The [Disney] Family Formula

I overheard this observation by my mom when she was speaking to a friend after the release of Aladdin. She said that she noticed the last three (big animated) movies all featured single daughters with single dads (Ariel-Triton, Belle-Maurice, Jasmine-Sultan). Disney broke the trend with Lion King and Simba had two parents….for a little while anyway. It got me to thinking about the animated movies and why the main characters have zero or only one parent (or a soon to be killed-off parent). Even looking at the major Pixar releases:

• Toy Story & Toy Story 2 – Andy lives with his mother and sister. (Sid’s home life is nothing to brag about.)
• A Bug’s Life – Dot only has the queen and one of 100 possible dads. Ants are not a good example
• Monster’s Inc – Are Boo’s parents looking for her?
• Finding Nemo – Marlin’s wife and thousand children die swiftly
• The Incredibles – Finally…a full-fledged family
• Cars – All characters are adults
• Ratatouille – Linguini is orphaned, though his parentage plays a role at the end. Remy has only a father.

Perhaps that’s just how movie stories work and it’s all over the place. It’s just apparent to me that Disney animated movies that particularly involve children either make them orphans from the get-go, orphan them along the way, or raise them with a single parent. I don’t have a point here; just using it as an excuse to test my memory and list many major Disney cartoons and the lack of parents in them. SPOILERS!

• Snow White – Mother: Dead? Father: Remarried, dead. Evil Stepmother: Evil Queen
• Pinocchio – Technically no parents, but Geppetto made him out of wood and the Blue Fairy turned him into a real boy. So, biologically no parents.
• Fantasia – Why is Mickey living with the wizard? Where are his parents? Didn’t they teach him not to fall asleep while brooms are doing his chores?
• Dumbo – Mrs. Jumbo receives Dumbo from the stork. Then gets locked up. Dumbo has to learn drinking from a mouse and flying from racially-stereotyped crows.
• Bambi – Starts off with mother only. Hunters kill her. Then along comes the father. I doubt he would have picked that name for his son.
• Cinderella – Parents’ fate probably the same as Snow White’s. No one taught her how to navigate stairs in transparent shoes.
• Alice In Wonderland – I think only her teacher is mentioned. The girl has to be on drugs. No one can dream up the March Hare & Mad Hatter on their own.
• Peter Pan – TWO PARENTS!! But a dog as the nursemaid. And Peter’s big draw is he has no parents. Except he & the Lost Boys need a mother. No father required.
• Lady & The Tramp – Dogs are “adults” by the time the story gets going. Pidge’s owners are a married couple.
• Sleeping Beauty – Two parents again, only they are afar throughout her entire life. Aurora (Briar Rose) is raised in the woods by three fairies for 16 years before returning to sleepytown. But upon awaking she immediately gets married, so no familial parents required. 
• 101 Dalmatians – Two parents all around, except for the 80 or 90 extra they find. Why wouldn’t they try to return the other dogs to their homes?
• The Sword in the Stone – Arthur needs no parents. He’ll be King one day. Merlin is good enough.
• The Jungle Book – Canoe-wrecked Mowgli is raised by a black panther & a bear who realize after a few (or 10) years that maybe they’re not so good with humans.
• The Aristocats – Duchess has three kittens and along the way finds an alley cat to be their father. How did a woman of high class get herself into this situation?
• Robin Hood – The merry men are outlaws, but the added children in the story are raised by a [presumably] widowed rabbit. She scrimps and saves to give her oldest boy a single farthing on his birthday but that rotten old Sheriff of Nottingham takes it for taxes. A pox on that Prince John – the phony king of England!
• The Rescuers – Penny is an orphan who is kidnapped from the orphanage. Bernard & Bianca aid the Rescue Aid Society in rescuing the child. Snoops and Medusa fall short of being ideal role models for the little one.
• The Fox and the Hound – Can’t remember. But Copper & Todd seem to be on their own from the get go.
• The Black Cauldron – Also can’t remember.
• The Great Mouse Detective – Olivia Flangerhanger (Flavisham) has no mother and her father was kidnapped by Sir Ratigan (the world’s greatest rat).
• Oliver & Company – Still haven’t seen it fully. Animation was terrible.
• The Little Mermaid – Ariel swims around in a bikini top all day and Triton’s worried that she met a prince? Try putting some kelp around her if you’re worried about suitors!
• The Rescuers Down Under – The boy lives with his mom and is kidnapped by the poacher who’s got a thing for eagle eggs.
• Beauty and the Beast – Belle lives with her soon-to-be-world-famous-inventor father Maurice. Somewhere along the way she figures she can handle living in the dungeon of a monstrous beast in order to let her dad go free. Was it really that bad back in town?
• Aladdin – He’s a street rat orphan (but a diamond in the rough) and she’s a princess. Sultan only had one child. It was a girl. This is the Middle East. Methinks Sultan would have tried a few more times to get a son. A harem is shown briefly in town.
• The Nightmare Before Christmas – uhhhhh….. not applicable
• The Lion King – Mufasa is the alpha-male and dies trying to save his son – thereby leaving him in the care of an oafish dimwitted warthog and wisecracking meerkat. Simba should have guest-starred on My Two Dads!
• Pocahontas – I think her father is the chief and her mother is not mentioned? He/They let her go with John Smith. This movie was terrible. I hope The New World is better.
• James & The Giant Peach – James’ parents get killed by a wild rhinocerous loosed from the zoo so he’s sent to live with his less than amiable aunts. Thankfully he sails on a peach to New York with some giant insects and lives happily ever after there.
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Would parents love Quasimodo? I don’t even know if kids love Quasimodo. The scene with Frollo lusting after Esmerelda gives me pause for now when it comes to showing it to my kids.
• Hercules – Child of the gods but raised on earth by a surrogate family. And a centaur. Or faun. Whatever Danny Devito is in this movie.
• Mulan – Two parents and a grandmother. And ancestors. And a dragon. But they all couldn’t save her from crossdressing.
• Tarzan – Haven’t seen it yet, but I don’t think he had parents.
• Dinosaur – Meteor hits, everyone dies. Families torn apart. Trailer made you feel it coulda been a contender. It wasn’t.
• The Emperor’s New Groove – Parents are never mentioned, but Kuzco’s lack of tact is blamed on his spoiledness. Pacha has a good family though.
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire – Milo’s parents aren’t mentioned much outside of “I knew your father.” Kida’s mother rises into the light and disappears, so Kida is left with Spock to take care of her. Some emotion may have been lacking in that relationship.
• Lilo & Stitch – Lilo lives with her sister. Parents died? Thinks an alien is a dog. I think island fever has taken hold
• Treasure Planet – Boy lives with single mother. Boy is irresponsible. Boy goes on trip and finds father figure in one-eye, one-handed, one-legged cook/thief. Good choice.
• Brother Bear – Kota’s parents dead, so boy becomes bear to be brother to other boy. Huh?
• Home On The Range – Weird little movie here. Randy Quaid is a yodeling cow stealer? I don’t remember the family interactions in this one.
• Chicken Little – Chicken Little lives with his father and has some dad issues. The fact that the sky is falling and alien invasion is imminent does not help. But hitting a home run does.
• Meet The Robinsons – Lewis is left on the steps of an orphanage by his mother. This haunts him for most of his youth until his son comes back to get him and he finds out he gets full family in the future. And frogs.