Disney produced a lot of anti Nazi and anti fascist media. Arguably propaganda but anti authoritarian none the less. And the moral was always if good men do nothing all is lost
"Propaganda" is not negative in and of itself, and Allied WW2 era propaganda in particular had a lot of positive messages about standing up to facism, fighting for what you held dear and sacrifice for the greater good.
Fun fact: at some point in ww2, Disney offered any military unit a chance to consult with an artist and have an official mascot drawn up for them. They navy guys overwhelmingly chose donald duck.
War era cartoons were not meant for little kids. They were meant to play in theatres before movies, which mostly adults visited, which is why so many of these old cartoons had so much violence and adult jokes. The whole notion that Disney, or cartoons in general were for kids is something that developed later.
Yep, especially when they started running them on afternoon and Saturday morning TV for kids. (Every see the one where Daffy Duck gets shot out of a cannon and lands on a rotoscoped Hitler's lap?)
@@jdraven0890 Don't remember the title, but it was in black & white with Daffy promoting saving scrap metal, rubber etc for the war effort during World War 2. He dreams he becomes a super duck and defeats the Axis powers single-handedly (or was it just a dream?...)
I immediately remember the "Golden Girls" episode where the women put on a play based on Henny Penny in order to encourage kids to visit the library more. Rose (who is playing Henny) is mortified by the ending, and tries to encourage the kids to clap their hands as a way of "ensuring everyone escapes and lives happily ever after". The kids don't clap at all, which leaves Rose flustered at first, but in the end she understands kids can handle things better than most adults think.
@@Delcat42 I never liked death as a child. I was saddened by characters dying, real people dying, and had the common fear of dying myself. As I got older I came to terms with death just being a part of the universe. Stars/suns and planets "die" eventually, and even our universe will eventually have a heat death. I guess I was different. I sometimes enjoyed gore, but I especially didn't want the protagonists (specifically the heroic types) to die. At some point when I read the original Henny Penny as an adolescent I think, I didn't like the ending, but I accepted the book as it was.
@@Lynn-Mae02 Fair enough! We're all made different, and I was a soft touch myself once I sort of put it together that death is, y'know...death. It sounds like you were a sweet kid and I support the heck outta that
@@RandomGamerCory Uh no? The people of the Weimar Republic allowed Hitler to rise to power unobstructed. Even when Berlin was in ruins, and Hitler had killed himself, people still didn't rebel.
Don Bluth never cared much about sheparding kids' feelings. His stance seemed to be 'they'll be alright as long as you give 'em a happy ending'. Probably why 'An American Tail' puts people through the wringer way more than any Disney flick does.
Yes. Don Bluth believed in showing something dark, then follow it with a scene that's much lighter. In the Land Before Time, we see baby Flyer dinosaurs playing & eating fruits after Littlefoot's Mother's death. If the entire movie is dark & serious, less people will want to watch.
Don Bluth's "The Secret of Nimh" showed how you properly do a dark children's film. Bluth was inspired by other dark children's films such as Watership Down and the original Brothers Grimm Tales. At the same time the legendary Jim Henson was also moving in the same direction when he created the Dark Crystal. Coming a bit late to the trend Disney itself created the Black Cauldron. Dark was in the "in" fad back in the early 80s. Heavy.
There’s a guideline in writing children’s movies which is the “return to normalcy”. You can write bad stuff into the story as long as it returns to a place of safety, comfort, familiarity etc
I think teaching kids how the world works is important and doing that with media they watch is a good thing. The media young children consume shapes them immensely, so I think it’s important to make it quality
@@ChristineTheHippie he grew up with the earlier Walt Disney features, having been born the year *Snow White* came out himself. The boomers who ultimately proved triumphant in this historical narrative regarding the company's historical boom and bust cycles grew up with the post-WWII Disney films from *Cinderella* to *The Jungle Book.* So Bluth learned what he learned from the early years of Walt, but those who stayed at Disney learned from his later works.
Someone: "Disney always changes the ending to make things happier" Me: Well, this incarnation of Chicken Little, the dinosaurs from Fantasia, Ichabod Crane, and Old Yeller would all disagree.
@thomashuffman3237 I mean that in yhe Disney cartoon I'm pretty sure the ended it with him marring the shorter girl. Thought they actually showed that so not to viewers decision at that point
I'm a kid who grew up in the 1980s. I saw this short on VHS, and the ending was actually a nice surprise for me. I was so used to happy endings, especially in Disney shows, that the dark "villain wins" ending was so unexpected that I actually dug it. Of course, I had no idea at the time that it was a WWII analogy.
They had to hold back from making the book at the end Mein Kampf because they thought that would date it. So they were thinking about the post-war future.
Would have been the same in our family had we seen this. We used to joke about hthe idiotic plot twists employed to ensure happy ends in actually unfixable situations.
Ngl, watching this as a kid actually impressed me: a fox managed to convince an entire farm of chickens and ducks to go to his cave, every bird had different personalities and opinions which showed just how good Foxy Loxy(Locksy) was at using psychology and manipulation which I thought was super cool. I never really felt traumatized by this short film but instead I just felt interested in psychology and how it affected people.
So, for most of the 'sanitized-stories': Mulan does not kill herself. Ariel gets to stay human. Quasimodo doesn't starve in a grave. Etc. But the narrator saying this isn't how it happens in HIS book, implying that HE was here to show the 'DISNEY' story instead. More so, it implies one even existed. The end with Foxy Loxy made this a sneak peak of meta story telling. Someone HAD to know.
@@Jeff-gj7ko Not according to the earliest available source for the legend, "The Ballad of Mulan." Check out the Wikipedia page for "Hua Mulan" for references to a variety of versions of the tale. If Hua Mulan wasn't an actual person, I'm sure there were many women like her in every war ever fought. Seriously -- I wonder how many young French women swiped the uniforms and weapons from dead Allied soldiers and fought with them until they were found out alive or found out dead?
@@Jeff-gj7ko Mulan only did that in a story where she was forced to marry the leader of the Huns after her home was destroyed by the Huns... Which is actually a story considered _Insulting_ to the actual legend of Hua Mulan. See, the legend was that Mulan was _never_ discovered at any point _until_ the war ended. She effectively retired and returned home until the general and several of Mulan's fellow soldiers turned up to her home to congratluate the great hero, only to find out the son was too young and too different in facial shape to have been the great commander who lead them to victory... And then Mulan Stepped forward to confess. Funnily enough, The only things the Animated Disney movie got wrong were 1) The Supernatural elements (Including Mushu and the cricket), 2) Mulan being discovered to _be_ a woman _before_ she got home, and 3) the Huns being defeated by Black powder-based weaponry. Mulan actually married the commander who was leading her regiment during the War, so that was actually one of those scenes that were true to the legend.
it's a cautionary tale. those are far less effective if everything works out in the end. as we know, modern "fluffy" Disney is concerned with only one thing: making money. parents are going to spend more on happy little stories that make their kids sit still for an hour. too dark and the kids get upset and then the parents get upset and they give them less money.
