For those of you who may not know, I recently came up with a list of 40 things I want to do before I’m 40 years old, which you can read here. I just turned 32 so that’s 8 years to accomplish these things and I think I can do it. One of those things is watching the entire Disney animated catalog from beginning to end, which is a serious undertaking. It has been made SOOOO much easier since the beginning of Disney+ – at least I have access to them now! I’m planning on writing little short reviews in chunks, five to six movies at a time, so hold on tight, let’s do this!

If you’d like to read the reviews for the first six movies, you can do so here – it includes reviews for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Pinocchio, Fantasia, The Reluctant Dragon, Dumbo and Bambi.

The second six can be read here, and includes Saludos Amigos, Victory Through Air Power, The Three Caballeros, Make Mine Music, Song of the South and Fun and Fancy Free.

The third six can be read here and includes Melody Time, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr Toad, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp.

This fourth six took ages for me to do but I finally did it and here it is!

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Sleeping Beauty (1959) –  Watched 4/11/20

This movie is so incredibly short, breakneck and basically no one really speaks the entire movie! After Aurora/Briar Rose finds out that she’s a princess and cries, No, No, No, she literally doesn’t speak for the rest of the movie. Prince Phillips has hardly any lines himself. The people that speak the most are the three good fairies, the two kings, and Maleficent. Other than that, there’s just hardly any speaking! It has to be the shortest script in the history of all Disney films – it has to be. Despite that though, its still such a great movie because its honestly such a beautiful drawn movie. You kind of forget that nothing has been said for a long time because the movie itself is gorgeous and the music is so emotional and exciting. I feel like this is another movie that I grew up liking but definitely have a deeper appreciation for as an adult. 

One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961) – Watched 4/12/20

I loved this movie growing up so much and I rediscovered as an adult that I still absolutely love it. I mean, for one, how on earth can you not love a movie with a TON of puppies – they’re all so freaking cute and I want my own little Rolly as well – I still quote him all the time haha. I feel like this is one of the first movies that DOESN’T feel like it’s at breakneck speed and I truly enjoyed the tension in this movie – I feel like I don’t remember it being SO nerve wracking. Cruella de Vil is SO evil and so frightening! I also feel like I didn’t know this movie was as old as it is. It just felt so much more current as a child, which is, of course, insane because it came out in the 1960s and I was a Disney kid in the 1990s. I also discovered that Roger is basically my favorite musician, Andrew McMahon, in animation form and that made me love the movie even more.

The Sword in the Stone (1963) – Watched 8/8/20

I hadn’t watched this movie in SUCH a long time and I know it’s not one of the highest rated or most popular of the movies but I really do like it a lot. I love anything to do with Arthurian legend – it’s always so great – so I enjoyed it a lot. I kept laughing though because I feel like the entire movie is just Merlin teaching Arthur how to turn into different animals haha and it’s totally fun and adventurous but there doesn’t seem to be much of a plot line at all. Suddenly Arthur pulls the sword out of the stone, he becomes king, Merlin convinces him its the right thing and then its just…over. But I still liked it? I seriously would skip the chipmunk scene again though – that poor girl is HEARTBROKEN! I can’t do it again haha!

The Jungle Book (1967) – Watched 9/1/20

I never super loved this movie growing up and as an adult, I still don’t love it haha. I discovered a few things. I love the music in this movie. The music is the absolute best – but majority of it is the Sherman brothers so that is to be expected because they are straight up legends. But in general, I’m not a massive fan of the movie. Bagheera is the best character and the part with King Louie is the best. Kaa scared the shit out of me as a kid and he still makes me wildly uncomfortable as an adult haha. I am glad I was able to watch the movie again and appreciate all the good music but it’s definitely not one that I’ll continue to watch. 

The Aristocats (1970) – Watched 9/2/20

This is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time and it continues to be so. I hadn’t watched it in ages, because I was waiting to watch this during my watch of all the animated movies. I love the little kittens – they’re so cute and I love the sibling relationship between all of them. I love Duchess and Thomas O’Malley and the music in this movie is just so prime. I kept laughing though – I swear the entire plot of the movie was how many times Marie could get herself into peril – you could make a drinking game out of that! There is the part with the cat in the Everybody Wants to Be a Cat song, that people have called out for being racist and rightly so, I can see the issue. I think I’ve had it built in my head for so long that it was SO bad and it didn’t seem as bad as people made it out to be. Now, to be fair, I’m not Asian and I can’t tell anyone how to feel about that part. I just thought it was a lot smaller than I remembered and it felt like a very small part in the grand scheme of the movie. As a whole, it has some of the best voice actors in it, such a fun story and the music is prime.

Robin Hood (1973) – Watched 9/11/20

I haven’t watched this movie in awhile, not since I’ve seen a lot of stuff showing how Disney reused animation for different movies – totally makes sense considering how long it took to make these movies back then – but right after watching Jungle Book a few days earlier and it felt SO obvious. I don’t know that it was a bad thing but it was definitely distracting. Besides that, its just SUCH a good movie. Robin Hood is one of those stories that has been told so many times, in different mediums, because it absolutely works. Its a timeless story and you can turn all the characters into animals and it STILL WORKS. And it also makes you strangely attracted to a fox, which is super awkward as an adult because, seriously, why is Robin Hood as an animated fox ATTRACTIVE? Its so weird. But yeah, this movie totally holds up as an adult as it did when I was a kid and I can’t imagine it ever changing. It’s genuinely such a timeless story and so it always works.

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Next up…The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, The Rescuers, The Fox and the Hound, Mickey’s A Christmas Carol, The Black Cauldron and The Great Mouse Detective!