Disney may be a major studio, but it started small, which meant its animators had to bring people, animals, and magical creatures to life better than any one. When they did just that – and didn’t have the budget to bankroll million-dollar movies – the animators decided not to start from scratch. Instead, they traced over animation that had already been released. And if you think it’s just a case of copying a handful of frames, we’ve got a surprise.
Here are Screenrant’s favorite Recycled Movie Scenes in Disney Films.
Robin Hood
Nobody throws a party like Robin and his Merry Men, and a good party means plenty of dancing. Over the years, Disney’s animators had delivered more than a few musical sequences in a ton of films, and decided to make Robin Hood into something of a highlight reel. Maid Marian gets her moves from Snow White over three decades earlier, with a few dashes of Duchess from The Aristocats. Lady Kluck and Little John do their best impression of Baloo and King Louie from The Jungle Book, showing that dance moves don’t always change with the times.
The Jungle Book
It’s no secret that animators tend to look at their own pets when designing animals or magical beasts, but man’s best friend takes the cake in Disney films. That means the animators knew they could use puppies from 101 Dalmations as the basis for their wolf pups in The Jungle Book. But even more time was spent turning Arthur’s slobbering dogs from The Sword in the Stone into Mowgli’s grown-up brothers and sisters. Since dogs aren’t exactly skilled at hiding their feelings, we can probably let this one slide.
The Sword in The Stone
Some movies can take bits of animation here or there, but where do you draw the line between saving time, and just skipping work? Disney couldn’t always decide, if The Sword in the Stone is anything to go by. When the movie’s climax called for an epic jousting match, the animators decided to check the archives for footage to fit. They found it in the Disney Classic The Truth About Mother Goose – and by “found it,” we mean copied it completely, shot for shot.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
When Disney decided to lump together smaller featurettes starring Winnie the Pooh into one theatrical release, they ran into a bit of a problem: the collection, released as The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, didn’t have an ending. But with some fast thinking, and even faster hands, they came up with a solution. The answer was to craft a new ending starring Winnie and his owner, Christopher Robin. The pair’s farewell loses some of its magic when you realize it’s a direct tracing of an entire sequence from The Jungle Book. Apparently, a love of bears wasn’t all that Mowgli and Christopher Robin had in common.
Beauty and The Beast
It was the evil witch Maleficent who made sure that Sleeping Beauty‘s 16th birthday wouldn’t be a happy one, sending her (and the entire kingdom with her) into a deep sleep. It all worked out in the end, when Prince Phillip woke her with true love’s kiss, and the pair announced their love with a dance so perfect, it sent them into the clouds. There’s no way to top a dance like that, so when animators had to match it with Beauty and The Beast thirty years later, they didn’t even try. They simply traced Beauty and the now-human Beast over the couple, and assumed fans wouldn’t mind seeing a true love’s waltz all over again.
Conclusion
Those are the bits of recycled Disney footage that caught our eye, but what other scenes or characters have always stuck out to you? Be sure to name them in the comments, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for more videos like this one!
