We Want The D

Welcome to the most self-indulgent episode of We Want The D to date! In this special mini-episode Vicky, Nolan and Jill look back at all the most ridiculous, boring and flat-out bad Disney movies we've watched over the past 100+ episodes and try to come up with a definitive list of the ten worst Disney movies we've watched to date. Each of our hosts brings their own opinions to the table and duke it out over which movies deserve the prestige of being top of the garbage pile. There's shock, there's anger and there's grim acceptance as they go about their task, but it's all worth it at the end when they are able to present to you the definitive We Want The D Bottom Ten! (So far...)

This week on We Want The D, it's a tale of two grandfathers. One, a lumber magnate who started from the bottom and now is in command of his own massive logging enterprise, but still has a soft spot for his young-yet-corpse-like grandchildren. The other, a gnome who is despondent to the point of illness because his adult grandson will never get laid after all the other gnomes in their forest vanish when the lumberjacks come. When their paths cross, it's no surprise that hijinks ensue, though not in any way Vicky, Nolan or Jill could have expected. We're talking carny kidnappings, asylum jailbreaks, and an extended greased pig chase only with gnomes. Disney's THE GNOME-MOBILE takes some odd turns, but in spite of it all, in managed to capture a little piece of our hosts' hearts with how endearing all that nonsense is. Not unlike the titular song for this film composed by the Sherman Brothers - it certainly isn't their best work, but it's gonna get stuck in your head for weeks anyway.

The Summer of Pirates continues on We Want The D! The second installment of Disney's seafaring franchise has pretty much the whole behind and in front of the camera team returning with bigger action, bigger boats and almost certainly bigger paychecks. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST may have crammed way more action sequences and plot into what amounts to essentially half a story, but it also added some new and mostly welcome faces to the franchise, from Tom Hollander's littlest East India Company Man to Bill Nighy's delightful turn as a tentacled Davy Jones. So while some of the cracks in the franchise have already started to show, Vicky, Nolan and Jill are willing to overlook them in favour of the fun this entry managed to inject into this now-bloated series of films. Whether this trend will continue will have to wait until next month as the Summer of Pirates continues!

We've established in past episodes that the early years of Disney weren't exactly smooth sailing for the company, what with that pesky Second World War and those damn communist animators striking for better wages or whatever. This week on We Want The D, we're taking on one of Disney's efforts to stay afloat without breaking the bank with THE RELUCTANT DRAGON. The title animated segment is just a small portion of this movie, which isn't really so much of an actual film as it is a behind-the-scenes tour of Disney studio. Which, to the delight of Vicky, Nolan and Jill is actually pretty fascinating much of the time, as we see foley artists at work and get to see a multi-plane camera in action. But on the other hand we also have to deal with the casual racist and sexist attitudes of the early 1940s and popular essayist Robert Benchley's largely perverted antics. There's a lot of conflicted feelings this week, but we hope you aren't conflicted in your enjoyment of this episode.

To celebrate the release of Disney's live action version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST on blu-ray, DVD and Clamshell VHS; We Want The D is releasing our episode discussing the film. Recorded just a few days after Vicky, Nolan and Jill saw the movie in theatres, it's a blast from the recent past that will answer all your burning questions about how our hosts felt about this interpretation of these beloved characters, songs and story. Did Emma Watson breathe fresh life into the role or did she come short? Were the musical numbers a visual spectacle or weak homage? Did changes to the story address all the plot holes of the original, or were they just distracting? You'll only find out by listening, so pop the headphones on and get ready to revisit the world of Beauty and the Beast all over again as We Want The D proves Disney aren't the only ones who can churn out remakes of old content.

This week, it's another dead and deadbeat parents, fun concept turned into margarine on bleached cardboard, wrong-headed casting decisions extravaganza. And, for Vicky, Nolan and Jill, one of the most egregious examples at that. Disney did almost everything wrong in spotlight some classic Nazi comedy, doubling down with teacher-on-student bullying, and putting Lauren Graham in the worst outfit to ever grace the silver screen. It's THE PACIFIER's turn to get the We Want The D treatment, and it makes itself an easy target.

Welcome, D-sciples, to the Summer of Pirates! We Want The D is celebrating the decades old tradition of blockbuster season by dedicating the next five months to one of Disney's most successful franchises, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. On the eve of the release of a fifth installment that nobody really asked for or wanted, Vicky, Nolan and Jill go back to where it all began - when a big budget movie based on a theme park ride, captained by an eccentric lead actor in a one-of-a-kind performance sailed into the hearts and minds of audiences everywhere. 2003 was a simpler time for movie franchises, and our hosts look back fondly on this stand-alone film unhindered by the baggage of multiple sequels and Johnny Depp's scandal-laden life and bizarre career choices. There'll be plenty of time for all that in the months ahead, but until then, we hope you'll enjoy the start of this epic series as we navigate the treacherous waters of the Summer of Pirates.

It's prom season, y'all. The time of year when teenagers get all gussied up, tearfully reminisce about all those good high school times, and get underage drunk. Of course in Disney's PROM only two of those three things are going to happen. Vicky, Nolan and Jill may have grown somewhat cynical about this "greatest night of our lives" event, but our hosts still had a blast talking about this movie. How could they not, when the cast of high school students have age ranges from 16 to 28 and the presence of Aimee Teegarden gives them an excuse to talk about Friday Night Lights at length (again). They even do a little retrospective thinking on their own proms, and we know how much you D-sciples have been clamouring to know more about that. You don't even need to ask, We Want The D delivers.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away...

DISNEY'S THE BLACK HOLE Episode I: We Just Made the One Episode

A small tuna can-shaped ship drifts through the blackness of space, on a long search for intelligent life or a hospitable planet, or something like that. Crewed by an unlikely group of largely boring versions of better actors, as well as Ernest Borgnine and Norman Bates from Psycho, and one floating trash can that speaks in Snapple Cap quotes. Little do they know they will soon stumble across the long-lost USS Cygnus, and find that its crew has mysteriously vanished, and certainly have not been turning into those human-looking robots by the unhinged Dr. Hans Reinhardt and his murderously aggressive henchman robot (slash-possible captor) Maximillian. A story that is largely predictable is about to transpire, followed by a roughly 30 minute climax that needs to be seen to believed, though not necessarily understood.

The Black Hole: The final frontier. This is the voyage of a small crew into possibly Hell or Heaven. It's unclear, but it's almost certainly where no man (or Girl) has gone before.

We've talked our fair share about Disney's recent trend of remaking their animated classics into live action spectacles here on We Want The D. But somehow, we forgot that this trend it older than the past few years. That in fact it dates back to the mid 90s, when for some reason, the people running the House of Mouse decided it would be a good idea to throw an absurd amount of money at making a live action version of their classic 101 DALMATIANS. The result is some pretty impressive production design, elaborate action set pieces staged in downtown London, and of course an absurd amount of merchandising. What nobody working on the movie seemed to realize is taking movie that derived its charm from its talking animal characters and reorienting the story so it centered on the boring human counterparts was an absurdly bad idea. The result is something that looks a lot like 101 Dalmatians, but a soulless, bland version of the first half of the movie and a second half that is basically Home Alone.