Dumb Disney

Over the years, Walt Disney Pictures has created a variety of classic cartoon movies. It all started in 1937, by Disney’s first release of a full-length cartoon feature titled Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Disney continued producing instant classics with Fantasia and Pinocchio in 1940, Dumbo in 1941, Bambi in 1942, Make Mine Music and Song of the South in 1946, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in 1949, Cinderella in 1950, Alice in Wonderland in 1951, Peter Pan in 1953, and the list goes on up until Disney’s most recent release Bolt in 2008. However, as time progressed, Walt Disney Pictures has been producing less and less instant classic films and more and more childish, forgettable cartoons. True, the main audiences for these films are children, but children and adults alike still enjoy the earlier films like The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, but not so much can be said for Disney’s later films like the recent 2006 Cars. So taking in all of the above as consideration, after 70 years of full-length animated films, is Walt Disney Pictures running out of ideas?



Coming up with ideas for movies used to be easy for Disney. Simply take an already well known fairy tale and create a child-friendly movie. And then, when all the fairy tales were used up, take a book or a play and turn it into a movie. This was the case for classics like Peter Pan, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Beauty and the Beast, and so on. And then, when all the fairy tales and stories were used up, Disney started to get creative. There were successful films along with failing attempts. Disney’s 1994 The Lion King, even though based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is an original Disney idea as it incorporates the kingdom of animals in Africa without the help from any fairy tale. Toy Story also became a huge success for Walt Disney Pictures in 1995 along with Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo in later years.

However, if you look at the big picture, and not the individual successes, Walt Disney Pictures has gone downhill over the decades. Now, instead of producing an instant classic each year, it’s producing a successful film every five years. Recently, Disney has been producing many sequels to the classics that go straight to DVD, having no time on the silver screen. And movies that do make it to the screen, like Cars and The Emperor’s New Groove, never get as nearly as much praise as say, Beauty and the Beast or Cinderella. No worries though as Walt Disney Pictures is nowhere close to running out of money, but hopefully soon, Disney will put the money to good use in creating yet again, more instant Disney classics.