I'm pretty sure a depressing ending would make a lot of kids sit more still than an exciting ending. I believe it is more a matter that depressing endings aren't the movies kids ask to watch.
Not only were kids back then more used to this kind of thing, but cartoons by and large were more meant for adults. They were often shown before any type of film that the studio who owned them produced(it wasn't uncommon to see a cartoon before a live action flick for example)
TV changed that, and once boomers took over the executive roles in media, that became a self-fulfilling prophesy despite a few notable exceptions who remembered what pre-TV cartoons were like or even the early years of TV cartoons where the producers actually tried to compensate for budget limitations in other ways.
@@Attmay The irony is that limited animation (what we might think of "Hanna-Barbera animation") was originally conceived as an artistic backlash to the fuller "Disney style" animation which was the standard. Then execs in the '50s discovered that it cost less to produce, and it became the standard in Western animation until the '80s, when Don Bluth led the charge to bring back full animation as another artistic backlash, this time to Disney etc.'s culture of mediocrity at the time.
Heck, even young kids should watch it. Kids understand more than they let on, and its pretty wise in its message. After all, old morality tales were dark because they stuck in the minds of kids longer than generic happy stories, so that the moral would be remembered.
@@CordeliaWagner1999 But see, then you run into the problem of parents making their kids into idiots that only believe whatever ideology their parents want them to believe. Some parents view their kids more as a vanity project than another human being they're responsible for raising into a well rounded, thinking individual. So what do we do? Treat children like property, or like people? It takes a village to raise a child, after all.
This was the cool, un-Disneyfied version. Turns out, despite Tolkien's protests, what we would call Disneyfication today is what happens after Uncle Walt _leaves._
@@watchforever1724By gum, you're right! Could've sworn I watched it on my Chicken Little movie DVD...but it doesn't seem to be on the disc. [Scratches head] Now I have no idea where I did see it - HOWEVER, it can be viewed here on TH-cam at th-cam.com/video/p_GaYdae4j0/w-d-xo.html - complete with an introduction from cartoon maven Leonard Maltin.
There was an edition of Walt Disney Treasures DVDs that had it. That series was amazing but it died with Roy E. Disney and with Dick Cook's resignation from Walt Disney Pictures after decades at the company. He was there before Michael Eisner. He worked his way up from being a cast member. And around that time, Disney's attitude toward its history took a turn for the worse, and it is costing them their future. You could see them getting lazier and lazier. TH-cam is to Disney as Mufasa in the clouds is to Simba at this point. Simba listened. Will Disney? Doesn't look like it. Boomers gonna boomer.
2024: CARTOON HAS UNHAPPY ENDING! I SCARE! 1943: Hahaha! Another wacky cartoon! Where do they come up with this stuff? Not saying it isn't outside of Disney's usual fare, but let's not act like this is deeply horrific material. It might not have been normal for Disney, but was sure as heck normal for just about any other studio.
WB and M-G-M characters basically went to war with each other for seven minutes at a time. All Pluto gets to do is get mad at smaller, cuter animals that he forgives by the seven-minute mark.
@@Attmay and then you had Fleischer where there was a bird...or maybe a plane tag teaming with the guy from the Navy who eats spinach shakes straight from the can all before a ghost decides to pop in and say "BOO!"
I wouldn't say this is THAT far outside their usual fare. Check out The Mad Doctor and The Old Army Game. And in terms of tearjerking, The Ugly Duckling (the 1939 version) might be harder for me to watch than Bambi.
@@PlayStonkers Yeah, I can't remember any Disney shorts where Mickey, Donald, etc. actually died (though there were some where characters actually faked their deaths). That said, it seemed like Donald's mental and physical tortures were often done slower and slightly more realistically, and I kinda think Disney had some scarier sound effects, such as in The Brave Little Tailor (when the giant approaches) and Donald's Gold Mine (when he falls into a rock crusher).
Yeah, because unlike the movie, this actually has a valuable lesson to teach: you shouldn't believe everything you hear, and that you must always, always, ALWAYS check the facts first. Compare that to the movie, which teaches that it's okay to bully a CHILD over a stupid mistake that's not even that big of a deal
@@thomashuffman3237 I actually saw 1943's Chicken Little on tv as a kid. It didn't really shock me that much, though I was surprised by the ending. My appreciation has only grown. I think this is one of the best WWII cartoons.
@@thomashuffman3237 Utterly and completely OT here, but "Huffman" isn't a super-common surname. You usually see "Hoffman." My grandmother's maiden name was Huffman. Are you or any of your ancestors from North Carolina?
...while I disagree with your assessment of Ole Walt, I think your analysis of Chicken Little and it's contemporary cultural relevance is SPOT ON. Well done. Make more....please.
Yes, kids during the 40's were tougher but then again these animated shorts weren't meant solely for children either! These shorts were often shown during intermission in theaters during the 30's up to the early 60's.
When the short was originally shown in theaters, it would have been part of a whole evening of films. Theae would hzve included other shorts, travelogues and newsreels of recent events. And audience would have been comprised of a cross section of people living in the area, young, old, familes, couples on dates, friends, etc. My point being, this was made for a wider audience than just children. Hopefully it opened up a conversation between parents and their children, giving them a chance to reinforce the infered moral of the story.
Me: Just curious, that Fox DID remember to literally erase the footprints of the fowls he'd just eaten BEFORE the farmer finds out, didn't he? Foxy Loxy: What are you nuts? Of course, I did... (That is when he realizes that he didn't) Oh, no. Oh, no! (Cue outside where a scowling Cocky Locky leading the shotgun carrying farmer to the fox's cave) Because according to trivia, it is revealed that all of the other birds have been eaten by Foxy Loxy, but Cocky was NOT amongst the birds that fled to the cave, implying he managed to avoid being eaten by Foxy.
If not a happy ending, at least a satisfying revenge. Also, how in the hell did a single fox manage to eat several chicken, ducks, and even turkeys in a single setting? 😂 if it was a wolf, it would be more believable.
Early Disney cartoons were not for children. They were a test of animation. The main ones, like Looney Tunes, were also the Simpsons of their day. Again, not for kids. Disney didn't get its reputation as being a G/PG only company until the 80s.
Of course, they were for kids. They were shown in movie theaters to kids every week before the show. Disney wouldn't get anything beyond a PG rating before the 80s because the new rating system of PG13 didn't exist until 1984. Gen X grew up with Old Yeller Disney. It's unrecognizable now.
The Simpsons were being aggressively marketed to kids and teens fairly early on, from Butterfinger commercials to cartoony platformer NES games. A lot of stuff didn't have as stringent walls of separation as they do today, igniting moral panics that helped cause those walls to be built in the first place, such as a family-friendly Mortal Kombat kartoon called Defenders of the Realm, and toys and Saturday morning cartoons for R-rated movies from Rambo to RoboCop.
