Disney Vault Gems

Since the advent of VHS in the 70′s and 80′s Disney has had enough sense to republish and distribute the classic movies of old. Bringing movies out of some fictitious vault, and giving certain franchises much-needed love, not to mention the merchandising that goes along with it. Because of the Disney vault, current whipper snappers know of Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and Aladdin. What of the other ones, the dusty forgotten bunch that have little to no way of merchandising? The movies with a dark past that we would rather forget or the ones that Disney wish they never had made? Some of the more obscure titles in the Disney vault are the most interesting and deserve a little more love.



Song of the South

The most infamous of Disney’s creations, Song of the South tells the story of Uncle Remus (stereotypically caricatured above) the great story-teller. Song of the South is a cross between Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Space Jam, putting many black stereotypes into the characters like Brrr Rabbit and Brrr Fox which are hand drawn per usual in a Disney fashion as they interact with real life actors. The confused moral of the story is that Brr Rabbit should stay in his native Georgia and not runaway from a hard days work because “you can’t runs away from troubles, there aint no place that far”. This movie contains appalling racist views, cartoony depictions of lynching and mentions of “tar babies”.  Racism and ignorance not withstanding, this movie displays some cutting edge technology for the times…but still it is reaaaallly racist. It’s no wonder Disney failed to take this little gem out of the vault, but for those who know better can watch this film critically and examine American Culture pre-civil rights movement.

Los Tres Caballeros

 Or “The Three Gentlemen”, is part of a 3 film Disney series that showcased the incredibly colorful world of Latin America. In Los Tres Caballe
ros, Donald receives a care package from his friends south of the border and each present leads to an animated short. Each of which depicts stories from different Latin cultures like Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. The shorts are full of slap stick comedy and Donald bending the laws of physics. The reason I enjoyed this film was because of the music and real life footage of different parts of Mexico and Brazil.




The Black Cauldron

This animated feature was based on the first two books in the Chronicles of Prydain series which consist of five books. The Chronicles of Prydian are based on Welsh mythology and have the Horned King as the main antagonist. Aside from having a sweet porn handle, the evil Horned King is one evil mofo, raising hoards of ancient undead warriors to do his bidding in search of the black cauldron, which will grant him power to rule the world, “one cauldron to rule them all”. Lord of the Rings rip off not withstanding, the Black Cauldron is full of darker subject matter not common for Disney fodder of the day. The animation is highly detailed and rivals the animation coming out of Japan at the same time. Since its release it has received a minor cult following do to the books gaining popularity and because of the awesome soundtrack.

These titles are just a few of the often overlooked classics of Disney, an honorable mentions go to Tron, The Black Hole, Disney’s Wide World of Sports, Robin Hood, Atlantis the Lost Empire, the Great Mouse Detective, Sword and the Stone and for those looking to get into the video game realm the same dude that drew Sword and the Stone made the Dragon’s Lair arcade game which is a cult classic in its own right