Disney Movie Eras: The Bronze Age
This month continues a new series of blogs for fans of popular culture. Whereas in the past explorations of Walt Disney films we highlighted individual works, we will now be talking about the larger groupings of movies, and the various artistic and commercial visions sought for and achieved from said movies.
A quick run though of the eras:
The Golden Age: 1937-1941
Wartime: 1942-1949
The Silver Age: 1950-1967
The Bronze Age: 1968-1988
The Renaissance: 1989-1999
Post-Renaissance: 2000-2009
Revival: 2010-Present
As you can see, the various eras are inspired by historical art movements over the year, as well as comic books. You can draw the parallel, for instance, between the Italian Renaissance, or between the iterated variations of popular superheroes like Batman and Superman.
We will also be covering Disney live action films. The list of films owned by the Walt Disney Corporation is quite expansive because it includes multiple studios and production companies, such as Touchstone Pictures, Pixar, and more. And for good measure, we will also cover animated films that released without the official Walt Disney Pictures branding, as well as films that only released via television or Disney +.
So buckle up everyone as we retread the Disney films of years passed:
The era classifications have never been officially recognized by Walt Disney studios; exact classification has never been unanimous or crystal clear. This is perhaps most evident when discussing the so-called "Bronze Age." For the purposes of this discussion, The Bronze Age is defined as all of the films produced and released following the death of Walt Disney (with one slight exception), until the revitalization of the studio during 'the Renaissance.' The films covered include Robin Hood, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, and Oliver & Company.
Like many of the films up until the mid-80s, the tales of Robin Hood were another idea that Walt considered, but never put any work on. While the company did not produce an animated film about the character during his lifetime, they did produce the live-action The Story of Robin Hood in 1952, one of their earliest such films. That film saw moderate success, and helped clear the way for a future animated film. For their first film fully produced since the death of Walt, the studio chose Robin Hood.
While originally conceived as a take on the classic Reynard the Fox stories, and originally planned to be set in the Southeast United States, the producers decided to hue a lot closer to the traditional Robin Hood story and setting. With Brian Bedford in the title role, the animators decided to recast the entire story with anthropomorphic characters, many of them based on stereotypical traits related to animals: Robin as the clever fox, the Sheriff of Nottingham as a dastardly wolf, and so forth.
Notably, the production delays caused by the story rewrite resulted in the animators choosing to reused animated sequences and styles from previous films. A few of the more obvious ones include Sir Hiss and Little John being based on Kaa and Baloo from The Jungle Book, including their voice actors. On a $5 million budget, the film eventually released to success, grossing over $30 million.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
In regards to our earlier exception, look no further. The stories of A. A. Milne about his lovable stuffed bear are among the most treasured adaptations by Walt Disney Pictures. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh technically released after the death of Walt Disney, but this is only part of the story. The film itself is a collection of short films produced and released separately by the studio between 1966 and 1974. The first short, Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree was among the final works with Disney's input. The other two shorts, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day and Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too were produced and released after his death. Finally, in the early 70s, the studio decided to rerelease all three films together as a single compilation film. To connect the films, the animation team included a narrator and a storybook mechanism to seamlessly transition between vignettes.
Most audiences since 1977, however, are aware of a fourth vignette: in 1983, the studio released another segment, Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. Subsequent releases of the film were redesigned to include all four segments, and every official rerelease has included such, making this the first Disney film to include such extensive changes between editions.
The Rescuers is an interesting film. Though based on a popular series of children's books, the released film didn't have much to do with the plot of the books it was based on. Protagonist mice Miss Bianca and Bernard work for the Rescue Aid Society, a sort of United Nations, but run by mice. After finding a message in a bottle, the pair are off to the swamps of Louisiana to rescue Penny, a young orphan who's been kidnapped by the vile (and completely original) Madame Medusa.
Despite the sizable changes, the film was a tremendous hit for the studio. Against a budget of $7 million, the film eventually went on to earn nearly $170 million, making it a super hit. The greatest accolade would come 13 years later, when Disney produced and released a sequel film, The Rescuers: Down Under. We will discuss that film in greater depth later, but it became the first official* Disney animated film to get a sequel, and remained the only film to have a theatrical sequel for years, until Ralph Breaks the Internet.
*- Official, theatrically released films by Walt Disney Pictures. Not counting shorts, or the films of Pixar or Disneytoon Animation, or other affiliated movie studios.
The Fox and the Hound and The Fox and the Hound II
As time went on, the Walt Disney Studios faced an evolving landscape. By the mid 1970's, most of the original executives and animators were retiring or passing away. Overtime, this resulted in a talent vacuum, which the studio populated with fresh faces. For many stars of the future, such as John Lasseter, Brad Bird, and Tim Burton, this was their first of many films with the company. For others, it was to be their last: Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston were retiring, the last of Disney's original crew, but also leaving was one of their talented new artists, Don Bluth, and many of his closest coworkers. Bluth and his coworkers disagreed significantly with the others in their department, as well as the executives. The disagreement led to Bluth and his cohorts leaving Disney and ultimately forming their own animation studio, Don Bluth Productions, which would become Disney's biggest competitor from the mid 80's to 2000 and the arrival of DreamWorks.
