We Want The D

It's our 350th episode! So of course our hosts had to do something special for you, and nothing marks a milestone like talking about the Disney movie with the worst parents ever. Yes, we're finally talking about THE PARENT TRAP FROZEN! Arguably Disney's biggest animated hit of the last twenty years that continues to resonate with children/torture parents to this day, listen to find out how well it lands for three childless millenials.

Every so often our hosts get a harsh reminder that the film studio that brought us movies like Beauty and the Beast and Remember the Titans also made movies like Song of the South and One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing. Disney's SMITH! is one such reminder. An egregiously racist film to its very core on almost every conceivable level, this one left our hosts reeling if not at a total loss for words. So much so that eventually all pretense is abandoned as we resort to talking about twenty-five year old episodes of Law & Order.

What defines greatness? Is it about helping others be their best? Is it about the ability to outrun a cheetah? How about a gift for physical comedy? If none of those seem quite right, then we've got bad news for you about THE WORLD'S GREATEST ATHLETE, because that would imply there's nothing particularly great about it. And if that's the case, why would Disney make such a fil- wait, hold on, says here it came out in 1973, now it all makes sense.

So you're having a bad day. You're taking one down. You sing a sad song just to turn it around. But we all know that never works, so might we suggest watching ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY instead? Because, honestly, it's a pretty sweet little Disney film with more than one or two solid laughs that also imparts a lesson on how to deal with those days that just plain suck. Plus, some great cameos AND two great comedic performances from Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner. It's no surprise our hosts were charmed by this movie and think you will be too.

If we've told you once, we've told you a thousand times: if someone invites you onto a boat, unless you are prepared for the possibility of ending up on the water far away from land, do not get on that boat! It's a lesson young James MacArthur would have been better off remembering in the Disney movie KIDNAPPED. Maybe then the movie would have stayed being about a nephew and his batty uncle trying to kill each other over a decrepit caste instead of being a sort of lesser, more Scottish version of Treasure Island with highlanders instead of pirates.

Usually it's not too difficult to get onside with a Disney sports movie. They are almost always a plucky underdog story with manipulative scores, and really what's not to like about that? And GLORY ROAD even bears some resemblance to one of our favourite Disney football movies you may remember, a real titan of a movie. But the reality is, those movies shouldn't even be uttered in the same setence if we're comparing their relative quality. Cause this movie tries, but unlike the NCAA basketball team it depicts, fails where so many others have succeeded.

This week, with great reluctance, our hosts invite you to MEET THE DEEDLES. What's a Deedle, you ask? Good question. It's a behind-the-times archetypical character of a dumb/slacker comedy. It's a lame, over-the-top, annoying, adult truant. It's, sadly, one of Paul Walker's first film roles, before he became fast and/or furious. Our hosts had the meet the Deedles and now you do too - but we bet you'll wish you deedlen't.

It is with misty eyes and heavy hearts that we bid a fond farewell to one of Disney's biggest leading men. That's right, with THE HORSE IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT our hosts have completed the gauntlet of Dean Jones movies, and what a wild ride it has been. Though surprisingly there's not really a wild ride in this movie - more like silently intense and practiced horse jumping.

Everyone knows that Disney's "Dark Age" was from around 1970-1988, but if we may be so bold we'd like to posit that a second, shorter, animation-specific Dark Age took place roughly around the first decade of the 2000s. Because woof, the movies we've been seeing from that decade are decidedly not great, and BOLT is no exception. While not without its charms (mostly fat hamster related), a movie with lifeless lead character going on a low-stakes journey is hard to get behind - despite our hosts' best efforts.

Fun fact about this week's movie: THE LITTLEST HORSE THIEVES was it's title in North America, drawing on the fun caper of three little ragamuffin children liberating some cute ponies in hopes of taking them to some sort of pony paradise. Meanwhile, in the UK where the film is also set, Disney released it as ESCAPE FROM THE DARK, drawing on the harrowing climax of the film where a group of coal miners are trapped underground and surrounded by poisonous gases. Two titles, but the same movie. How do they fit together, you may ask? Good thing you found this podcast!