Disney characters and films are so iconic – and represent all that is good and clean – that they are a tempting target for parody. Even Disney itself has tried to make fun of its own films and attractions.
For the release of Lilo and Stitch (2002), Disney produced film parody trailers of classic Disney films The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) Aladdin (1992) and The Lion King (1994) with Stitch wrecking havoc in familiar scenes.
While Jasmine and Aladdin are flying on the magic carpet and Jasmine sings “A Whole New World”, Stitch in his spaceship follows the couple and he honks his horn, stopping them. He flirts with Jasmine and takes her away in his ship resulting in Aladdin yelling, “Hey! Get your own movie!”
Stitch takes the place of baby Simba as Rafiki lifts him up high on Pride Rock, his surfing interrupts Ariel singing and his hanging on to the gold chandelier in the ballroom causes it to crash to the floor while the Beast and Belle dance.
These were called “Inter-Stitch-als”. The original voice actors were brought back to reprise their roles. Even the official movie poster has classic Disney feature animation characters pulling away from Stitch.
The Simpsons (whether it is Mr. Burns singing “See My Vest”), Family Guy (singing about “A Wonderful Day for Pie”), Animaniacs (singing “Just the Same Old Heroine”) and South Park (Satan singing “Up There”) are constantly making fun of Disney animation. Saturday Night Live got attention for its Robert Smigel short “Journey to the Disney Vault” which was one of the TV Funhouse segments and included a biting look at why the Disney feature film Song of the South will never escape the vault.
I am particularly fond of animation legend Eric Goldberg’s Disney-inspired opening couch gag for The Simpsons that spoofed Disney features with Marge as Snow White, Homer as Baloo the Bear, Bart as the sorcerer’s apprentice from Fantasia and Lisa as Cinderella and little Maggie as an homage to the black and white cartoons.
The United States Supreme Court has declared that parody “is the use of some elements of a prior author’s composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author’s works” and so is protected under the term “fair use”.
Disney’s Three Little Pigs (1933) was so popular that it was often the subject of parody. It ran for weeks and weeks during a time when most cartoons were replaced each week.
There was a flood of merchandising for the characters and references and images of the Disney pigs and the wolf appeared in editorial cartoons, essays and more.
MGM’s Blitz Wolf (1942) was the first MGM cartoon directed by animation legend Tex Avery after he left Warner Brothers. Not only were the character designs reminiscent of Disney’s version but Pinto Colvig who had done the voice for Practical Pig was hired to provide the same voice for the Sergeant Pork (a parody of the name of the war hero Sergeant York) in the cartoon.
The wolf is “Der Fewer” (parodying Hilter as Der Fuerher) who invades Pigmania, huffing and puffing down straw and wood houses. However, the smart pig has a house that is a bunker outfitted with hundreds of cannons. The wolf is finally blown out of the sky by artillery shells filled with defense bonds.
An even more obvious parody was Warner Bros Pigs in a Polka (1943) meant not only to parody Disney’s pig film but also the pretensions of Fantasia (1940). Directed by Friz Freleng, who still harbored some ill feelings about being fired from the Disney Studio over a decade earlier, the cartoon was nominated for an Academy Award.
It is the traditional story with background music of several of Johannes Brahms’ Hungarian Dances. However, the wolf uses a match to destroy both the houses of straw and wood.
Freleng took another poke at Disney’s pigs with the Warner Bros Three Little Bops (1957) that was done in rhyme and told the story of a trumpet playing wolf wanting to join the jazz trio featuring the pigs.
Bob Clampett parodied Disney’s Fantasia in A Corny Concerto (1943) and Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs (1943).
When he entered television with an animated version of his Beany and Cecil characters, he did an episode to parody the popular Disneyland television program entitled Beanyland.
The story premise was that Beany and Cecil were going to the moon to create a perfect theme park with a “20,000 Leaks Under the Sea” ride, a Matterhorn, a train ride, and much more.
When I interviewed him, Bob remembered:
“ABC got very upset about ‘Beanyland’ because of course, they had been running the ‘Disneyland’ television program and other Disney programs and they didn’t want to make Walt mad because there were some legal things going on where Disney was leaving ABC. ‘Oh, you can’t have a caricature of Walt Disney in there saying, ‘I’ll make this my Dismal Land’!’ I’d answer, ‘Where’s Walt Disney in there? The character with the hook nose and mustache is my long time villain Dishonest John. Everybody knows who he is’.”
ABC Press release for “Beanyland” with its original title: “The Park At The Top Of The Stars” (a parody of a then-contemporary Broadway-play-turned-1960-movie, “The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs”).
Jay Ward did a “Fractured Fairy Tales” version of “Sleeping Beauty”, as a parody of Disneyland, on the Bullwinkle Show in Season One, Episode Eighteen (1961). It was written by George Atkins and directed by Bill Hurtz.
“(“Sleeping Beauty”) was a take-off on Disneyland and I purposely caricatured the prince as Walt Disney and we had (voice artist) Daws Butler do his (comedian) Phil Silvers type voice which was the standard sneaky but friendly con man,” Hurtz told me when I was interviewing him for a never-published book I was writing about the Jay Ward cartoons.
