Disney's The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad / Fun and Fancy Free (Blu-ray) Preorder (1 Viewer)

[Jason_V]

The day the great state of California made all kids under the age of eight sit in car seats if they are under a certain weight, I knew we were headed for dark days indeed. I was born in the 1980s, and I got to sit in the regular seat from the time I was four years old onward.

I was without a seatbelt in between my grandparents on the highway. No seat belt.

I watched Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back-alone-when I was under four years old. I watched Jaws and Poltergeist and Krull and Ice Pirates (among others) under the age of 6.

The easily frightened kids can usually be traced back to over protective parents.

 

[cafink]

Putting a seatbelt on a child while driving is not being "overprotective."

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I'm trying to figure out at what point this became a conversation about "helicopter parenting." Can we get back to the movies, please?

 

[MatthewA]

I'm trying to figure out at what point this became a conversation about "helicopter parenting." Can we get back to the movies, please?

It's relevant because it affects how Disney treats its back catalog. I get a strong sense they assume we can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality and they treat us accordingly.

 

[JoeDoakes]

Putting a seatbelt on a child while driving is not being "overprotective."

It is if you're driving at the time.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

It's relevant because it affects how Disney treats its back catalog. I get a strong sense they assume we can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality and they treat us accordingly.

Fair enough, but it's gotten way off track IMHO.

 

[Walter C]

The thing with almost all Disney is there are dark or scary elements. Snow White, for instance, shows a young child that eating an apple can kill you (and the Evil Witch's transformation). Dumbo is all about being taken away from your mother. Bambi, at the end, is a wildfire and mom being shot.

It could also be what you were watching/"subjected to" at that age versus what she is now. Or the inherant differences between boys and girls.

I remember being scared of the Evil Queen's transformation, probably up there with the kids turning into donkeys in Pinocchio and the Headless Horseman.

 

[Ruz-El]

I was scared as a kid by Disney as well. Here's the thing, was it really such a bad thing? Everyone I know looks back on it as a fun childhood memory being scared to tears or upset by the old cartoons. I don't know of anyone needing counseling over it.

I suspect a lot of the fear over showing this stuff to kids is more a case of parents wanting someone else to parent, as opposed to actually having a negative effect on a kid.

 

[Brian Kidd]

I don't think Disney has a problem with things being too scary for children. I mean, this thread is concerning a film that has a villain who has been BEHEADED. In the end, we'll just have to wait and see. The edits to Melody Time and Make Mine Music were done at a time when HD masters weren't the norm. My gut instincts tell me that new HD masters had to be made from film elements. I doubt they will be top notch restorations, but it's very possible that they'll be uncut. I hope so.

 

[Jari K]

" Four years old...yeah. I would keep her away from pretty much all Disney because it's bound to make her upset in some way. Best to stick with Dora, Sophia or stuff on PBS at this point."That's an overstatement. Most don't get "upset" if they watch some old cartoons. Of course some might.

 

[darkrock17]

You know what would of been a nice feature for this release of [color=rgb(50,50,50);font-family:'Merriweather Sans', sans-serif;]Ichabod the Halloween specials A Disney Halloween and Disney's Halloween Treat. [/color]

 

[MatthewA]

I don't think Disney has a problem with things being too scary for children. I mean, this thread is concerning a film that has a villain who has been BEHEADED.

Disney's not alone. Have you seen some of the later SpongeBob SquarePants episodes? Some of those were pretty gruesome; faces getting ripped off and what not.

 

[darkrock17]

Disney's not alone. Have you seen some of the later SpongeBob SquarePants episodes? Some of those were pretty gruesome; faces getting ripped off and what not.

When I saw this SpongeBob episode, I was rather surprised this made it past the censors and on the air.

 

[DanH1972]

When I saw this SpongeBob episode, I was rather surprised this made it past the censors and on the air.

SpongeBob is more like The Animaniacs of the early 90's... the in-joke humor is aimed squarely at adults. I mean they had jokes about Perry Como and even had a character that was a busty, sexy nurse, so the Warner "brothers" could ogle her, make wolf-calls, and crack old Groucho Marx vaudeville one-liners at her expense... a tip of the hat to classic Tex Avery Looney Tune shorts featuring Red Hot Riding Hood.

