Disney Countdown #51: Home on the Range (2004)

And we are kicking off this lovely little list with possibly one of my most hated Disney films if you exclude the abominations that were 99% of the Direct-to-DVD sequels.

First, a bit of history.

Home on the Range initially began as a project entitled Sweating Bullets, a film that was to be directed by Mike Gabriel and Mike Giaimo and set as a Western-style re-telling of the Pied Piper legend.  But after five long years of work on the project with very little decent material to show for it, the two directors were yanked by Disney execs and replaced with Will Finn and John Sanford. They took what material Gabriel and Giaimo had and promptly scrapped most of it, aiming instead for a more comical and light-hearted approach to the story. Originally the plot had consisted of a young bull trying to save his herd from a rustler; in Sanford and Finn’s hands, it turned into a comedy about three cows that chase after a rustler for the reward money in order to save their failing farm. This film was re-named Home on the Range, and after it became clear that all of the re-writing and deconstructing would prevent the film from making its original 2003 release date, it was swapped with Brother Bear and scheduled to come out 2 April, 2004.

This also happened to be the point in Disney history where long-time fans and devoted followers were suppressing their tears and trying to hold out hope for the future: after the relative failure of their 2-D animated films over the past several years, which seemed to only be getting worse since the end of the 90’s Renaissance, as well as the rise of CGI animation that started with Toy Story and led to things like Shrek being the movie to imitate, Disney announced that they would be closing the doors to their 2-D studios and instead focusing on CG films. And while I will argue until the day I die that this fall-out had much less to do with 2-D animation and more with the poorly-executed ideas for movies that were often boring at best and down-right terrible at worst, what’s done is done.

In light of this reality, Home on the Range was to be the last 2-D animated feature that the company would produce. It wasn’t until John Lasseter—who was appointed chief creative officer by CEO Bob Iger after Disney purchased Pixar out-right—took the helm and decided, in 2006, that Disney was not out of the 2-D race, and would be releasing a new film in 2009 that would go back to Disney’s fairytale roots. But we’ll get to that one later.

The unfortunate result of Disney closing up its 2-D studio doors was that this film absolutely reeked of indifference. In many ways, Home on the Range was just one last project that needed to be completed before they locked everything up and stuck a For Sale sign on the door. The release date itself, a spring one that fell in the midst of the semester for school systems across the country, was telling in and of itself. The last time a full-blown animated feature that had been released outside of the summer months or the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season was The Jungle Book in the fall of 1967 (The Many Adventures ofWinnie the Pooh was released in the spring of 1977, but even that was technically a package film consisting of three shorts that had been laying around the studio collecting dust for the past 10+ years). Audiences and critics received this film with the same level of indifference that the studio seemed to exude, and the film garnered only $103 million internationally—not even covering its reported $110 million budget. Less than half of that money came from the United States. Home on the Range became the final nail in the coffin of 2-D animation without even really trying.

I actually remember seeing this film in theatres, albeit vaguely. I was ten or eleven at the time that this came out, either ending my elementary school days or finishing the first round of torture that makes up middle school. I was the target audience for this movie. Even I, as someone who has an unabashed loved for puns and the occasional fart joke, found this film to be more or less forgettable. Nothing about this movie appealed to me, and maybe a lot of my disdain lies in personal preference rather than objective criticism. I’m not a Western fan by any stretch of the imagination, and even the bright colors and interesting backgrounds did very little to pique my interest even re-watching it ten years later.

The storyline itself isn’t that bad, at least on paper, and the creative team behind this movie get points for coming up with something that is so outrageous that it at least catches your attention. A cow named Maggie (Roseanne Barr—I refuse to make a joke about this) and her owner are forced to auction off their cattle ranch after it was robbed and left them with nothing. She is given to another farm, called A Little Piece of Heaven, which also happens to be in debt, owing the bank $750. So Maggie encourages the other two cows from Piece of Heaven, Grace (Judy Dench) and Mrs. Caloway (Jennifer Tilly), to go into town and conjure up some money by winning awards at the county fair. When they get there, however, the sheriff’s horse Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.) tells them that they can’t be given any more time and have three days to get the money or the farm will be auctioned off. They then hear about a wanted criminal, Alameda Slim, whose capture comes with a reward of the most convenient $750. Maggie convinces Grace and Mrs. O to go out and try to capture the criminal, all the while in competition with a less-than-friendly “hero” Rico (Charles Dennis) who wants to snag him and get the reward money for himself.