The prince realizes “Awake she’s just another princess. Asleep she’s a gold mine!” He envisions Sleeping Beauty comics, Sleeping Beauty hats, Sleeping Beauty bubblegum and, of course, Sleeping Beauty Land where people will pay to see her.
There was the belief at the studio that the Disney parody where an “X coupon” would get you across the bridge of “Moat Land” in front of the castle, a “Y Coupon” would get you into “Entrance Hall Land” and a “Z Coupon” would get you up “Staircase Land” to see the Sleeping Beauty might raise the ire of the Disney Company and generate some publicity. Jay Ward’s daughter once claimed that Disney loved it.
Over the decades, there have been many parodies including the infamous ninety-second Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969). Disney continues to produce material that is ripe for future cartoon parodies.
Jim Korkis is an internationally respected animation historian who in recent years has devoted his attention to the many worlds of Disney. He was a columnist for a variety of animation magazines. With his former writing partner, John Cawley, he authored several animation related books including The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, How to Create Animation, Cartoon Confidential and Get Animated’s Animation Art Buyer’s Guide. He taught animation classes at the Disney Institute in Florida as well as instructing classes on acting and animation history for Disney Feature Animation: Florida.
The Early Bird Dood It! is, apparently, Avery’s very first cartoon directed at M.G.M (Blitz Wolf was simply released first, for whatever reason (possibly relating to its Oscar Nomination))..
The Alvin Show also did a Disneyland parody: “Crashcup Invents Crashcupland”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6dkQ6C6txk
Within good-natured spoofs like Bruno Bozzetto’s Allegro Non Troppo and Weird Al’ s Skipper Dan, there are really vicious and mean spirited ones that just irritates the Disney fan in all of us. Also, happy 10th anniversary, Enchanted 🙂
Ironically, Tom Rugger, the producer of “Animaniacs” is now working at Disney Television Animation. Also, the show writer and voice of Slappy, Sherri Stoner was the live-action model of both Ariel and Belle (kind of of made an ironic point of the song).
I remember how Tiny Toon Adventures lampooned Disney from the Disney parks to The Disney Channel.
My favorite Tiny Toons Disney Parodies were:
•Babs Bunny as Tinker-Bunny (a parody of Tinkerbel)
•A scene from Kon Ducky were Plucky see a parody of Mickey Mouse on a vintage 1970s TV set
•Another tv scene from America’s Least Wanted where Plucky was channel surfing and you see two squirrels
•From Journey to the Center of Acme Acres where Plucky & Hamton was singing “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Quake” a parody on Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf.
•Walt Dizzy’s Magical World of Color, a parody on Walt Disney’s World of Color with Dizzy Devil as Walt Dizzy and Babs Bunny again as Tinker-Bunny using a bazooka to produce the fireworks and blowing up Sleeping Beauty’s castle in the process
•And Top Secret Apprentice a parody of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice sequence from Fantasia.
You forgot one other TTA episode: “Buster Bunny Bunch”, a parody of “The Mickey Mouse Club” (and I believe there was a sequel to that episode, as well)
There is NO BETTER of Disney parodying Disney than “Enchanted”…..but, then, you knew that!!!
Favorite part: Happy Working Song
There was another parody in Family Guy which actually avoided the usual Disney parody tropes and instead went after “Home on the Range”:
“You da cow!”
“No, YOU da cow!”
“Disney gets us!”
That one critic wasn’t kidding when they said “Family Guy” was a half-hour Trivia Pursuit show. Still can’t believe it’s still on.
“Wonderful Day for Pie” was great after the song was over and they threw pies to Herb The Perv as Wicked Queen (old hag).
Or should I say until the anti-Semitic joke came along
Don’t forget another Avery classic, “The Three Little Pups.”
Amazing how tolerant Beanyland was in the ’60s,welcoming the mice as not only carefree,but gay. Nowadays,Mike & Karen Pence(aka the Vice-Homophobe and The Second Lady Homophobe) would not cut the ribbon at the Grand Opening. And the Prez wouldn’t show up unless he owned the land and named it Trumpland. Watch out for with the guy runnin’ the kissin’ booth,ladies. That ain’t cotton candy rubbin’ up against you.
I vaguely remember a cartoon that was a send-up of the story “Sleeping Beauty” – It had the evil queen that transformed herself into a comical Mary Wickes-like witch, that tries to entice Sleeping Beauty to use her spinning wheel, and of course, prick her finger and fall asleep. Only problem was, she tells the witch “I don’t Wanna1”. The Evil Queen / witch then turns to the audience and states that she slaved o set up this situation and worked hard, and all she gets from the girl is “I don’t Wanna!”…She asks us “Now I tell you – Is that fair?”. Sleeping Beauty has a change of heart, and says “Oh, all riight !”, pricks her finger, and spins in a contrived comical spinning faint – – – Does anyone know what the title of this cartoon was? I am guessing it was made in the 1930s or 1940s by one of the American animation studios.