In the 1980s, Disney opened up the Walt Disney Television Animation Department. The first show made by this branch of Disney was The Wuzzles, paving the way for such beloved shows as Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Goof Troop, Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and Kim Possible... as well as some shows that I think it would be a stretch to call "beloved" - such as Quack Pack, Pickle and Peanut, The Schnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show (though I've heard that the Tex Tinstar segments were much better than the Schnookums and Meat segments)…
There have been some very strange and god-awful shows that Walt Disney Television Animation has produced, you might be wondering... if something like Fish Hooks got produced, what show concepts were considered so bad that even the higher-ups at this company didn't want to make? Well, today, we're gonna be talking about some shows that the folks at Walt Disney Television Animation came up with which didn't get off the ground. For whatever reason. And I'm just now realizing that I am awful at writing introductions.
Okay, here we go...
Maximum Horsepower
It's gotta be tough being Horace Horsecollar. He and Clarabelle Cow have never been quite as popular as Mickey's other friends, but at least Clarabelle became slightly more prominent when they decided to make her Goofy's girlfriend (I'm not sure how they came up with that pairing... I guess they just wanted Goofy to have a "Minnie" of his own and it was either her or Clara Cluck*). Horace still shows up sometimes - he was in House of Mouse and recently showed up in Mickey and the Roadster Racers - but even still, it seems as though the folks at Disney think of him as an afterthought.
He also does meet-and-greets every so often at Disney World.
I wonder how often people there see him and ask, "Hey, is that Goofy?"
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| I mean, they don't look THAT much alike, but I've heard that sometimes people see Figment and come to the conclusion that he's Spyro despite the fact that Spyro isn't even a Disney character, sooooo... |
Maximum Horsepower was going to shed a little light on why Horace hasn't shown up as much since the 1930s. Basically, the idea was that Horace was getting tired of playing bit parts. When he found out that Mickey was going to be in Fantasia, he decided to go down to Walt's office and demand that HE get a role in the film as well. But before he can get to the office, he's abducted by aliens who believe that he is the hero that their galaxy needs.
Here are some screencaps for a pitch reel video by Tad Stones, which he uploaded to his Twitter and Facebook accounts in 2017 (I don't know why I didn't stumble upon these before):
Apparently, the reason why this show didn't get off the ground is because Disney was more interested in shows based off their more popular characters. And when Maximum Horsepower was being developed in the 1990s, Disney's more popular characters were the cast of Aladdin, Timon and Pumbaa, Hercules... you know, characters from their more recent animated films. And I guess they didn't think Horace Horsecollar was popular enough to make kids interested in watching a show about him.
Thumper's Thicket
With America's love of A) bunnies, B) cute things, and C) bunnies that are cute, it's strange that Thumper isn't more prominent nowadays. All Thumper's really gotten aside from his roles in the two Bambi movies was a merchandising line called Disney Bunnies, which gave us books like this:
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| I haven't read any of these books, so I'm not sure if they're any good. |
But it's not like Disney NEVER tried to do anything with Thumper. In the early 1990s, they were in the process of developing a show about the little fella called Thumper's Thicket.
Why this show didn't get off the ground, I'm not sure, but maybe they were concerned that a show about a cutesy widdle bunny wabbit would be out of place next to more action-packed shows like Gargoyles and TaleSpin.
Of course, in 1997 a certain programming block called Playhouse Disney - which was eventually renamed Disney Junior - was created so that Disney could dip its toes into making shows for preschoolers. Apparently around the time the Disney Bunnies books were first released, there was talk of doing a show based on them for Playhouse Disney if they were successful enough, but nothing ever came out of it.
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| This doesn't count. |
And on a side note, long before Thumper's Thicket was thought up, during the 1980s Disney announced that they were considering making a MOVIE about Thumper.
Disney Babies
One rule in television animation is this: if something's successful, expect a bunch of shows extremely similar to it in an attempt to cash-in on the success of it. For example, the success of Scooby-Doo resulted in the creation of shows like Speed Buggy and Fangface. Shrek being a massive hit gave us Happily N'Ever After. And have you noticed that Frozen's Anna and Kristoff and Zootopia's Judy and Nick are essentially clones personality-wise of Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from the highly-successful Tangled**?
Well, when Muppet Babies premiered in the 1980s, it started a trend of shows about younger versions of pre-existing cartoon characters. Some of these shows are considered to be actually pretty good in their own right - A Pup Named Scooby-Doo, for example - others, not so much...
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| Did you know that this show turned Magilla Gorilla into a pop star named "Magilla Ice"? I did not make that up. |
Of course, Disney wanted to cash in on this, so during the 1980s they started releasing merchandise, books, and even commercials featuring Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, and the gang as tykes.