My biggest problem with this movie is the very obvious lack of trying from almost every angle. That’s not to say this is a poorly drawn or animated movie, or that the voice actors don’t get the job done, but there’s just so much about this that feels like I’m watching nothing more than a high-quality Saturday morning cartoon. The characters are so unbelievably stock and uninteresting, the plot is outrageous but ultimately predictable (without any of the fun), and perhaps the worst sin that this movie commits is that it is clearly meant for children. And that’s where this gets under my skin more than anything else. While there have been flops in the past that express the same kind of laziness in storytelling, on the whole Disney is famous for producing movies that not only kids can enjoy, but also their parents that take them to see it. This has been augmented by their conglomeration with Pixar—who have mastered that art even further—so when you look at this film and realize that this was what was meant to end the 70+ year legacy of 2-D animation, wouldn’t you die a little inside?

When Walt first started the company way back yonder (pun intended), his first and foremost interest, after making good films that he himself would want to see, was to show the world that animation was more than just a kiddy thing—it was an art form. And so his first five movies were all painstakingly crafted to be just that (much to the chagrin of some of his animators who thought going out of the way to make things as realistic as possible was pointless).To me, this doesn’t cut it. When you have lines like this in your movie… 

Grace: You’ll have to excuse her, she’s just a little tense. 

Maggie: Tense. What’s her specialty, sour cream? 

…there’s a serious problem.

And speaking of puns, this movie is loaded with them. Now, I am one of those weirdos who actually think puns are hilarious given the right context. But this movie boasts some of the most unfunny, painful, and down-right asinine puns I have ever had the misfortune of hearing. Initially, there was maybe one or two that got a chuckle out of me, but as the film played out and they kept coming as a poor substitute for creative dialogue and clever humor, I began to feel parts of my soul cracking and falling off into the abyss of despair.

So are there any redeemable qualities to this movie? Well sure, I suppose. The animation DOES look polished, though the angular and flat style isn’t exactly my cup of tea, I do like the character designs of Mrs. O and Grace; their expressions and physical humor are one of the few things I didn’t cringe at when watching this. Alan Menken’s—you know, half of the dynamic duo that wrote music for most of Disney’s masterpieces in the Renaissance alongside Howard Ashman—music here is okay, if still a bit on the bland and childish side. I like the bright color pallet, especially how Jennifer Tilly’s cow pops against most of the purplish backgrounds. I think it says a bit about her character, and that was clever.

There’s also a scene here in which the rustler uses his yodeling skills to herd cattle (which is how he’s been doing it before the plot of the movie begins) and the ensuing scene of unabashed color and playfulness that has a fairly obvious throwback to “Pink Elephants on Parade” from Dumbo would have been interesting to me if I didn’t find the context of what was happening to be outright ludicrous. But the obnoxious color and synchronized movement of the cows is amusing, at least in the sense that you know the animators were having some fun crafting the scene.

At the end of the day, I can say with confidence that I will not be showing my future children this movie, and I am so very glad that Lasseter took the reins and decided to give 2-D animation another shot at success—because this sure as heck isn’t.

Fun Facts  

The final feature film to use Disney's CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) pipeline. The system - more than a simple software application, it encompassed a complex UNIX-based network of workstations and servers handling the creation, editing, storage, and workflow of multiple animated sequences - was dismantled when the animation unit was shuttered.

Alameda Slim is named after Wilf Carter also known as "Montana Slim". Carter was known as a Country Singer and Yodeler.

The second Disney film to star both Jennifer Tilly and Steve Buscemi, the other film being Pixar's Monsters, Inc. (2001).

Mexican singer/songwriter Ely Guerra was the voice of Grace in the dubbed Mexican version.