@@morticia981*Old Yeller* was 1957, so that puts it squarely in the Baby Boom, although Tommy Kirk actually missed the cutoff date by about three years. Kevin Corcoran was part of that generation. Generation X Disney was the period from Walt's death up until around *The Fox and the Hound* or thereabout. It was the era when boomers started working at the company before eventually taking it over and putting a Simpsonian stranglehold on it to this day.
@@autobotstarscream765but then actually adult-oriented cartoons came along and left them with nothing but memories of when they had the prime time network cartoon audience virtually monopolized.
My daughter just asked me what my favorite "DISNEY" movie was...I told her a long list besides "THE ONE" and hoped she remembered that we watched and LOVED togethe, LOL 🤣😂🤣 I sent her a revamped version about 10 minutes ago... telling her I remembered this "PIXAR" short from years ago but had forgotten. Instant MEMORIES...for real.
I remember seeing this during the 90´s Disney afternoon. Even with the bad ending I sort of felt like the masses were stupid and got what happens when you panic and don´t think. A cautionary tale. I have liked this a lot, I like the creativity the community how it´s made and what the fox cooks up. It´s fun with a deep message.
Good video. I've seen the cartoon. I'm glad Disney kept the original ending. Considering the events of July 13, 2024, I'd say this video was released at the right time in our history. I wish more people would heed CL's warnings.
09:25 I think all creative content should be shown, with context. I was sad when Dr, Seuss books were pulled for questionable content. I realize its their property, and they can do what they want with it, but I believe (to quote a famous wizard) "For it is the doom of men that they forget." Keep the books in circulation but add a LESSON in the book. "This was made a long time ago before people realized how this kind of thinking was problematic." Like what Warner Brothers did with their Golden Age DVD collection. Each disc basically started with Whoopi Goldberg saying, "Hey, y'all. This stuff was made a long time ago and people said things, that we now know, they shouldn't have. Enjoy!" Someone should change the book title to "Art of the Deal" and change, "The sky is falling!" with "The election was stolen!".
Yeeesss older disney didn't mind doing stuff like this. Kids can still handle dark stuff. Its the adults in their lives that freak out and want to over shelter them.
I'm pretty sure the Chicken Little short is also on Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities - Celebrated Shorts: 1920s - 1960s. I could be wrong, though. Still, this is the Chicken Little to watch. Still holds up.
There was one Disney short where an eagle picked up a lamb that strayed from its flock. That's all I can remember about it because as a kid I was horrified by this happening. I want to find it again as an adult to see if it's as bad as I remember but idk where to start looking.
@tabithamashburn8786 I watched lambert the sheepish lion just now; that's not the one unfortunately. Only thing in there is a wolf, not a bird of prey.
I saw it on TV in the 1970s when I was a kid. Naturally I didn't understand the references to the second world war. Thanks for uploading the video it was interesting to see this again after all these years.
Don't have (or feign) regretting showing this! This is history in animation and in life. This is too apparent in what is going on now! Thanks for this.! Big thumbs up!
It's actually pretty different. There's nothing in the original story about Foxy Loxy spreading propaganda to undermine the birds' faith in their leader. But definitely different from a stereotypical Disney cartoon. LOL.
This Foxy Loxy was a real smart and deceiving villain, especially with his Psychology book. In fact, he could be a secret villain for a new Disney movie or video game, like in a new Kingdom Hearts game. Just a thought.
I did a report on this for my Adv. Speech class. I went a little further comparing it to the Nazi party and my teacher was impressed. Haven't thought about that in years.
Let’s face it: people are sucked into everything from fashion to medication. This portrays that everything because although people are the individual they want to be, they always want to follow a hero!
Holy cow! I want see that! Don't know how I missed that! I've seen that chicken little character of that cartoon here & there. But never thought it was from a Disney. I just typed two letters, "C" and "H" & TH-cam already already knew what I was looking for. I'm starting not to like autofill.
Well that short was propaganda made for the adults in the audience. A lot of the cartoons of the time were made to appeal to all ages and included pop culture references and sexy material that would appeal to adults, but not cross the line into pornography. I mean a lot of animation has always been like that honestly. The mass murder in this short IS kinda intense for kids, but as a propaganda short, it's actually pretty tame compared to Disney's others.
@@sonicfanboy3375that just handled the subject matter point blank without metaphor showing how everything they do is to train them for war and destruction. That was out of circulation for a while after the war. I remember the 1943 *Chicken Little* being on the Disney Channel thanks to *Mouseterpiece Theater* with George Plimpton. It had obviously had at least one post-war reissue if the title RKO Radio Pictures credit was replaced. They had to bring these old cartoons back because urban legends were spreading about their point of view. The irony is that after the war, the CIA brought ex Nazis to the United States. One of them was Werner Von Braun, and he talked about outer space on the *Disneyland* TV show.
@@bezoticallyyours83 not shocked from him wanting to eat them but I was Shocked that Disney would actually have characters get eaten at the end. I wasn't expecting chicken little to die. I thought they were gonna get out somehow like some Looney toons type crap. I saw some comments of people saying how they were surprised by the ending but I didn't know what they meant till I saw it for myself. There's funny music when they run in the tree and then suddenly after the fade to black we see bones. Took me a second to realize what happened lol
It's sad that modern kidsstorys meant to prepare kids for reality became rare, while old storys geting treated like the all are 1940's German propaganda, even if they ( like the Struwwelpeter released in 1845 ) have nothing to do with politics.
5:25 Next to the yo-yo, you can even see more bones from the animals, and if you look closer, the shadows depict some beaks or something with a hat on it.... chilling
I remember watching this short as a child. I don't think I was disturbed by it, but I did feel sad for Chicken Little and his friends after what happened to them at the end.
They did obviously water things down with "Hunchback", but "Hellfire" is possibly the darkest Disney villain song. Pity that they didn't try to go all in and make their first truly adults-only animated film as they were planning originally. It (and 1992's "Rover Dangerfield", which was also originally planned as a truly adults-only feature) could've aborted the current stereotype that all adult animation has to be like South Park and Family Guy. Adult animation could've been somewhat classier.
I remember originally seeing it on Disney’s wonderful world of color on TV. I think the shirt still holds up today. But you’re right it sort of basically holds up to contemporary threats..
Disney has removed the beginning of Bambi where you see a hinter, see Bambis mom sense him, then hear a shot. The scene is implied and then we know Bambi is an orphan. So no gently knowing kids death happens, orphans happen. I'm sure pretending otherwise will leave kids better prepared when they ultimately encounter death. We're raising a generation of coddled clueless kids who are totally unprepared for reality. I'm sure they'll thank us for the anxiety, trauma and ineffectual lack of skills were giving them to face life.
