News, announcements and information about Disney

Wednesday, March 19, 2003
by Shoshana Lewin, MousePlanet staff writer

[Read Part I: The Walt Years.]

After years of successful animated musical films, the films of the late 1970s and early 1980s were becoming more infrequent and less — well — musical. But a new hope was rising in Burbank.

In 1984, the Walt Disney Company was reorganized, and Michael Eisner took the helm. Unfortunately the first animated film released after that was the dark, dismal, nonmusical, PG-rated Black Cauldron (great-grandparent to the equally awful Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but more on that later).

After that, the music slowly began to return to the Disney label, which took on a Rent-like persona with the release of Oliver & Company in 1988. Then, five years after Eisner took over, the world was graced with a new wave of animated features — beginning with the fairy tale The Little Mermaid. But would going back to the formulaic Disney movie of the company's heyday be enough to restore the fan base for Disney's animated movies?

Lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken took up the challenge. Both had the same roots as some of the great musical teams throughout history: Jewish with an Eastern European and German background. Both liked pop music and rock 'n' roll, and incorporated this love into their songs.

“Two key elements in the storytelling make The Little Mermaid stand apart from lesser recent animated work,” wrote Roger Ebert in his review of the film. “One is that Ariel is a fully realized female character who thinks and acts independently, even rebelliously instead of hanging around while the fates decide her destiny. The second element involves the tricky and clever plot.”

“The Little Mermaid contains some of the best Disney music since the glory days,” he added.

In 1992, Ashman and Menken came up with the movie that cemented Disney's role as the best around when it came to the melding of song and story. Beauty and the Beast accomplished something that few musical — and no other animated film — had done, even Snow White: it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. By incorporating computer animation into many of its scenes, Beauty and the Beast took the concept of the musical film further than it had ever gone before. The graphics added a three-dimensional aspect to the film and, for the first time, the audience could really feel like a part of the movie.

“There are some wonderful musical numbers in the movie, and animation sets their choreography free from the laws of gravity,” Ebert wrote in his review. “'Be Our Guest' is a rollicking invitation to Belle from the castle staff, choreographed like Busby Berkley run amok.”

Ashman and Menken went for simplicity in creating haunting title song sung by Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts.

“Music is of tremendous importance in animation, not only in sustaining the film as a musical, but also supporting the fantasy, which is the very essence of these films,” Menken said.

“Beauty and the Beast” also became the first Disney song in decades to be played frequently on the radio and even reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts, due largely to a pop-style recording of the song by Peabo Bryson and a then-little-known singer named Celine Dion.

People were coming back to the movie theater in droves and spending millions at the box office. “To state it bluntly: Broadway died and went to Disney. Pop went sour, and Disney smartly sweetened it. With [Alan] Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman importing their Broadway savvy for The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Disney reopened the franchise that Walt founded with Snow White's dreamy 'Some Day My Prince Will Come,'” Richard Corliss wrote in the Time article, “The Mouse Roars.”

"Beauty and the Beast" would go on to spawn one of the most successful Broadway hits of all time, receiving a Tony nomination for Best Musical and an award for Best Costumes (Ann Hould-Ward).

The fairy tale trifecta would end with Aladdin, and, as of 2002, became the last “princess fairy tale” film released by Disney. The movie's ballad, “A Whole New World,” followed in the footsteps of “Beauty and the Beast” and received a “pop makeover” in the form of a rerecording by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle.

Aladdin was also the last musical that Menken and Ashman worked on together. After Ashman's death from complications from AIDS, the tone of the Disney musical took a dramatic shift.

In 1994, The Lion King became the highest-grossing animated film ever. The songs by Tim Rice and Elton John told the story through animals in their natural habitat, in this case, Africa. Unlike Bambi, the last animated film to do this, the characters were well-defined, the scenery was lush and the songs were filled with emotion, including the Oscar-winning “Can You Feel the Love Tonight?”

One of the great ironies of the post-Lion King era was that “once upon a time” began to actually pinpoint a time. Disney reworked history for Pocahontas, adapted a literary work of the 1800s for The Hunchback of Notre Dame and put a little soul into a Greek myth for Hercules.

Many critics were wary of the rewriting of history in Pocahontas, but the music remained strong. The nature-themed ballad “Colors of the Wind” (sung for radio by Vanessa Williams, and written by Menken and Stephen Schwartz) won an Oscar for Best Song.

Menken and Schwartz collaborated again for Hunchback, which again had strong songs, but took on a darker tone than Disney fans were used to. Take for instance when Judge Frollo sings “Hellfire,” in which he tells of his lust for Esmerelda, “Destroy Esmerelda, and let her taste the fires of hell, or else let her be mine and mine alone.” Despite beautifully crafter songs, Hunchback became the first film since The Little Mermaid to not receive a nomination for Best Song.

With Hercules, the humor was there and the music was not the problem, In fact, the songs, written by Menken and David Zippel, included a fabulous doo-wop ballad sung by the leading lady and the Oscar-nominated song “Go the Distance,” which was given some airplay with its version sung by Michael Bolton. The problem was that it was almost too modern. It would have made a great stage musical, but an abundance of characters and some scary scenes in hell, made it more geared to teens than to children.

