The Walt Disney Corp. has announced its plans for its latest animated film, The Frog Princess to be released in 2009. They are making a big deal about the fact that the latest princess, named Maddy, is their first black princess. I certainly won’t knock that, in fact I think its great. When they were doing their animated tour of the world (1 movie per continent*) the movie about Africa, The Lion King, had lions instead of people so they missed the opportunity there. I promise not even to question the obvious marketing ploy to expand the customer base for their princess products. Even if it isn’t for purely altruistic reasons, I still think its a good thing.

I’m not sure how many people who read our site are interested in this topic but, having two young children who watch the Disney Channel non-stop and all the Disney movies over and over again, I am likely to have the ‘opportunity’, lets call it, to watch this film several hundred times and so for me its a big deal.

It is because I will have to commit such a large portion of my life to watching this movie that I am concerned. Not about the black princess, I already said I think that’s great, but about the quality of the movie. In it’s prime, Disney produced some of the greatest animated movies ever (Aladdin, Lion King, Beauty and the Beast). Then at some point in the mid to late ’90s they seemed to have lost their way (e.g., Hunchback of Notre Dame, Treasure Planet). In my opinion, the folks at Disney misinterpreted their own formula for greatness. The great Disney films were not animated movies with a great sound track. Disney’s greatest films were musicals that just happened to be animated. That is why so many of Disney’s best movies translate so well to broadway. You will never see ‘Treasure Planet’ the Broadway musical.

I won’t even get into the low-quality, straight to DVD, junk Disney has been pawning off on its latest generation of fans like Princess Party, Cinderella II, and Little Mermaid II. Those were all obviously cheap for Disney to produce and it shows.

In any case, hopefully Disney has seen the error of its ways and will produce an animated musical worthy of the name Disney. There is some hope, the same directors, John Musker and Ron Clements, who did Aladdin and Little Mermaid. The guy in charge of the music for the Frog Princess, Randy Newman, did the music for most of Disney’s Pixar successes. So there is a chance but, based on their recent track record I still can’t help but be concerned. Any how, all of this talk of Broadway musicals has made me feel the need to go watch some sports. Fortunately, next NCAA basketball game starts in a few minutes.

All I have to say to Disney is black, white, whatever, do right by your fans.

* - Europe: Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, etc.
North America: Pocahontas
South America: Emperor’s New Groove
Africa: The Lion King
Asia: Mulan
Australia: Doh? - So much for that theory.