I remember seeing this during Saturday morning cartoons back in the '70s (I'm 57). I have seen it many times. I remember finding it dark, but still laughed at it when I was a kid.
Frankly, I feel like, especially in the US, we underestimate children. Especially the type of adult cartoon fans that don’t want children in the discussion when it comes to shows out of insecurity.
I was a kid growing up when the Disney Channel first came out, and let me tell you it was nothing like it is now. Disney originally had no problem showing movies like Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Watcher In The Woods on the Channel. Disneyfication didn’t really start to become a thing until the late 80’s when Michael Eisner started running Disney. 😊
Notably, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did not write their material to be read by children - the stories were part of the folklore of their time, and as academics they were recording them for scholarly purposes. Also, most of the stories were not even "bedtime stories" for children, but the urban legends of their time, passed between adults as "strange but true."
I'd still say it's a tie between The Mad Doctor (wherein the titular doctor tries to fuse Pluto with a chicken and Mickey is nearly cut in half with a circular saw) and The Old Army Game (wherein Donald is seemingly also cut in two on a barbed wire fence, ATTEMPTS SUICIDE, and adopts a wild-take face presaging Ren Hoek). The last one is doubly dark to me because when it was first released, its audience may have included some soldiers on leave or watching base screenings, some of whom may have been in Pete's position (if you've seen this cartoon, you know what I'm talking about)... Maybe kids were indeed tougher back then, but that still might've triggered some soldiers' PTSD there. Likewise, maybe some adults were scared a bit more than kids by "Chicken Little", since the then-current events symbolism would've been very obvious to them.
This was based on Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism. Also, that was Chicken's Little yo-yo the Fox had, but did you notice the Fox smoking Cocky-Locky's cigar? Apparently he, too, got swept up in the panic.
Very cool deep dive on this old cartoon. I would like to see it get added to Disney plus with a disclaimer at the beginning. I think that would be fair. It sounds like a very creative story and it has great animation and artwork. Truly fantastic to learn about rare Disney stories like this.
Thanks for posting this critique. I'd never seen or even heard of this Disney cartoon before, but I'm glad your video led me to check it out. Greatest Generation is right! Disney could be bold in its storytelling and this message is sadly more timely than ever.
Wow, that thumbnail alone brought back a core memory, as did the scene with the row of wishbones. I grew up in the eighties. Where would I have seen this back then? For some reason, my memory suggests I saw this in a school setting.
I like that story, it makes me think of the mental illness I suffer from called Schizophrenia. People could probably hear voices not knowing where they come from and all turn against each other. Or even see things that make them all turn against each other. But you have to believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
Disney produced a lot of anti Nazi and anti fascist media. Arguably propaganda but anti authoritarian none the less. And the moral was always if good men do nothing all is lost
"Propaganda" is not negative in and of itself, and Allied WW2 era propaganda in particular had a lot of positive messages about standing up to facism, fighting for what you held dear and sacrifice for the greater good.
Fun fact: at some point in ww2, Disney offered any military unit a chance to consult with an artist and have an official mascot drawn up for them. They navy guys overwhelmingly chose donald duck.
Golly gee -- I wonder why? Snarkiness aside, I hadn't heard this tidbit, so thank you for commenting with it! I wonder who the Army Air Corps chose?
Well, water.
Donald Duck was assumed to be in the Navy based on the sailor hat and shirt he wore going back to the very first time he appeared.
@@Novusod Naw. Really?
No yeah, yeah that tracks.
War era cartoons were not meant for little kids. They were meant to play in theatres before movies, which mostly adults visited, which is why so many of these old cartoons had so much violence and adult jokes. The whole notion that Disney, or cartoons in general were for kids is something that developed later.
Yep, especially when they started running them on afternoon and Saturday morning TV for kids. (Every see the one where Daffy Duck gets shot out of a cannon and lands on a rotoscoped Hitler's lap?)
@@joestrike8537Daffy the Commando, one of my favorites
@@jdraven0890 Don't remember the title, but it was in black & white with Daffy promoting saving scrap metal, rubber etc for the war effort during World War 2. He dreams he becomes a super duck and defeats the Axis powers single-handedly (or was it just a dream?...)
@@joestrike8537All things they were teaching kids to do, so it worked for that anyway.
@@joestrike8537Daffy Duck is Looney Tunes, Donald Duck is Disney
"For every laugh, there must be a tear." Walt Disney
“At least that’s what I tell my workers that I underpay and won’t let unionize.”
It's a world of laughs, it's a world of tears....
It's a world of hope and a world of fears...
@StefferKatz was also a freemason and friends with hitler
"Reimagined for a modern audience" - Disney, admitting their audience is reduced to the dumbest of people.
I immediately remember the "Golden Girls" episode where the women put on a play based on Henny Penny in order to encourage kids to visit the library more.
Rose (who is playing Henny) is mortified by the ending, and tries to encourage the kids to clap their hands as a way of "ensuring everyone escapes and lives happily ever after".
The kids don't clap at all, which leaves Rose flustered at first, but in the end she understands kids can handle things better than most adults think.
It's one thing for them to be fine with a downer ending, as often in life things don't end well, but they WANTED the birds to die?
Kids are bloodthirsty. We forget this, despite having been children. We don't grasp true mortality, so death is a plaything.
@@Delcat42 I never liked death as a child. I was saddened by characters dying, real people dying, and had the common fear of dying myself. As I got older I came to terms with death just being a part of the universe. Stars/suns and planets "die" eventually, and even our universe will eventually have a heat death.
I guess I was different. I sometimes enjoyed gore, but I especially didn't want the protagonists (specifically the heroic types) to die. At some point when I read the original Henny Penny as an adolescent I think, I didn't like the ending, but I accepted the book as it was.
@@Lynn-Mae02 Fair enough! We're all made different, and I was a soft touch myself once I sort of put it together that death is, y'know...death. It sounds like you were a sweet kid and I support the heck outta that
@@Delcat42I think it mainly depends on how it’s handled and presented.
8:23 "But that's not what happened in Germany. Is it?" That was COLD.
Well it's for sure what happened in the weimer republic
@@RandomGamerCory As cold as the war?
@@RandomGamerCory Uh no? The people of the Weimar Republic allowed Hitler to rise to power unobstructed.
Even when Berlin was in ruins, and Hitler had killed himself, people still didn't rebel.
@@RandomGamerCory It's happening again. Here. Now.
For what it's worth, there were a lot of attempts, just a lot more cronies.
Don Bluth never cared much about sheparding kids' feelings. His stance seemed to be 'they'll be alright as long as you give 'em a happy ending'. Probably why 'An American Tail' puts people through the wringer way more than any Disney flick does.
