Lothar, Skull is right in most respects. Perhaps some of the deeper stuff gets through in some ways, but kids approach the world in a very straight forward, simple way. -like a hell of a lot of adults…
There's no grey areas to them.

But you are right in that the way Disney depicts things is quite bad… It's not really kid versions of stories at all, rather they're mostly strange adult's ideas of the few things kids should be allowed to see.
But they tend to look great and be very well made. ^_^

Skullbie
*watches cats don't dance*

Luv for CDD



Its easy to hate on Disney. They have a pretty long tradition of releasing terrible movies. But they have an even longer tradition of releasing great kids movies. Like Tron, or The Black Cauldron, and now with Pixar on board making movies like the incredibles and ratatoullie there are making more and more children's movies with depth. It's like, for every 3 snow dogs movies they make, they make one genuinely good movie.

Plus you gotta seperate Walt Disney from the Disney corporation. Walt Disney is basically responsible for popularizing animation. If it wasn't for him there may be no classic american animation at all. Just because the coporation goes and greenlights the little mermaid 3 doesn't take away from his body of work. And isn't that what this topic was supposed to be about?

of course Walt Disney is a genius.

It takes alot of intelligence to put subliminal messages in the cartoons.

- “Good teenagers take off their clothes”
- Lots of the word “sex” and “lie” embedded in the background of lion king.
- The priest getting an erection in Little Mermaid.
- Racist themes.

That surely explains alot of things around you. :)

kingofsnake
Its easy to hate on Disney. They have a pretty long tradition of releasing terrible movies. But they have an even longer tradition of releasing great kids movies. Like Tron, or The Black Cauldron, and now with Pixar on board making movies like the incredibles and ratatoullie there are making more and more children's movies with depth. It's like, for every 3 snow dogs movies they make, they make one genuinely good movie.

Haha, that's funny because when I was younger watching these movies, I actually really liked Snowdogs but I hated The Black Cauldron more than any other movie out there.
Also, I didn't think Ratatouille was that good. It was just kind of an average movie…like a filler song on an album…it doesn't stand out, but it's not bad, either, it's just there because they needed to make another movie. So I didn't really understand all the praise it got.

I never really liked Disney(as a company) when I was a kid. I watched stuff like the Magic School Bus because I actually liked to learn things other than those cheesy Disney “heartwarming messages.” But that was just my personal taste. I do have to give Walt Disney(the person) credit for all those things you guys have said.

kyupol
of course Walt Disney is a genius.

It takes a lot of intelligence to put subliminal messages in the cartoons.

- “Good teenagers take off their clothes”
- Lots of the word “sex” and “lie” embedded in the background of lion king.
- The priest getting an erection in Little Mermaid.
- Racist themes.

That surely explains a lot of things around you. :)

You do know that Walt Disney was dead before all this happened, right? Long dead?

Blaming him for those is like blaming your deceased ancestor for missing your car payment. He didn't do it.

Brogan was commenting on the genius of the man. Everyone took that as an opportunity to criticize the company that he hasn't run in like, 40 years or so. I guess no one wants a positive thread that celebrates the talent and genius of an individual. It's so much easier to find something to bitch about.

Lighten up, already. If you really want to bad-mouth the company, feel free to start your own thread and let those of us who admire the genius of a single individual to do so in peace.

Sorry. Stepping off the soapbox now. :)

htbuzz
Lighten up, already. If you really want to bad-mouth the company, feel free to start your own thread and let those of us who admire the genius of a single individual to do so in peace.

Okay fine. He was an anti-Semite.

yea , and he promoted animal cruelty ! just look at his very first cartoon . not steamboat willy , but “plane crazy ” in that movie mickey not only plays a hippos teeth like drums but he cranks a goats tail and makes tunes come out his mouth and then he goes and uses a dog as a sort of giant rubber band to power his crappy airplane . shows how much old walt knew about aviation !!

lothar
shows how much old walt knew about aviation !!

Why, that man was plane crazy! o_O

Brogan

htbuzz
Ummmm, this thread did start out as being about the man, not the company, right?

