling depiction of Native Americans, there’s no doubt Peter Pan would have made the top 20, thanks to its music, animation and characters – but the appalling racism in this one is just too inexcusable to put it any higher.
Scene-stealer: Unproblematic queen Nana, who wisely bows out of the film early on before it takes an unpleasant turn. Look how fed up with those kids and their shit she is.
22. Lilo & Stitch (2001)
In 2019, I went to Disneyland Paris for the first time in over a decade, and I quite simply had the most amazing time. One major takeaway from the trip, though, was that I appeared to have totally missed some class of Stitch-naissance. Stitch was fucking everywhere the two days I was in those parks – on merchandise, in parades, in shows, waiting for me in the shower when I got back (LOL JK HE WAS NOT). It’s not an exaggeration to say he was on equal footing with Mickey Mouse in terms of representation.
At the time, I couldn’t get over this, because I fully thought Lilo & Stitch had come and gone without much impact in the early 2000s. But I was wrong. The Lilo & Stitch fans are strong-willed, they are intense, and they want to walk around Disneyland Paris in fuzzy blue ears.
Well, let me tell you, I can now say that I get what they’re talking about. Not so much the Stitch love, admittedly, I found him a little on the irritating side, but the film itself is just beautiful. I was in tears about 15 minutes in. People talk a lot about the sisterly relationship in Frozen, but the bond between Lilo and Nani, and all of the guilt and discomfort and responsibility wrapped up in it, really are something else. Hats off to the writing team for creating something that felt so real – and the animation and voice team for making it hit so hard.
Scene-stealer: You think I’m going to say Pleakley, don’t you? And I did love that little weirdo, in particular all of the glamorous looks he turns out over the course of the film. But it was Lilo who really stole my heart from that very first time she’s on screen.
I love watching her bond with Stitch grow over the course of the film, and that post-credits montage of her new chosen family going on holiday together just made my heart soar.
Also I genuinely could not believe it when Lilo pure decked that girl in the face!! Get in there, lass!
21. Mulan (1998)
Oh, Mulan. You so very nearly made the top 20 (and, as with The Sword In The Stone, if this list were purely based on my own personal favourites rather than a very complicated points system I concocted when I had far too much time on my hands, it would be a lot higher). In the end, what held this one back is the fact that, at certain moments, Mulan genuinely feels like a proper war film, d’you know what I mean? And some of them battle sequences, even when they’re pretty full-on, don’t quite hold my attention the way, for example, a musical number with singing candlesticks or a conga line of smiling fish does. I’m sorry.
That being said, Mulan is an absolute triumph of a film, and I would much rather focus on that. And where do you even start? Well, how about the gorgeous animation? How about the fabulous, multi-faceted character that is Mulan herself, who displays strength in the face of adversity in ways most of Disney’s most celebrated heroes never come close to? How about the tremendous voice work (which as well as the obvious Ming-Na Wen and Eddie Murphy, includes the incomparable Harvey Fierstein and, for some reason, Miriam Margolyes as the Matchmaker?).
But the real shining star of Mulan are those songs – every single one brilliant in its own way. Honour To Us All introduces the title character beautifully in a similar way to Beauty And The Beast’s big opening number, that entire Reflection sequence is Capital I Iconic (remember that Chromatica II version? God that lockdown really was something, wasn’t it?) and how about that brutal juxtaposition when the admittedly-quite-problematic-but-I-think-they’re-trying-to-make-a-point-with-it-so-on-we-go A Girl Worth Fighting For comes to an abrupt halt after the soldiers are faced with the stark realities of war.
And then… then there’s I’ll Make A Man Out Of You. Even a wordsmith as talented as myself can’t quite do justice to the acapella “BE A MAN! We must be swift as the coursing river! BE A MAN! With all the force of a great typhoon” bit at the very end of the song with the written word, but YOU KNOW THE BIT I MEAN, DON’T YOU? Chills! Absolute chills!!!! Let’s have it on, shall we? Let’s have it on right now!!!
And then just when you think it’s all done, there’s a REPRISE later in the film with all of the male characters IN DRAG. What a fucking tremendous film. My sole complaint about the songs in Mulan… I wish there were more of them.
Scene-stealer: Seeing as the “scene-stealer” has to be a character and not a ROUSING piece of music, I’m gonna go with Cri-Kee here. Between the Gargoyles in The Hunchback Of Notre Dame and that bastard meerkat in Pocahontas (two films we’re gonna be chatting about in the not-too-distant future), Disney’s went a bit awry with their sidekicks in the mid-90s, but they brought it back with Cri-Kee, a cutie with attitude, which is exactly what my Tinder bio said back when I was sing-[YES YOU MADE THAT JOKE TWICE LAST WEEK THAT’S ENOUGH].
And there we have it, folks! We’re into the top 20 next week, which also happens to fall right around my birthday. I’d advise you to start drafting your messages now. Words to the effect of “you deserve the best birthday because your Substack is so hilarious” or “as an early birthday present – guess what, I subscribed!” are always going to be music to my ears. Byee! x