Silly Old Daniel Does Disney: Once Upon A Time...

Who fancies a little story?

Once upon a time (December 2021), in a kingdom, far, far away (Stepney Green), there lived a young(-ish) princess high up in a tower (fifth-floor flat).

A terrible curse had been unleashed across the kingdom, and fearing succumbing to its dark magic so close to the annual festive celebrations, our princess fled across the land to her parents’ house for safety.

Unfortunately for our heroine, when she arrived at their castle, she soon realised it was too late. A terrible cough had overtaken her usual sweet siren voice. Her clear head had become clouded and murky. Frankly, she had started profusely sweating like an absolute bastard.

Concerned for her cherished king and queen, she hid herself away in the north tower where her spirit guide told her to remain for 10 days, or she would be… I dunno, turned into a toad forever or something.

Growing restless in the prison that had been enforced on her – for the simple reason than the fact she was a coughing, sweating mess who had accidentally travelled 300 miles with Covid at the absolute height of a pandemic – she decided to seek solace in a magic mirror, and relive the visions that had always brought her so much joy as a child.

Right, enough of that now. I was the bastard princess, and I was stuck in my parents’ spare room for a week and a half so I didn’t spread Covid throughout my whole family days before Christmas. Are you following?

To keep myself amused in my Covid-ridden state, and give myself some escapism, I thought it might be fun to start watching every Disney film in order. And I was right. It was sort of fun.

What I didn’t expect was that it was going to take me over a year to get to the finish (during which time two more films, Encanto and Strange World would end up being added to my watchlist), but I finally finished the last of them at the end of January. Finding myself with a bit of a Mickey Mouse-shaped hole in my life that I no longer have to fill with the likes of The Fox And The Hound, Basil The Great Mouse Detective and Chicken Bastard Little, I decided to start this expansive ranking of every Disney film as a new little project for myself.

I’d initially planned to do the list as an enormous Twitter thread, but after live-tweeting all 61 films for the past year of my life I feel like I’ve probably put people through enough over there (plus, y’know, its days could well be numbered… thanks Elon…), so I’ve decided to do it in its own designated area over here instead.

So, before we get into it, here’s how this ranking is gonna work.

First of all, only the 61 films released by Walt Disney Animation Studios will be included. That means no Pixar, no live-action ones like Mary Poppins, Bedknobs And Broomsticks or Enchanted and – thank fuck – no Songs Of The South.

To try and keep things objective, I had a little points system on the go while I was watching the films. I’ve graded all of them out of 10 in five categories: Animation, Music, Emotional Impact, Cultural Impact and my own Personal Enjoyment. They’re then allocated an overall score based on the average.

If some films end up with the same score, the one with the higher points on the Personal Enjoyment scale will take precedence in the ranking, after which Cultural Impact will be the decider (and if for some reason that still doesn’t decide it, I’m just going to pick one. Life’s short).

This system means some of my own personal faves aren’t as high up the list as I would like them, maybe because the animation was a bit iffy, or because you can’t see any of their characters roaming around Disneyland.

It also means ones that aren’t considered “classics” have ended up with a stronger showing than you might think, whether that’s just because they have some nice backgrounds or a couple of bops on the soundtrack.

For my own amusement, I also kept a record of who the “Scene Stealer” was in each film, which I’ll include in the ranking, too. As a renowned Clarabelle Cow stan, you can imagine some of the little lovelies who’ve made the cut.

To keep yous in suspense, I’m breaking the list up into chunks of 10 or 11, because who can be arsed to read a list of 61 films in one go? Look out for part one very soon, anyway.

I’d love to say that having now finished my Disney rewatch, I’ve put the whole thing behind me, but literally two days after finally watching Strange World and ending my self-imposed quest, I spotted that the Prince Charles Cinema was showing Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs, and how am I supposed to resist a full-circle moment like that..?

Anyway, see yous in a bit.