In 1998, Disney came out with a beautifully animated musical based a Chinese folktale. Mulan had elements of a fairy tale, but instead of the heroine trying to get a man, she tried to bring honor back to the family. Disney had finally created a heroine that little girls could be proud to model themselves after. The music, written by Zippel and Mathew Wilder, even received some nominations for score and song, although it didn't win.

This also marked the first movie in several years that did not involve Alan Menken. A then little-known former Mouseketeer named Christina Aguilera performed the movie's “what-I-want” song, “Reflection.”

One year later, singer-songwriter Phil Collins was responsible for the Golden Globe-winning music behind Tarzan. The movie was a first for Disney in that a majority of the songs, with the exception of the Oscar award-winning ballad, “You'll Be In My Heart” and the rollicking “Trashin' The Camp,” were sung “off-screen.” However, because of Collins' popularity, the songs continue to be played on the radio, with “In My Heart” an oft-heard “Loveline” request from mothers to their children.

Disney has been making musicals for almost seven decades, but the past few years have not been looking great. Someone in feature animation must have forgotten the importance of songs to the animated film. Three films in three years had different plots and different characters, but all shared two common traits: few songs and a male as the main character. Now this wasn't the first time Disney had created an animated film featuring a boy, but unlike Peter Pan, Pinocchio and Aladdin, The Emperor's New Groove, Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet could be classified as animated films with musical instead of musical animated films.

Emperor was quite possibly one of the funniest animated films Disney has ever created, and even had an Oscar-nominated song written by Sting, “My Funny Friend and Me” and an opening number sung by Tom Jones But with a story no one had heard and characters with forgettable names, the film will probably not be the first movie that comes to people's mind when they think “Disney animated film.”

The other two films were so poorly done that they have to be grouped together. Diane Warren wrote “Where The Dream Takes You,” the lone song for comic book-looking Atlantis. The futuristic Treasure Island, Treasure Planet, had its song “I'm Still Here” written by John Rzeznik of The Goo Goo Dolls. But neither of those two songs have been heard anywhere outside of the CD. They have even been dumped from the playlist of Radio Disney, which is known for being loyal to the company's songs.

The solo standout was 2002's Lilo & Stitch. Even though Elvis wrote most of the songs years ago, and none of the characters sang a single note, the music was used in a way not seen since 1999. The Academy award-nominated film was also a big hit among toy-buying little girls (unlike its predecessors, which catered to boys who tend not to buy Disney toys once they reach the age of 8).

From what box offices have shown, audiences appreciate the work more if it has great songs, a good story and well-thought-out characters. Whenever Disney hit a slump, they revived with a good old-fashioned fairy tale. Why not go back to that? There are so many stories like Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin and The Frog Prince that have yet to be “Disneyized.” I think future generations deserve better than Atlantis. Disney has kept the modern musical alive for more than 70 years, and there is no reason to think it won't continue creating them for another 70 more. Maybe if we all wish upon a star, a new crop of lyricists and musicians will return harmony to the kingdom.

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Contact Shoshana Lewin at shoshana.lewin@mouseplanet.com.

Clicking on:
• Info – opens a new window for the movie at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).
• Buy – opens a new window to buy the movie at Amazon.com. * indicates availability only in VHS or used form.
• Review – takes you to a DVD movie review in MousePlanet's Home Theater.

• The Black Cauldron (1985): Info | Buy | Review

• The Great Mouse Detective (1986): Info | Buy | Review

• Oliver & Company (1988): Info | Review

• The Little Mermaid (1989): Info

• The Rescuers Down Under (1990): Info | Buy | Review

• Beauty and the Beast (1991): Info | Buy | Review

• Aladdin (1992): Info

• The Lion King (1994): Info

• Pocahontas (1995): Info | Buy

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996): Info | Buy | Review

• Hercules (1997): Info | Buy

• Mulan (1998): Info | Buy

• Tarzan (1999): Info | Buy | Review

• Fantasia/2000 (1999): Info | Buy | Review

• The Emperor's New Groove (2000): Info | Buy | Review

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001): Info | Buy | Review

• Lilo & Stitch (2002): Info | Buy | Review

• Treasure Planet (2002): Info | Buy

When she's not at Disneyland, Shoshana Lewin is a copy editor for a weekly publication in Los Angeles.

Like Walt Disney, she grew up in Chicago and went to school in Missouri. While obtaining her bachelor's degree in journalism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, she worked as “Plush Princess” at the Disney Store and was given the title of “Biggest Disney Fanatic” by her colleagues in the Disneyland College Program. During her time at Disneyland she operated nine Fantasyland attractions and worked guest control for both Fantasmic! and Tomorrowland.

She tries to bring a little Disney into every aspect of her life — from the greeting on her cell phone to the charms on her bracelet — and reminds everyone that all you need is faith, trust… and pixie dust.

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