Day Various - 101 Dalmations, The Aristocats, Lady and the Tramp, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood

Movie: Various
Released: Various
Formats Released: Various
Formats Watched: Various
Watched With: Just about the whole family at some point
Snacks: Microwave popcorn, Fanta Zero, Sugar-Free Kool-Aid and left over Halloween candy (So much candy...)

I greatly underanticpated this task. It's not the movie watching that is the problem, it's the writing up of the movies that are getting to me. I'll spend 65-120 minutes watching a movie and then 45-60 minutes writing about it. I was watching movies and trying to get caught up on the writing after the fact. It wasn't working out. So that brings us to this, a catch-up entry.

The strange thing about these movies is that they all kind of go together is one way or another. They share a lot of the same actors and animators, in many cases the animation style is similar (or in the case of the Robin Hood and the Jungle Book, basically the same) and they all came from around the same time period.

Most of these movies were made during a flux period in studios history. It was after the death of Walt and at a time when the studio was again having financial hardship. Many of the decisions that influenced the look and feel of these films was based on money. I'm not saying they were bad decisions but that's where they came from.

My Thoughts on the Films:

I don't think there is an easy way to talk about my thoughts on this assortment of films. They all were a lot of fun, but very similar. The most original one of the group had to be Robin Hood. It stands out from the group just from the material. The Aristocats and Lady and the Tramp are very similar, just different animals, and you could almost lump in 101 Dalmatians to that group. The Jungle Book is one of my favorites in general, I had the soundtrack on tape and I used to listen to it over and over again. I can sing almost every song from that movie by heart at this point. I loved the animation style from 101 Dalmatians, it was very out there.

Things I never noticed before:

Again, to numerous to really mention, but I completely forgot about the ending to The Aristocats with the dogs, "It's over when I say it's over.... It's over"

Final Thoughts:

This is a classic group of films from a whole library of classic films. They are the epitome of Disney films and they have entered the collective pop-culture consciousness of the country for a reason. One of the reasons that a lot of the characters, actors and themes were similar in the films was that they worked. It's probably why I, and so many other people, like them so much.