Yes. Don Bluth believed in showing something dark, then follow it with a scene that's much lighter. In the Land Before Time, we see baby Flyer dinosaurs playing & eating fruits after Littlefoot's Mother's death. If the entire movie is dark & serious, less people will want to watch.
Don Bluth's "The Secret of Nimh" showed how you properly do a dark children's film.
Bluth was inspired by other dark children's films such as Watership Down and the original Brothers Grimm Tales.
At the same time the legendary Jim Henson was also moving in the same direction when he created the Dark Crystal.
Coming a bit late to the trend Disney itself created the Black Cauldron. Dark was in the "in" fad back in the early 80s. Heavy.
You can't boink the chicken Donathan Bluth
OG Disney didn't either. Bambi and such were dark as hell.
There’s a guideline in writing children’s movies which is the “return to normalcy”. You can write bad stuff into the story as long as it returns to a place of safety, comfort, familiarity etc
Kids can handle some pretty dark stuff, especially if there's a happy ending. They seem to appreciate learning about the "rules of the world".
Don Bluth's philosophy. And it's not wrong.
They change their mind when they rewatch these cartoons and reread these fables and fairy tales when they grow up.
I think teaching kids how the world works is important and doing that with media they watch is a good thing. The media young children consume shapes them immensely, so I think it’s important to make it quality
@@BrazilianMongoose very truem
@@ChristineTheHippie he grew up with the earlier Walt Disney features, having been born the year *Snow White* came out himself. The boomers who ultimately proved triumphant in this historical narrative regarding the company's historical boom and bust cycles grew up with the post-WWII Disney films from *Cinderella* to *The Jungle Book.* So Bluth learned what he learned from the early years of Walt, but those who stayed at Disney learned from his later works.
Someone: "Disney always changes the ending to make things happier"
Me: Well, this incarnation of Chicken Little, the dinosaurs from Fantasia, Ichabod Crane, and Old Yeller would all disagree.
Didn't Ichabod Crane have a good ending in the Disney short. Didn't he marry the second girl and have lots of kids?
@cledgefenrir5681 well, like in the original story, that's more for the viewer/reader to decide.
@thomashuffman3237 I mean that in yhe Disney cartoon I'm pretty sure the ended it with him marring the shorter girl. Thought they actually showed that so not to viewers decision at that point
@cledgefenrir5681 well, the narrator says that it was just a rumor that the denizen of Sleepy Hollow dismiss
@@cledgefenrir5681no
I'm a kid who grew up in the 1980s. I saw this short on VHS, and the ending was actually a nice surprise for me. I was so used to happy endings, especially in Disney shows, that the dark "villain wins" ending was so unexpected that I actually dug it. Of course, I had no idea at the time that it was a WWII analogy.
They had to hold back from making the book at the end Mein Kampf because they thought that would date it. So they were thinking about the post-war future.
Would have been the same in our family had we seen this. We used to joke about hthe idiotic plot twists employed to ensure happy ends in actually unfixable situations.
Why couldn't the CG one be more like this, this is kinda badass.
Ngl, watching this as a kid actually impressed me: a fox managed to convince an entire farm of chickens and ducks to go to his cave, every bird had different personalities and opinions which showed just how good Foxy Loxy(Locksy) was at using psychology and manipulation which I thought was super cool. I never really felt traumatized by this short film but instead I just felt interested in psychology and how it affected people.
So, for most of the 'sanitized-stories':
Mulan does not kill herself.
Ariel gets to stay human.
Quasimodo doesn't starve in a grave.
Etc.
But the narrator saying this isn't how it happens in HIS book, implying that HE was here to show the 'DISNEY' story instead. More so, it implies one even existed.
The end with Foxy Loxy made this a sneak peak of meta story telling. Someone HAD to know.
I didn't know Mulan committed suicide.
@@Jeff-gj7ko try typing Jon Solo in the search bar, you might learn a few OTHER things to know.
@@Jeff-gj7ko Not according to the earliest available source for the legend, "The Ballad of Mulan." Check out the Wikipedia page for "Hua Mulan" for references to a variety of versions of the tale. If Hua Mulan wasn't an actual person, I'm sure there were many women like her in every war ever fought. Seriously -- I wonder how many young French women swiped the uniforms and weapons from dead Allied soldiers and fought with them until they were found out alive or found out dead?
@@Jeff-gj7ko Mulan only did that in a story where she was forced to marry the leader of the Huns after her home was destroyed by the Huns... Which is actually a story considered _Insulting_ to the actual legend of Hua Mulan.
See, the legend was that Mulan was _never_ discovered at any point _until_ the war ended. She effectively retired and returned home until the general and several of Mulan's fellow soldiers turned up to her home to congratluate the great hero, only to find out the son was too young and too different in facial shape to have been the great commander who lead them to victory... And then Mulan Stepped forward to confess.
Funnily enough, The only things the Animated Disney movie got wrong were 1) The Supernatural elements (Including Mushu and the cricket), 2) Mulan being discovered to _be_ a woman _before_ she got home, and 3) the Huns being defeated by Black powder-based weaponry.
Mulan actually married the commander who was leading her regiment during the War, so that was actually one of those scenes that were true to the legend.
It seems like a happy ending to me…from a certain point of view.
it's a cautionary tale. those are far less effective if everything works out in the end. as we know, modern "fluffy" Disney is concerned with only one thing: making money. parents are going to spend more on happy little stories that make their kids sit still for an hour. too dark and the kids get upset and then the parents get upset and they give them less money.
I'm pretty sure a depressing ending would make a lot of kids sit more still than an exciting ending.
I believe it is more a matter that depressing endings aren't the movies kids ask to watch.
Lol Optimus prime is why Duke was changed to a coma in gi joe the movie.
Not only were kids back then more used to this kind of thing, but cartoons by and large were more meant for adults. They were often shown before any type of film that the studio who owned them produced(it wasn't uncommon to see a cartoon before a live action flick for example)
TV changed that, and once boomers took over the executive roles in media, that became a self-fulfilling prophesy despite a few notable exceptions who remembered what pre-TV cartoons were like or even the early years of TV cartoons where the producers actually tried to compensate for budget limitations in other ways.
@@Attmay The irony is that limited animation (what we might think of "Hanna-Barbera animation") was originally conceived as an artistic backlash to the fuller "Disney style" animation which was the standard. Then execs in the '50s discovered that it cost less to produce, and it became the standard in Western animation until the '80s, when Don Bluth led the charge to bring back full animation as another artistic backlash, this time to Disney etc.'s culture of mediocrity at the time.
I remember Chicken Little!! I actually really loved that short as a kid despite how dark it was hahaha
This is actually a very timely cartoon that should be shown to older elementary schoolers (or middle schoolers, at least).
Heck, even young kids should watch it. Kids understand more than they let on, and its pretty wise in its message. After all, old morality tales were dark because they stuck in the minds of kids longer than generic happy stories, so that the moral would be remembered.