Ummm….yeah, that was the intent. Disney the company (i.e. ABC, ESPN, etc.) - doesn't do it for me. I was just bringing up what Walt Disney (the man) accomplished in his lifetime…

Fair enough. The guy was extremely talented and lucky. As far as “genius” goes, … I personally wouldn't go that far. Walt Disney revolutionized the entertainment industry by creating animation with sound. He was the FIRST guy to do that, it's not like there weren't others that he beat to the punch/stepped over. Now, his brother, Roy, WAS a marketing GENIUS. Disneyland is what it is mostly because of his brother. Walt just pretty much laid back and basked in the legend. ;)

Here's some more stuff that the documentary at Disneyland probably did not touch on…

Walt Disney is pretty well documented as racist (He thought African Americans would have “spoiled the illusion of Disneyland” ) and anti-sematic (a reputation due largely to his membership of an executive organization that has been famously hostile to Jews).

Disney also had quite a reputation with his anger against union activists, including accounts of how he contacted the FBI and red-hunting House Committee on Un-American Activities to finger several of them as Communists (whether they were or not). He brought in armed gaurds to intimidate employees, fired organizers, and slashed pay.

So, there are several sides to uncle Walt most people don't know. ;)

ozoneocean
But they tend to look great and be very well made. ^_^

Sure, the animation and art are good, by themselves, but the character design is duller than watching paint that's already dry.

Custard Trout
duller than watching paint that's already dry.

Hey, don't knock it. I'll be doing just that at a gallery show next week ;)

Walt was also rather brusque and often not very nice. He treated his workers poorly and was a hard taskmaster. He whitewashed and powerwashed Grimm fairy tales and even then they're so dark And as for the sexual stuff, mythology. Why are you so credulous kyupol? You fall for every conspiracy theory and urban legend.

Now Tex Avery and Chuck Jones were geniuses and great guys to work for and with. :)

Walt was born on 1901 and started making cartoons in the 30's, of course he was a racist everyone and there grandma's cousins dog was racist back then. :/

And ignoring Disney as a corporation Walt himself he made those ‘watered down fairy tails’ during the damn 40's and 50's(snow white and the seven dwarves), people then were not that open minded back then.

Plus after the depressing as hell WWII They didn't want to see ‘DEEEEP’ or depressing stories that required thinking, they wanted cinderella, alice in wonderland and peter pan and the hilarious antics of donald duck and his speech impediment to help them forget all the shit in their lives for 45 full minutes of fantasy.

I think you're being a bit fatuous there Skull ;)

-People have always been open minded enough for the original versions of those stories.
-The Disney versions are notably, exceptionally saccharine sweet and simplified.
-Disney himself was rather notable and exceptional in having those views and the power to act on them. Not entirely a typical specimen.

didn't we have this similar discussion some time earlier this summer?

and then it went on to how disney(corporation) was sexist.

and then this:

Donald Duck is a serial killer and it's hilarious.

Skullbie
And ignoring Disney as a corporation Walt himself he made those ‘watered down fairy tails’ during the damn 40's and 50's(snow white and the seven dwarves)

Yup. Also, in the rush to be all trendy and revisionist, people are too quick to forget that Disney was not responsible for watering those fairy tales down. Yes, the original tales collected by the Brothers Grimm were far darker and more gory than the Disney animations, but the process of watering them down for consumption by little children began way before Disney was even born. The Disney versions are a pretty accurate re-telling of the versions already in circulation at the time.

Skullbie
Walt was born on 1901 and started making cartoons in the 30's, of course he was a racist everyone and there grandma's cousins dog was racist back then. :/

Hey! Now that's just a slur on my grandma's cousin's dog!
;-)

DAJB
Yes, the original tales collected by the Brothers Grimm were far darker and more gory than the Disney animations, but the process of watering them down for consumption by little children began way before Disney was even born. The Disney versions are a pretty accurate re-telling of the versions already in circulation at the time.

Um… Really Because that's not as I know it. The versions done by the Brothers Grimm weren't THAT far back in time for a start, and their's were actually watered down versions of the originals they collected. And they were considered fine for kids in that state.

Most later versions made them more adult again, including the FIRST animated version of Snow white, with Betty Boop and Cab Calloway. That's my fave next the Rammstein version for Sonne.

DAJB
the process of watering them down for consumption by little children began way before Disney was even born.

ozoneocean
Um… Really Because that's not as I know it.

