funniest disney history facts i can think of atm
literally EVERYBODY thought the lion king was gonna flop and pocahontas would be their greatest movie ever made. people begged to ditch lion king and work on pocahontas.
the reason robin hood ends so abruptly is that there was an actual ending planned and storyboarded but the crew spent too long arguing about everyone’s fursonas to finish animating it
madam mim was way less comedic in the original book but because her character was too similar to maleficent (who was in their latest film at the time), the sword and the stone crew decided to differentiate her by making her fucking hilarious
when making a goofy movie, jeffrey katzenberg (studio chairman at the time) told bill farmer to give goofy “a normal voice.” farmer, who had been voicing goofy for eight years at that point, including in the goof troop show that a goofy movie was a sequel to, was very confused. after making an attempt they decided to scrap that note completely.
as of march 2023, farmer is still voicing goofy, and tony anselmo has been voicing donald since 1986. the 2017 reboot of ducktales, which was slated as “wanting to do for donald what goofy movie did for goofy,” featured both actors as those characters; they had also been doing the voices for the original ducktales and goof troop/goofy movie. all the times goofy and donald interact in the 2017 ducktales however, donald was voiced by guest star don cheadle as a joke
current voice of mickey mouse bret iwan has stated that he has attempted to play kingdom hearts and did not do well
disneyland’s current world of color halloween overlay features a plot that is basically “the disney villains simultaneously adopt a goth kid” and i love it
people will make jokes about “well math says that the beast would’ve been 11 when he was cursed” well that was actually the original intent, but a flashback scene of baby beast was scrapped because he looked “too much like eddie munster”
when disney sent a representative to pixar to check on toy story production, she was like “this is all great! what style of music are you thinking” and they were like “for what” “for the songs” “we uh. we weren’t gonna have. any songs” and she went dead silent and then went “i have to make a call” and left the room
saludos amigos and the three caballeros were made as ww2 propaganda. the government commissioned disney to make movies to make latin america like them so that they wouldnt side with the nazis and provide them an in to invade, and latin america really liked donald duck so
saludos amigos was apparently the first time many usamericans realized that latin american people were like. people. film historian alfred charles richard jr said that the film “did more to cement a community of interest between peoples of the americas in a few months than the state department had in fifty years”
while latin america generally liked both films, chilean cartoonist rené rios boettiger fucking hated the chilean segment of saludos amigos, seeing the main character of pedro the plane as a weakass bitch, so in response he created condorito, the most popular comic character in all of latin america
disney wanted to adapt ts eliot’s old possum’s book of practical cats. his widow adamantly refused, and then sold the rights to andrew lloyd webber bc he wanted to make it sexy and she said “tom would’ve liked that”
in case you haven’t seen the defunctland, walt disney wanted epcot to be a futuristic utopia where he was basically the dictator. then he died so they just made it another theme park
speaking of defunctland the first defunctland video was on disneyworld’s alien attraction and please watch it. please it’s so funny
after the huge failure of the black cauldron disney was going to shut down its animation department. the department tried to convince them to keep them alive by showing them the one scene they had finished for the next movie– the mouse burlesque from the great mouse detective. it worked
the only attraction the black cauldron ever got was in tokyo disneyland where they put a tour under cinderella’s castle where everyone had to escape the disney villains trying to kill them, only to end at the horned king and the cauldron, who would try to sacrifice them to satan. this tour was popular but was closed in the early 2000s as the tunnels didn’t fit earthquake regulations and i want it in disneyworld so bad
walt disney once referred to his unionizing workers, led by goofy’s creator art babbitt, as “commie sons of bitches,” and i want a mickey build-a-bear that calls me a commie son-of-a-bitch whenever i squeeze its paw
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for sharing. And yes, watch Defunctland, by Kevin Perjurer.
Wait… why was Disney checking on Toy Story progress 11+ years before Disney acquired Pixar?
Before Disney acquired Pixar, they agreed to distribute their films to get them a wider audience in exchange for a cut of the revenue and some of the rights to the movies; Pixar was the first company to make a theatrical CGI film and Disney wanted in on that sweet sweet animation history. By the time their contract was up, Pixar grew attached to the characters they had made under Disney, so they agreed to merge companies completely.
also wanted to answer this question in the tags because it made me lose my mind
So here’s another funny Disney History fact. Black Cauldron bombed so bad that it lost to the Care Bears Movie on opening weekend
it was not Care Bears’s opening weekend