It's on the parents to decide what content their kids consume.
You can't outsource all parental work to schools.
@@CordeliaWagner1999 But see, then you run into the problem of parents making their kids into idiots that only believe whatever ideology their parents want them to believe.
Some parents view their kids more as a vanity project than another human being they're responsible for raising into a well rounded, thinking individual.
So what do we do? Treat children like property, or like people?
It takes a village to raise a child, after all.
They need to play this even more now.
Don’t believe everything you read brother is hilarious ending dialogue.
y'know seeing the original makes me realize all the more why the 2005 remake was so derided
So is Buck Cluck (The worst Disney dad ever) supposed to be like Cocky Locky.
@@billyjudd3326He's the Bizarro version.
I don't remember Chicken Little (2005) being like this...
This was the cool, un-Disneyfied version.
Turns out, despite Tolkien's protests, what we would call Disneyfication today is what happens after Uncle Walt _leaves._
"If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded." -Karl Marx
To this day Disney doesn’t want to acknowledge this short
They did put it on the Chicken Little DVD, but that was like what, 15-20 years ago at this point?
@@joestrike8537 never saw it on dvd from my memory
@@joestrike8537 that was in an old dvd that people don’t know exist
@@watchforever1724By gum, you're right! Could've sworn I watched it on my Chicken Little movie DVD...but it doesn't seem to be on the disc. [Scratches head] Now I have no idea where I did see it - HOWEVER, it can be viewed here on TH-cam at th-cam.com/video/p_GaYdae4j0/w-d-xo.html - complete with an introduction from cartoon maven Leonard Maltin.
There was an edition of Walt Disney Treasures DVDs that had it. That series was amazing but it died with Roy E. Disney and with Dick Cook's resignation from Walt Disney Pictures after decades at the company. He was there before Michael Eisner. He worked his way up from being a cast member. And around that time, Disney's attitude toward its history took a turn for the worse, and it is costing them their future. You could see them getting lazier and lazier. TH-cam is to Disney as Mufasa in the clouds is to Simba at this point. Simba listened. Will Disney? Doesn't look like it. Boomers gonna boomer.
funny how what applied almost 100 years ago still applies today ..
those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it ..
Wow! Still important. This wasn’t for kids but rather their parents. Cartoons were a part of going to movies along with newsreels.
Fascinating and definitely important to make accessible.
2024: CARTOON HAS UNHAPPY ENDING! I SCARE!
1943: Hahaha! Another wacky cartoon! Where do they come up with this stuff?
Not saying it isn't outside of Disney's usual fare, but let's not act like this is deeply horrific material. It might not have been normal for Disney, but was sure as heck normal for just about any other studio.
WB and M-G-M characters basically went to war with each other for seven minutes at a time. All Pluto gets to do is get mad at smaller, cuter animals that he forgives by the seven-minute mark.
@@Attmay and then you had Fleischer where there was a bird...or maybe a plane tag teaming with the guy from the Navy who eats spinach shakes straight from the can all before a ghost decides to pop in and say "BOO!"
I wouldn't say this is THAT far outside their usual fare. Check out The Mad Doctor and The Old Army Game. And in terms of tearjerking, The Ugly Duckling (the 1939 version) might be harder for me to watch than Bambi.
@@andyjay729 Point taken. But it's true that their shorts generally avoided the same kind of dark humor that studios like Warner Brothers preferred.
@@PlayStonkers Yeah, I can't remember any Disney shorts where Mickey, Donald, etc. actually died (though there were some where characters actually faked their deaths). That said, it seemed like Donald's mental and physical tortures were often done slower and slightly more realistically, and I kinda think Disney had some scarier sound effects, such as in The Brave Little Tailor (when the giant approaches) and Donald's Gold Mine (when he falls into a rock crusher).
I've seen this short on regular TV. My grandparents had a video of war time cartoons that had this one as well.
I do agree original Chicken Little is pretty dark.
I remember being upset this short. 😨😨😨😨😰😰😰😰
Still a better cartoon to show to children than Disney's 2005 Chicken Little.
Yeah, because unlike the movie, this actually has a valuable lesson to teach: you shouldn't believe everything you hear, and that you must always, always, ALWAYS check the facts first. Compare that to the movie, which teaches that it's okay to bully a CHILD over a stupid mistake that's not even that big of a deal
@@thomashuffman3237 I actually saw 1943's Chicken Little on tv as a kid. It didn't really shock me that much, though I was surprised by the ending. My appreciation has only grown. I think this is one of the best WWII cartoons.
@@thomashuffman3237 The sad thing is that this cartoon’s message is the reality we’re facing right now if we don’t course correct it.
You may be right.
@@thomashuffman3237 Utterly and completely OT here, but "Huffman" isn't a super-common surname. You usually see "Hoffman." My grandmother's maiden name was Huffman. Are you or any of your ancestors from North Carolina?
...while I disagree with your assessment of Ole Walt, I think your analysis of Chicken Little and it's contemporary cultural relevance is SPOT ON.
Well done.
Make more....please.
Yes, kids during the 40's were tougher but then again these animated shorts weren't meant solely for children either! These shorts were often shown during intermission in theaters during the 30's up to the early 60's.
When the short was originally shown in theaters, it would have been part of a whole evening of films. Theae would hzve included other shorts, travelogues and newsreels of recent events. And audience would have been comprised of a cross section of people living in the area, young, old, familes, couples on dates, friends, etc. My point being, this was made for a wider audience than just children. Hopefully it opened up a conversation between parents and their children, giving them a chance to reinforce the infered moral of the story.
0:38 "I'm the mascot of an evil corporation!"😉🐭
Me: Just curious, that Fox DID remember to literally erase the footprints of the fowls he'd just eaten BEFORE the farmer finds out, didn't he?
Foxy Loxy: What are you nuts? Of course, I did... (That is when he realizes that he didn't) Oh, no. Oh, no!
(Cue outside where a scowling Cocky Locky leading the shotgun carrying farmer to the fox's cave)
Because according to trivia, it is revealed that all of the other birds have been eaten by Foxy Loxy, but Cocky was NOT amongst the birds that fled to the cave, implying he managed to avoid being eaten by Foxy.
And there's the little ray of hope!
If not a happy ending, at least a satisfying revenge.
Also, how in the hell did a single fox manage to eat several chicken, ducks, and even turkeys in a single setting? 😂 if it was a wolf, it would be more believable.
Stand in for fox bloodrus where they clean out an entire hen house but only eat a couple.
Early Disney cartoons were not for children. They were a test of animation. The main ones, like Looney Tunes, were also the Simpsons of their day. Again, not for kids.
Disney didn't get its reputation as being a G/PG only company until the 80s.
Of course, they were for kids. They were shown in movie theaters to kids every week before the show. Disney wouldn't get anything beyond a PG rating before the 80s because the new rating system of PG13 didn't exist until 1984. Gen X grew up with Old Yeller Disney. It's unrecognizable now.