Yes, really.

On a purely anecdotal level, the versions told to me by my parents (and to them by my grandparents) were already in the kiddie-friendly versions we know today. It follows, therefore, that - as far as the general public was concerned - the cleaned up versions were already accepted as the norm by the turn of the century. How early the process began I don't know but, since the Grimms collected their tales and published them at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, it would seem they were “revised” by the Victorians. Which would, of course, be entirely consistent with what we know about that era.

As further evidence for the defence of Uncle Walt, look at the stories which he has not made into widely-known films. They are all similarly kiddiefied for modern audiences. In The Frog Prince, for example, the Princess originally took the frog to bed with her (rather than kissing it) and then killed it (by throwing it against a wall) when he made amourous advances towards her. In early versions of Goldilocks, the main character was a silver-haired old woman and - even in the slightly later versions where she was depicted as a young girl - she was eaten by the three bears.

There were always different versions of the tales, we know that, the Grimms' versions were just what they happened to collect, they weren't definitive. But your “kiddified” idea is mostly conjecture, whereas the Disney versions really were amazingly paired down and designed specifically to be how they were. ;)

Besides, this wasn't some student project. The films were extremely involved, expensive projects. How do you get the idea that they'd use some bowdlerised derivative late Victorian Nursery book as the primary source material? I don't know about the rest of you here but I've got a bit more respect for Disney and his creative team. :)
-Even if the films were a bit too sweet, they certainly did a very thorough job of making sure they'd be that way, as well as making them top notch pieces of work.

Am I really the only person who thinks Disney animation is just plain dreadful?

Custard Trout
Am I really the only person who thinks Disney animation is just plain dreadful?

No.

It's true that Walt didn't make the modern movies discussed here, but he didn't make the old ones either. He got some other guys to do it for him and made sure they got no recognition or fair recompense for their groundbreaking efforts.

Then he put his name all over their work.

When they raised their voices in complaint, the choice was simple. Do as Uncle Walt says, or he'll have you blacklisted as a communist and you won't be able to feed your family again.

He couldn't draw either.

Does that make him a genius?

Sadly, it would seem so.

Can Walt Disney draw?
Did he create those famous Disney animal characters?
Did he have a hands-on role in all the early animation shorts/films, either artistic or directorial?

And no, not everyone are racist just because they were born in 190x. What about the Abolitionists? The ppl who facilitated the underground railroad? The Caucasians who supported voting reforms?

As for age-appropriate content… I read the unsanitized Norse myths when I was in elementary school (hands were cut off, ppl were eaten by monsters, ppl were coveting other ppls' wives…). I also read The Little Match Girl and found out she dies on the next to last page. I also read (and watched) The Little Tin Soldier and found out they both died. I also read stories I can't recall where the witch cooked the brother and tried to feed him to his siblings (etc etc). I think children can handle (well-written) content just fine.

What I did not want to watch (as a kid) was Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th, etc. The tape box cover was enough to scare me away.

so we're all agreed then ? walt disney was a Monster !!!

seriously though , i hate mickey mouse with a passion !

Me too. It's like his voice was designed to piss people off.

lothar
so we're all agreed then ? walt disney was a Monster !!!

Now we've dealt with that, let's credit a real genius. Max Fleischer was the first guy to put sound to animation, as well as inventing several other animation processes.

I'll take Betty Boop over Mickey Mouse any day and as for Popeye, that's genius with a capital G and a bumper bucket of 'enius!

Like I said before, ROY Disney was a genius. ;)

Custard Trout
Me too. It's like his voice was designed to piss people off.

So very very very very very true…

That **cking voice Grrrrrr!!!!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't most of Warner Bros' early creators jump ship from Disney because of unfair treatment in the workplace and Disney refusing to credit their work?

Now there was genius… Freling, Jones, etc… the animation… WOW!

Wow, who would've thought this post would be so heated! The irony here is that I didn't grow up watching Disney or watch it now for that matter, nor do I pretend to be knowledgable on Walt the man. I originally was just making a comment after being in Disney's Hollywood Studios and was amazed by what has stemmed from essentially a comic mouse. I probably should have named the topic ‘Mouse = empire’ or something like that, lol. Oh, well…