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| Even as babies, Donald and Daisy don't have pants on. Actually, now that I think about it, how come everyone gives Donald a hard time for not wearing pants but you never see anybody complain about Daisy not wearing pants either? |
Eventually, senior management at Disney Customer Products got an idea: if they made a SHOW based on the baby versions of Mickey and the others, merchandise sales would be HUGE! The folks at Disney Television Animation thought this was a stupid idea (I wouldn't be surprised if somebody there straight-up said "Isn't this just a huge Muppet Babies cash-grab?") and did everything that they could to derail the project.
But Disney eventually did indeed try their hand at a Muppet Babies wannabe with Jungle Cubs, a cartoon featuring characters from The Jungle Book in their youth.
And a decade or two since THEN, they made a REBOOT of Muppet Babies, which might or might not have resulted in that "shows about iconic cartoon characters as babies" trend starting up again. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we get MARVEL Babies or Star Wars Babies at some point.
The Kingdom Hearts Show
I've never played any of the Kingdom Hearts games. Here's what I know about it: there's this kid named Sora, and he teams up with Donald and Goofy to find Mickey, who's a king now, it would seem. They meet characters from other Disney franchises. And there's also these other kids named Kairi and Riku and there are Final Fantasy characters in there, too. That's about it. Oh yeah, and the cover art for one of the games looks like this -
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| What are they all looking at? Is it because the moon is now shaped like a heart? |
Nonetheless, the franchise has been a huge success! And thus, in 2002, Seth Kearsley (who also worked on such shows as the Dilbert cartoon and Phineas and Ferb) was hired to develop an animatic based on the first game.
We have Seth to thank for filling us in on this - he even posted a storyboard from the show on his DeviantArt page. The first episode was going to set in Agrabah from Aladdin. The original script Seth was handed he promptly threw out because it read more like an episode of the Aladdin TV series guest-starring the Kingdom Hearts guys. He then played the entire game and wrote a new script because he "wanted to be very true to the game without just copying the game."
And this very year, an animatic of the show was posted online! Here it is:
So why didn't they make the show? Well, apparently it's because they planned on making many more Kingdom Hearts games, and I guess they were worried that the show would conflict with the games or something. But as Seth said, maybe there actually COULD be a Kingdom Hearts show greenlit. The franchise is still plenty popular!
The AristoCats: The Animated Series
Ya know how they were planning on making a direct-to-video sequel based on The AristoCats back when Disney was obsessed with making direct-to-video sequels? Well, in addition that, they were also going to make a show based on the film.
And remember that Yo Yogi show I brought up earlier? Well, this was going to be like that.
The show was going to kick Duchess and Thomas O'Malley, the film's main characters, to the curb because I guess they didn't think kids would be interested in them. Instead, the show would focus on the kittens: Berlioz, Tolouse, and Marie. All well and good, except that it was also going to turn Berlioz, Tolouse and Marie into teenage cats.
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| Roquefort apparently would've made it in, too. |
They also created a love interest for Marie (apparently, things wouldn't have worked out with the love interest she was going to get in the sequel) named Delancey, who was apparently going to be like a teenaged version of O'Malley (because it's totally not creepy to have Marie's love interest be somebody extremely similar to her father, right?) who could dance like a combination of Justin Timberlake and Usher.
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| Top Cat he ain't. |
Oh, and then there were the Street Cats.
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| ...why do both Delancey and the purple cat have their ears pierced? How does a cat get their ear pierced?! |
Yeah, I think it's for the best that this didn't make it to air.
So somewhere in production it was decided that making Berlioz, Tolouse, and Marie teenagers wasn't exactly the best idea. So then they decided to have them be teenagers in The AristoCats 2 and then - if that was successful - make the show (I don't know if they were also gonna have Delancey replace Marie's love interest in the sequel or not, but who cares?).
But then The AristoCats 2 and all of the other direct-to-video sequels that were in production were cancelled, and so we were spared having to see a cross between O'Malley and Justin Timberlake put the moves on Marie while outwitting a gang of alley cats not nearly as cool as Scat Cat and his band from the film.
Actually, now that I think about it, a show about Scat Cat and his band might actually have potential. Or at least, it would be better than seeing the kittens as teenagers. Can somebody at Disney get on that?
And on a side note, I still don't see what makes Marie so much better than her brothers. Where's the love for Berlioz?!
Cinderella Stories
No, this doesn't have anything to do with that Hilary Duff film.
Are you familiar with the 2001 direct-to-video sequel to Cinderella? You know, Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True? I admittedly haven't seen it (I do like that one of the stepsisters does a Heel-Face Turn, but that's not enough to make me want to watch it), but from what I've heard, it's not particularly good.
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| Kind of a generic name, too... "Dreams Come True"? Didn't Cinderella's dreams already come true in the first movie? |
But, in case you're wondering just how Cinderella 2 came to be... At some point, somebody at Disney thought it would be a good idea to make a television show about Cinderella. For some reason. Probably so they could sell more merchandise.