Now, a lot of the cartoons are no longer clever, they're just violent.

 

[darkrock17]

SpongeBob is more like The Animaniacs of the early 90's... the in-joke humor is aimed squarely at adults. I mean they had jokes about Perry Como and even had a character that was a busty, sexy nurse, so the Warner "brothers" could ogle her, make wolf-calls, and crack old Groucho Marx vaudeville one-liners at her expense... a tip of the hat to classic Tex Avery Looney Tune shorts featuring Red Hot Riding Hood.

Now, a lot of the cartoons are no longer clever, they're just violent.

SpongeBob has its Animaniacs moments with it's many pop culture refrences throught episodes, but you are right cartoons these days are just so stupid, they have no plot or plot is so predictable you know what will happend in the first few minutes in. I can't say for violence, much these days unless it's certain kinds of Anime. Though when it comes to violence, nothing tops Tom & Jerry.

 

[Walter C]

I was scared as a kid by Disney as well. Here's the thing, was it really such a bad thing? Everyone I know looks back on it as a fun childhood memory being scared to tears or upset by the old cartoons. I don't know of anyone needing counseling over it.

I suspect a lot of the fear over showing this stuff to kids is more a case of parents wanting someone else to parent, as opposed to actually having a negative effect on a kid.

Not to mention, they are convenient scapegoats for the parent when their kid does something terrible. Just like with "Beavis & Butt-Head" back in the early 90's.

Speaking of scary Disney, is there anything scary in the more recent Disney films that would scare kids? The only thing that I can think of, is the Shadow Man or the look of Mother Gothel. Even then, I am really stretching there, as both seem like characters from a Treehouse of Horror episodes of "The Simpsons".

 

[ThadK]

I can't wait to see these with all the grain removed and garbage colors.

 

[Jari K]

"they are convenient scapegoats"Yeah, let's keep all those guns, but let's censor SpongeBoB or old Disney cartoons.

 

[Dick]

Studios (Disney included) are way too paranoid about the content included in films aimed for family audiences. There can be dozens of fart jokes (way-y too often overused, but still popular with little kids) and even kicked-in-the-nuts jokes, but truly scaring children has fallen by the wayside. This comes under the umbrella of "kids are overprotected." Horror movies and scary sequences in Disney films when I was growing up may have given us a few nightmares, but damned if they didn't help us learn to cope with some of the scary challenges of becoming an adult. Plus, even small kids sense on some level that what they are seeing is not real. Why else would we want to be dropped off to those Saturday Matinees featuring films like HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1959) or HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM or HORROR OF DRACULA? We wanted to be scared! These movies tested us, challenged us, and we came out of them laughing and sharing stories about them with our friends -- bragging we had seen them and...survived!! Yes, we used to check under the bed and in the closet before going to bed after we saw some of this stuff, but what doesn't kill us...(as the saying goes).

Same goes for sadness and loss, a part of every person's life. Disney knew this with BAMBI, but began pulling back with THE JUNGLE BOOK in which a supposedly killed Baloo suddenly springs back to life. When in any domestic animated film during the past thirty years has there been a real death that can then be discussed between parents and children to help the latter understand what death is? We adults are in denial and pass that right along to the next generation.

Now everything is sanitized. MALEFICENT (which I have not yet seen) appears to have pulled its punches at the end, whereas for this nine-year-old the most memorable (and very scary) part of SLEEPING BEAUTY was the faery's transformation into a fire-breathing dragon. Kids can handle it. They should be permitted to handle it.

Oddly, though, the moment young kids turn into young teens, Hollywood decides it's suddenly okay to bring them stupefyingly vacuous slasher movies that bring them every conceivable form of horror and slaughter.

Some serious double standards here.

 

[moviebuff75]

The Ichabod sequence is one of my very favorite pieces of animation. The entire story has an eerie feeling about it. That's hard to accomplish in animation...a sense of dread throughout the tale....Bravo to the Disney animators!