Also based on a book, the film tells the story of the bittersweet and unlikely friendship between Todd the Fox and Copper the Hound. Though friendly growing up, the two are challenged by society to be bitter enemies. Despite this pressure, the two help one another in the end, and remain friends through thick and thin.
Be that as it may, production did eventually complete and the film released in 1981. The Fox and the Hound commercially and critically, and remains perhaps the highest rated of their works during this era.
By the early 1960s, it was pretty clear that Walt Disney Pictures had a lock on the family audience, particularly school-aged girls via their Princess movies. More and more, the studio made attempts to appeal to masculine, slightly older audiences. Despite some timid steps with well-known IP like The Jungle Book and Robin Hood, the company was unable to gain traction with the teenage demographic. In an attempt to appeal to the largest movie-going demographic, Disney decided to up the ante and take and step into epic fantasy. Though a lukewarm attempt had been made at the estates of both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, the studio's efforts wound up going to a more recent book series by Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain. The film they eventually made was based on the first two books, though the title was all #2: The Black Cauldron.
Today, the film lives in infamy as the film that almost ended Walt Disney Pictures. The Black Cauldron struggled through a torturous production that went through several rewrites. The animation quality, including the early computer-generated animations were incredibly impressive for 1985; in many cases, too impressive. Artistic changes from the book brought to life the horrifying Horned King and his legitimately terrifying army of the dead. Test audiences were in for a shock at the terror in store for them. The production team were forced to make tremendous cuts to the film, rework entire scenes, and change a surprise character death. The result was the first film to earn a PG rating for the studio, though word of mouth and poor advertising cut into the film's future. Against a staggering budget of $44 million, the film earned less than half.
To say the film was a miss would be an understatement. Today, The Black Cauldron enjoys a great reputation as one of the darker films by the studio, and a poster boy for 1980s animated films (it's also one of my favorites!). This niche only came years later, after the VHS release in the late 90s. When the film failed to find a footing in theaters, executives at Walt Disney Studios experienced panic and serious discussions were had both externally and internally about the future of the company. The studio would get one more shot at glory, and it was all for keeps.
Behold, the film that saved the studio! The film entered production alongside The Black Cauldron, but as the latter film consumed more and more resources, the Disney execs panicked. The next film needed to be successful, but also inexpensive. The writers formulated a plan and secured the rights to the Basil of Baker Street series of kid novels, enabling a seamless production for their idea of Sherlock Holmes played by mice. In the film, Basil serves as a detective, emulating the famous fictional sleuth while also living under his very floorboards. A kidnapping has Basil on the case alongside Watson stand-in, Mr. Dawson.
The final film cost only $14 million, a paltry sum compared to the astronomical $44 million of Disney's troubled fantasy epic. Film animators also received permission to study the inner workings of Big Ben, the famous clocktower in London. With only an hour to study, the crew took what they learned and recreated the inside of the clocktower using computer animation, a first of its kind for an animated film (compared to the sparing graphics used in The Black Cauldron). Disney was more than happy to advertise the technical marvels of The Great Mouse Detective while downplaying the other film. In the end, it met with success, revitalizing faith in the studio. Credit can also be attributed to the new heads of Disney film, Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
The decision to cut off our list of Bronze Age Disney films right here may be controversial, if it was not also unanimous. On paper, Oliver & Company has everything that The Little Mermaid has: dazzling animation, an all-star cast, a nefarious villain, and music worth humming all day long. And yet, why did the 1989 film receive such pomp and praise?
This writer suggests a few possibilities. For starters, Oliver & Company had stiff competition in theaters, matching off against The Land Before Time, produced by Steven Spielberg and animated by Don Bluth. Ring any bells? Yup, the same Don Bluth who previously worked for Disney now had his own company and was producing bona fide hits (apart from The Land Before Time, there was An American Tale and The Secret of Nimh previously, but we'll discuss those some other time).
Secondly, The Little Mermaid made 50% more money at the box office. Money talks.
And third: merchandise. Did I mention money talks? Sure, Disney was in the habit of creating stuff for every film they put out: stuffed animals, soundtracks, and more. For The Little Mermaid, the company left no corner unchecked: coloring books, lunch boxes, clothing, even a television series. In terms of merchandising alone that first year, Oliver just couldn't compare.
Whatever the reason, Oliver & Company was a solid step in the right direction, but a pale shadow of what was yet to come.
Stay tuned next month when we cover the Live Action Movies from 1960 to 1969.
Add a comment to: Disney Movie Eras: The Bronze Age