So they whipped up a few episodes of the show, which was going to be called Cinderella Stories. Which in my opinion is an awful name for a TV show. Eventually the show got the axe before it could even make it to air, but Disney went through all the trouble of making those episodes, they had to do SOMETHING with them. So they strung the three episodes together, made some new animation of the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella's mouse friends to act as a framing device, and PRESTO! Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True wound up in DVD stores all over the country. Boy, remember when DVD stores were a thing?
Now, this begs the question: would the show have been better received if it had stayed a TV show instead of being mutated into a direct-to-video sequel? I don't know. Again, I haven't seen it, so I'm not sure if it even IS as awful as everyone says it is, so...
The Chicken Little TV Series
It's kind of funny that Disney had plans for more of Chicken Little, considering how incredibly reviled it is. Though, again, I've always been more accepting of it than others. If nothing else, I think Chicken Little himself is a likeable and funny character.
Anyhow, you remember how they were gonna make a sequel to Chicken Little about Abby competing with a French lamb for Chicken Little's affections? Well, they were also planning on making a TV series based on everyone's favorite Zach Braff-voiced bird.
Around this time, Dan Povenmire and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh pitched a certain show about two boys and a platypus to Disney Channel. However, they were worried that it'd be rejected because of how focused Disney was on Chicken Little. Because apparently Disney couldn't make two animated shows at the same time?
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| To my knowledge, no concept art for this hypothetical Chicken Little show exists, but I didn't want this section to be without at least one picture, so here's something I found on Google Image Search. |
Then John Lasseter came in and cancelled Chicken Little 2 and all of the other direct-to-video Disney sequels that were in production. Without a Chicken Little 2 in production, Disney saw no reason to go ahead with the TV show, and we got Phineas and Ferb instead.
By the way, my source for this comes from a Tumblr post, but apparently they got their information from a post Dan Povenmire made on a Family Guy production blog. I don't know if that blog is still online, maybe somebody else can find it...
Brother Bear: The Series
Speaking of animated Disney movies from the 2000s, while I don't think Brother Bear is as hated as Chicken Little, it does seem to get more flack than praise. But I've never had a problem with it. In fact, I used to watch the DVD commentary with Rutt and Tuke a lot - it might be even better than the movie itself!
But anyhow, while the film was in theaters, Disney Television Animation hired Pete Michels (who's also directed episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy) to direct a pilot written by Bart Jennett (who also worked on - fittingly enough - another Disney animated show, Recess) for a Brother Bear TV show. For what it's worth, Bart also wrote a pilot for a show based on Disney's adaptation of Robin Hood, but I couldn't find any information about that.
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| The plush toys would've sold themselves! |
It was pretty hard for Pete Michels to direct the pilot for a show based on a movie that was still in theaters at the moment. He had to borrow a copy from Disney to watch for reference, and they made him return it as soon as he watched it.
The plot of the show was this: Koda loved having Kenai as a big brother so much that he invited MORE young animals to join their little "family". Specifically, they would have been joined by a husky pup, two baby owls, a porcupine, and a cross between an elephant and a platypus called Doohickey - who, as you can see from the concept art, looked kind of like Scrat from Ice Age. Jeremy Suarez, Rick Moranis, and Dave Thomas were set to reprise their roles as Koda, Rutt and Tuke, with Will Friede going to fill in for Joaquin Phoenix as the voice of Kenai. Tom Kenny and Grey Griffin were going to be part of the cast as well (as which characters, I don't know).
The pilot tested well, and Pete hoped that they would get at least 52 or 65 episodes. There's just one problem - this was the 2000s, when Disney Channel didn't give a bear's tail about shows based on Disney's animated characters. The management then was all about making tween-centric programming, which in their eyes was live action stuff like Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody and shows like that. They thought that making shows based on animated movies was counterproductive to their goal of being a channel for tweens. The Emperor's New Groove got a TV show because it at least did a little better than Brother Bear at the box office, and likely also because they could at least stick the teenaged main character, Kuzco, in a high school so that the show would appeal to tweens.
And apparently it didn't occur to anyone to just put the show on Toon Disney.
So that's eight animated shows that Disney could've given us. As you can see, many of these got the shaft either because A) the direct-to-video sequels were cancelled or B) blame the tweencoms. I might do a sequel to this post, because there are a couple other Disney animated series that didn't get off the ground, but for now I'll just leave you with a teaser for my next review:
Sources:
* Of course, An Extremely Goofy Movie from 2000 gave Goofy a love interest as well, but she never showed up again. I guess they figured a character from a direct-to-video sequel would look out-of-place next to Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, and Pluto on merchandise.
** And on top of that, I am fully convinced that Sven from Frozen was an attempt to cash in on the success of Tangled's Maximus***. They're both hoofed animals that act like dogs!
*** As is Pua from Moana, by the way.
