Disney used to be less of a ‘house of franchises’. This probably ended in the 90s, after the Disney Renaissance that produced The Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, and my personal favorite The Lion King. There have been many direct-to-DVD (video?) sequels and spinoffs of these movies since they were made, but they were originally made as one-shots.
That’s the big names. Disney also made some really interesting movies that aren’t those big names. Tron, while having its own itsy-bitsy media fiefdom nowadays, is one, but there are others that have a special place in my heart.
The one I always think of during tax season (which at this time is past, but is coming around again, as always) is Disney’s anthropomorphic animal Robin Hood.
Why tax season? Because I think of the government as Prince John in this scene:
This movie was something my family watched a lot when I was a kid, to the extent that the jokes still show up in our conversation. Mostly from my dad, who has a terrible habit of making jokes that do not work even on a dad joke level. At my present remove, I think of this tendency with affection… anyway, he still uses the phrase ‘Hiss, stop hissing in my ear’ from time to time, generally apropos of nothing.
Who knew that anthropomorphic animals in the Robin Hood story would work so well? But it does. This is a good movie. Why?