The Simpsons were being aggressively marketed to kids and teens fairly early on, from Butterfinger commercials to cartoony platformer NES games. A lot of stuff didn't have as stringent walls of separation as they do today, igniting moral panics that helped cause those walls to be built in the first place, such as a family-friendly Mortal Kombat kartoon called Defenders of the Realm, and toys and Saturday morning cartoons for R-rated movies from Rambo to RoboCop.
@@morticia981*Old Yeller* was 1957, so that puts it squarely in the Baby Boom, although Tommy Kirk actually missed the cutoff date by about three years. Kevin Corcoran was part of that generation.
Generation X Disney was the period from Walt's death up until around *The Fox and the Hound* or thereabout. It was the era when boomers started working at the company before eventually taking it over and putting a Simpsonian stranglehold on it to this day.
@@autobotstarscream765but then actually adult-oriented cartoons came along and left them with nothing but memories of when they had the prime time network cartoon audience virtually monopolized.
Sometimes, the bad guys can win. Not just by being smarter but by being allowed to do whatever they want.
I had this on VHS as a kid and it blew my mind.
I like the surprise ending. A morality play for a turbulent time of worldwide calamity. Not just something to tickle the ears.
My daughter just asked me what my favorite "DISNEY" movie was...I told her a long list besides "THE ONE" and hoped she remembered that we watched and LOVED togethe, LOL 🤣😂🤣 I sent her a revamped version about 10 minutes ago... telling her I remembered this "PIXAR" short from years ago but had forgotten. Instant MEMORIES...for real.
I remember seeing this during the 90´s Disney afternoon. Even with the bad ending I sort of felt like the masses were stupid and got what happens when you panic and don´t think. A cautionary tale. I have liked this a lot, I like the creativity the community how it´s made and what the fox cooks up. It´s fun with a deep message.
Good video. I've seen the cartoon. I'm glad Disney kept the original ending. Considering the events of
July 13, 2024, I'd say this video was released at the right time in our history. I wish more people would heed CL's warnings.
It would have been more timely to release it after January 6th 2021. This was the real world "Go to the cave" moment. July 13 won't be remembered.
cant believe i watched this when i was 5 when silly symphonies was on netflix
09:25 I think all creative content should be shown, with context. I was sad when Dr, Seuss books were pulled for questionable content. I realize its their property, and they can do what they want with it, but I believe (to quote a famous wizard) "For it is the doom of men that they forget." Keep the books in circulation but add a LESSON in the book. "This was made a long time ago before people realized how this kind of thinking was problematic." Like what Warner Brothers did with their Golden Age DVD collection. Each disc basically started with Whoopi Goldberg saying, "Hey, y'all. This stuff was made a long time ago and people said things, that we now know, they shouldn't have. Enjoy!"
Someone should change the book title to "Art of the Deal" and change, "The sky is falling!" with "The election was stolen!".
6:58 Good, there’s nothing wrong with having a message to a story. As long as it’s done well.
Yeeesss older disney didn't mind doing stuff like this. Kids can still handle dark stuff. Its the adults in their lives that freak out and want to over shelter them.
I'm pretty sure the Chicken Little short is also on Disney Treasures: Disney Rarities - Celebrated Shorts: 1920s - 1960s. I could be wrong, though.
Still, this is the Chicken Little to watch. Still holds up.
I believe that's correct! Thank you for pointing that out!
i wish disney went through disneyfication in 2024.
There was one Disney short where an eagle picked up a lamb that strayed from its flock. That's all I can remember about it because as a kid I was horrified by this happening. I want to find it again as an adult to see if it's as bad as I remember but idk where to start looking.
Sounds familiar! If I can remember it, I'll let you know, but in the meantime, perhaps the internet can do its thing. Anyone know this short?
You can ask Gemini about where it came from. Just send some details of the scene and it’ll tell you where it’s from Ig.
Was that Lambert the Sheepish Lion?
@@tabithamashburn8786 No
@tabithamashburn8786 I watched lambert the sheepish lion just now; that's not the one unfortunately. Only thing in there is a wolf, not a bird of prey.
I still think we're more likely to see this short show up on Disney Plus than Song of the South
I saw it on TV in the 1970s when I was a kid.
Naturally I didn't understand the references to the second world war.
Thanks for uploading the video it was interesting to see this again after all these years.
¨some animals are more equal than others¨
That's to Orwellian but true!
Don't have (or feign) regretting showing this! This is history in animation and in life. This is too apparent in what is going on now! Thanks for this.! Big thumbs up!
I saw this when I was a TEENAGER yet the ending still freaked me out.
Wow, a disney adaptation that was close to the original story
They would a least another one a few years later (The Sleeping Hollow section of the "Ichabod and Mr. Toad" movie).
It's actually pretty different. There's nothing in the original story about Foxy Loxy spreading propaganda to undermine the birds' faith in their leader. But definitely different from a stereotypical Disney cartoon. LOL.
It's amazing how this story fits so perfectly in so many so called democracies of today
This Foxy Loxy was a real smart and deceiving villain, especially with his Psychology book. In fact, he could be a secret villain for a new Disney movie or video game, like in a new Kingdom Hearts game. Just a thought.
I remember this short, but the last time I tried to look for it, it was buried under the new 3D Disney Chicken Little
Man, imagine if we got a full length movie of THIS Chicken Little instead of…what we wound up getting
I did a report on this for my Adv. Speech class. I went a little further comparing it to the Nazi party and my teacher was impressed. Haven't thought about that in years.
Son. You meant to say modern day politics...
@@techpriest4787indeed
Let’s face it: people are sucked into everything from fashion to medication. This portrays that everything because although people are the individual they want to be, they always want to follow a hero!
Holy cow! I want see that! Don't know how I missed that! I've seen that chicken little character of that cartoon here & there. But never thought it was from a Disney. I just typed two letters, "C" and "H" & TH-cam already already knew what I was looking for. I'm starting not to like autofill.
Maybe I'll stick to the Chicken Little movie that has baseball, nuts, and the Cheetah Girls song.
I remember watching it on french TV during the 1990s. Chilling.
I watched this when I was a kid. Seems pretty relevant today.
Well that short was propaganda made for the adults in the audience. A lot of the cartoons of the time were made to appeal to all ages and included pop culture references and sexy material that would appeal to adults, but not cross the line into pornography. I mean a lot of animation has always been like that honestly. The mass murder in this short IS kinda intense for kids, but as a propaganda short, it's actually pretty tame compared to Disney's others.
Propaganda is untrue "information" meant to brainwash the viewer/reader. There is nothing "untrue" about this story.
