We Want The D

"Have no fear, UNDERDOG is here!" is a common refrain heard throughout this week's Disney movie. But trust us, D-Lovers, fear is about the last emotion one could feel when watching this film. Apathy, probably. Boredom, almost certainly. But fear? Or really, any strong emotion? Not likely. For that, someone would have had to have cared enough to put more than the bare minimum amount of effort in any aspect of this movie's creation. It's a good thing that, with so few movies left for our hosts to watch on this journey, it can pretty much only go up from here.

This week on We Want The D, it's an unprescedented, three-for-one, cinematic Poohniverse spectacular! That's right, purely because we wanted to do something special and certainly not because our hosts couldn't bear the thought of doing three separate episodes on movies primarily made for toddlers. And as it turns out it was definitely the right call for at least two out of the three of these Disney releases - PIGLET'S BIG MOVIE, POOH'S HEFFALUMP MOVIE and the eponymous WINNIE THE POOH.

We wrap up this little run of Disney documentaries with what may be the best one our hosts have seen - WAKING SLEEPING BEAUTY. An insiders look at the rise of the renaissance through the release of The Lion King, this doc features some names and faces that will be very familiar to any longtime listeners and especially fans of some of our history-focused Minnie Mouse-isodes. And while you may have heard our takes on this era of Disney, this film gives the perspective of the animators and other creatives active at the studio at the time - the little guys whose lives were at the mercy of the whims of a couple of Hollywood executives named Mikey and Jeffy, who came bursting in the door with big personalities and even bigger egos.

It's always a delight when our hosts discover something wholly unexpected in the Disney catalog. And none of them could have predicted they'd watch anything quite like ENDURANCE on this podcast journey. Part documentary, part dramatic reenactments performed by the actual subject(s) of the true story being performed, it's not quite like anything any of them had seen before and after what feels like hundreds of animal movies that all felt more or less the same...you can imagine the relief.

It's been awhile since we last took a peek behind the curtain at some of the men (funny how it's always men) behind the scenes that helped shape the Disney brand. This week, our hosts celebrate the seemingly simple lives of two of the nine old men, FRANK AND OLLIE, who had a documentary made on them (by Frank's son and the company they worked for since the 1930s) in the mid-90s. And while not without its charms, it ends up being a pretty soft documentary about two very soft boys.

Nearly twenty years after the first movie and seven years after our episode on it, our hosts are returning to Salem with HOCUS POCUS 2! The Sanderson Sisters are back! Billy is back! That's all who is a back! But the good news is the newcomers to the sequal are welcome additions to the lore. And despite the "straight-to-Disney Plus" level budget, this long awaited sequel manages to capture a lot of the essence of the original while still being it's own thing. All-in-all, not a bad October Season surprise. Or maybe our hosts' minds have just been poisoned after years of replacing the Sanderson Sisters with the Halloweentown Cromwell family.

Another October Season is upon us, and any long-time listener will know that this time of year has become synonymous with certain DCOM franchises. So our hosts are returning to the strangely segregated town of Seabrook one last time with Z-O-M-B-I-E-S 3. What sprasely costumed monsters will upset the status quo this time? What craft supplies will they have glued to their clothes? And how quickly will Addison decide to ditch her supportive circle of loved ones in favour of a group of people she just met but somehow feels she "belongs" with?

It's with great delight that our hosts return to the world of Planes (or is it still called The World of Cars?). Not only because it allows them to dig deep into the how the mechanics of this mechanical world work, but because against all odds, PLANES: FIRE & RESCUE is one of those sequels that manages to surpass the original. And by a lot in this case. We're talking laughs, we're talking thrills, we're talking what may be Dane Cook's finest performance, period. Put it this way: it feels like awhile since one of our hosts ended up in tears within the first 20 minutes of an episode, who would have thought it would be the sequel to a Cars spin-off that prompted it?

At long last, our collective nightmare is over. With NIKKI, WILD DOG OF THE NORTH, not only do our hosts finish off every Disney movie theatrically released in the 1960s, but seemingly finally finish watching all these pseudo-documentary animal movies. And while much of this one is familiar territory (IE it's mostly animals fighting), there were some unexpected surprises. Like a martial arts form that may be entirely unique to this movie. Still, any shortcomings of its genre aren't enough to put a damper on our hosts' reflections of this decade of Disney, which isn't bad, all things considered.

Since our hosts have seen three Disney movies called "The Jungle Book" let's start by clarifying that yes, this is a theatrically released sequel to the 1967 animated classic, made thirty-six years after the original. And much like the other animated sequels of this era, it's basically the same movie all over again in reverse. Quite literally, this is the story of Mowgli returning to the jungle and singing The Bare Necessities ad nauseum before a confrontation with the blood-thirsty Shere Khan. It's a bold-faced cash grab more than it is a movie, but at least it provokes some interesting discussion from our hosts as to how far (or not far) the company has come.