This short is *NOTHING* compared to "An Education For Death"
@@sonicfanboy3375that just handled the subject matter point blank without metaphor showing how everything they do is to train them for war and destruction. That was out of circulation for a while after the war. I remember the 1943 *Chicken Little* being on the Disney Channel thanks to *Mouseterpiece Theater* with George Plimpton. It had obviously had at least one post-war reissue if the title RKO Radio Pictures credit was replaced. They had to bring these old cartoons back because urban legends were spreading about their point of view.
The irony is that after the war, the CIA brought ex Nazis to the United States. One of them was Werner Von Braun, and he talked about outer space on the *Disneyland* TV show.
Then you have Pinocchio where root beer turns boys into donkeys rather disturbingly...yikes.
"Oh, kids can handle dark stuff!" "Why didn't Disney change the story????"
OMG. I recently watched this toon and I was shocked by the ending. Also Foxy Loxy's design reminds me of another blacklisted Disney fox....
Which fox was that?
@@rdphoenix07 Br'er Fox from The Song of The South/also Splash Mountain.
@@Misscouchpotato- Oh, yeah, that's right. How could I forget him?
You were...shocked that a fox would munch on chickens and water fowl? 🤨
@@bezoticallyyours83 not shocked from him wanting to eat them but I was Shocked that Disney would actually have characters get eaten at the end. I wasn't expecting chicken little to die. I thought they were gonna get out somehow like some Looney toons type crap. I saw some comments of people saying how they were surprised by the ending but I didn't know what they meant till I saw it for myself. There's funny music when they run in the tree and then suddenly after the fade to black we see bones. Took me a second to realize what happened lol
It's sad that modern kidsstorys meant to prepare kids for reality became rare, while old storys geting treated like the all are 1940's German propaganda, even if they ( like the Struwwelpeter released in 1845 ) have nothing to do with politics.
I remember watching this as a kid. Thought it was great. Loved the ending.
5:25 Next to the yo-yo, you can even see more bones from the animals, and if you look closer, the shadows depict some beaks or something with a hat on it.... chilling
Bro, Disney be metal back then
"But that's not what happened in Germany, is it?" Gives me serious chills
I watched this as a kid! Completely forget about it.
Chicken little = (you know)
Foxy Loxy = Stephen Miller
You mean the reincarnation of Josef Goebbels? (They could be twins)
I remember watching this short as a child. I don't think I was disturbed by it, but I did feel sad for Chicken Little and his friends after what happened to them at the end.
They did obviously water things down with "Hunchback", but "Hellfire" is possibly the darkest Disney villain song. Pity that they didn't try to go all in and make their first truly adults-only animated film as they were planning originally. It (and 1992's "Rover Dangerfield", which was also originally planned as a truly adults-only feature) could've aborted the current stereotype that all adult animation has to be like South Park and Family Guy. Adult animation could've been somewhat classier.
YT has the whole unexpurgated version from the Leonard Maltin VHS commentary.
I remember originally seeing it on Disney’s wonderful world of color on TV. I think the shirt still holds up today. But you’re right it sort of basically holds up to contemporary threats..
Those contemporary threats are coming from the same people who were trying to warn us about them in the 1940s.
Disney has removed the beginning of Bambi where you see a hinter, see Bambis mom sense him, then hear a shot. The scene is implied and then we know Bambi is an orphan.
So no gently knowing kids death happens, orphans happen.
I'm sure pretending otherwise will leave kids better prepared when they ultimately encounter death.
We're raising a generation of coddled clueless kids who are totally unprepared for reality. I'm sure they'll thank us for the anxiety, trauma and ineffectual lack of skills were giving them to face life.
Reason and Emotion makes the point this short is making better. But both shorts are good and should be seen by all
I remember seeing this during Saturday morning cartoons back in the '70s (I'm 57). I have seen it many times. I remember finding it dark, but still laughed at it when I was a kid.
I don't know where I seen it (probably online) but I vaguely remember seeing it and thought it was awesome.
Frankly, I feel like, especially in the US, we underestimate children.
Especially the type of adult cartoon fans that don’t want children in the discussion when it comes to shows out of insecurity.
What people think old Disney is: Happy go lucky characters in events where nothing goes wrong. What old Disney had:
I was a kid growing up when the Disney Channel first came out, and let me tell you it was nothing like it is now. Disney originally had no problem showing movies like Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Watcher In The Woods on the Channel. Disneyfication didn’t really start to become a thing until the late 80’s when Michael Eisner started running Disney. 😊
Notably, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm did not write their material to be read by children - the stories were part of the folklore of their time, and as academics they were recording them for scholarly purposes. Also, most of the stories were not even "bedtime stories" for children, but the urban legends of their time, passed between adults as "strange but true."
I'd still say it's a tie between The Mad Doctor (wherein the titular doctor tries to fuse Pluto with a chicken and Mickey is nearly cut in half with a circular saw) and The Old Army Game (wherein Donald is seemingly also cut in two on a barbed wire fence, ATTEMPTS SUICIDE, and adopts a wild-take face presaging Ren Hoek).
The last one is doubly dark to me because when it was first released, its audience may have included some soldiers on leave or watching base screenings, some of whom may have been in Pete's position (if you've seen this cartoon, you know what I'm talking about)... Maybe kids were indeed tougher back then, but that still might've triggered some soldiers' PTSD there. Likewise, maybe some adults were scared a bit more than kids by "Chicken Little", since the then-current events symbolism would've been very obvious to them.
As dark as this is, it’s still better than the 2005 version of Chicken Little.
Nah, this version is still better than the Chicken Little Movie.
I have seen it on Danish television less than ten years ago - in a show aimed at children.
This was based on Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism. Also, that was Chicken's Little yo-yo the Fox had, but did you notice the Fox smoking Cocky-Locky's cigar? Apparently he, too, got swept up in the panic.
Eh, maybe he rushed in trying to save them . . . big mistake on his part.
Very cool deep dive on this old cartoon. I would like to see it get added to Disney plus with a disclaimer at the beginning. I think that would be fair. It sounds like a very creative story and it has great animation and artwork. Truly fantastic to learn about rare Disney stories like this.
Watched video again and took notes.
Thanks for posting this critique. I'd never seen or even heard of this Disney cartoon before, but I'm glad your video led me to check it out. Greatest Generation is right! Disney could be bold in its storytelling and this message is sadly more timely than ever.
Thanks for watching!
Wow, that thumbnail alone brought back a core memory, as did the scene with the row of wishbones.
I grew up in the eighties. Where would I have seen this back then? For some reason, my memory suggests I saw this in a school setting.
It was a happy end for Foxy. We can only survive together.
The chicken little movie : but actually good
6:43 I think most kids now could handle this, even if they would prefer a slightly different ending.
I like that story, it makes me think of the mental illness I suffer from called Schizophrenia. People could probably hear voices not knowing where they come from and all turn against each other. Or even see things that make them all turn against each other. But you have to believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.
Those wishbones remind me of a scene from 'Alien'.