Disney in the 90s - What happened?

We all remember the Disney renaissance (1989-1999). From the Little Mermaid to Tarzan, we enjoy those movies to this day. What brought about such a swift change in Disney, and what brought about its end. This is the story of the rise and fall of the Disney renaissance.

On an interesting side note, J Katzenberg founded Dreamworks the same year he left Disney. He is still CEO of that company. Disney created has created a few of its own worst competition.
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external links:
Excellent documentary on the beginnings
"Waking Sleeping Beauty." Don Hahn. (2009)

Various helpful wiki pages:

A bad article on the death of the renaissance
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Hashtags: #history #disney #90s #DisneyRenaissance

[noahmakara]

the buzzing in the background really sucks. I cannot hear what is being said. its so distracting.

[shaunwilliams]

There is something to be said about traditional, hand-drawn animation. It is much more magical and spellbinding than CGI. Sure, the latter looks more real, but much is lost in trying so hard to capture that realism. As great as movies like Toy Story are, Beauty and the Beast is worlds better. Why? Because it was done by hand, and compared to a computer program, the hand is closer to the heart. The films from the Renaissance Era were gorgeous, whimsical, stylized masterpieces!!

[perfectibility]

I agree that Disney's at its best with competent top-down management, dealing with traditional European fairy tales with a simple and wholesome moral message. It's what they do best and its the soul of this company. The artsy and avante-garde stuff is not their niche. The traditional approach is their strong suit, and it goes all the way back to Walt Disney himself. They're best when they go back to their roots.

[jchandlersabeast]

princess and the frog is the only hand drawn animation since 2000? like brother bear and home on the range never happened? and how about winnnie the pooh 2011? check your facts

1989-1999 was without a doubt the best years of the Walt Disney Company all of  my favourite Disney movies came out during those years including my all time favourite movie out of both animated and live action movies "The Lion King".

[QueenAlyssaRose]

The early 2000 animation Disney movies were good too. I think that Disney started sucking when they stopped their 2d animations

[c.r.i.t.i.c.]

Nightmare before Christmas was not made by Disney Animation Studios, therefore it isn't part of the renaissance. Winnie the Pooh was released in 2011 and it was traditionally drawn. 

[MichaelAarons]

Should have mentioned The Great Mouse Detective’s role in keeping the animation division alive _for_ them to begin Roger Rabbit and then the Renaissance.

[TheDaniel]

This is an interesting video to come across in 2021 right after the release of Encanto to some critical praise. I feel like Disney has definitely turned their animation around recently and that started pretty clearly with Tangled. That said, I really wish that after they purchased Pixar that they would have refocused Disney Animation Studios to be their "2D Studio". So that there would be a much more clear delineation between Pixar and Disney films. Sometimes it feels like films like Big Hero 6 and Wreck It Ralph are more in line with Pixar's themes and Brave is definitely Pixar's most Disney-like film. Also, as a fan of 2D animation I would love to see what a company with Disney's money could make in 2D with modern techniques.

[irvyne]

Cool topic. You mentioned that Princess & the Frog is the only modern hand-drawn film, but Winnie The Pooh (2011) was hand-drawn as well.

[JRProductions]

This Video aged Well and Poorly at the same time.

[Moonchild]

I remember 1994! I was a kid and was invited to a birthday party, we went to the cinema and watched The Lion King and It changed my life! They turned me into a consumer in less than 90 minutes lol! I was the only kid that wanted a plush Zazu toy.. xD

[WHATWEEEARE]

Have you ever worked for Disney? Here is what they teach you during the 3 day training course (called Disney University):
- Disney, disney, disney.
- Disney films represent less than 1/4 of the revenue, actually, the movies are often bootleged and freely distributed in low quality by the company itself because what they really profit on is merchandising and theme parks so they need brand recognition.
- You represent the brand and must groom, smile and act appropriately to fulfill "the dream"

As any huge entity, Disney faces "political" tensions both from the outside (i.e. cooperating with governments because the business provides a social caliber in the region, see Eurodisney and Parisian Banlieues) as from the inside: there are too many employees and they are a civilian entity organized like a military one from "cannon meat" all the way to the CEO passing through various stages of "authority" : XP, Team Leaders, Area Managers, Managers and so forth...
Although relatively well paid, the employees are tightly surveilled and live within the Disney infrastructures mainly (if not exclusively) entertaining relations with other Disney employees in a de facto totalizing institution.
Now, it is rather historical, and here I leave word to Cypher, that totalizing institutions organized with a totalitarian hierarchcal and pyramidal power structure are prone to fail... especially when the creator and "charismatic leader" of such system is not there anymore to lead the passion of the participants... The Disney corporate world is a good example of the societal tensions we can experience in the "real" world of national and international politics...

[Nikerox]

If there's something to blame for the decline of Disney making traditional 2D hand-drawn animated movies, then I don't blame Pixar at all.

To say that Pixar Killed hand drawn animation is absurd, look at Studio Ghibli, their features are highly successful around the world for the same reason Pixar became successful ... both studios worry about telling compelling engaging stories. Disney animation however killed itself with a long line of dross, How many Disney features went straight to DVD, I mean '101 Dalmatians' was decent, then you get '101 Dalmatians 2', then '102 Dalmatians', same for most of its intellectual property, did anyone want Dumbo 2? Lion King 1 1/2? Lion King 2? Cinderella 2 then 3, Mulan 2, Lady and the Tramp 2, I mean come on, is there a decent film amongst all the Disney sequels, what happened to the idea of Disney magic? It was becoming animation by numbers ... did anyone at Disney need to be told that 'the Hunchback of Notre Dame 2' was not going to be a massive box office hit? It was so wasteful in terms of animators’ time; they were movies to fill Disneyland gift shops, movies that frankly were disappointing to any fan of the original. That was the issue before Pixar appeared, Disney had taken some of the most loved stories in literature and created great films from them, films that felt crafted, made with love, then they started to produce sequels for the sake of sequels, sequels that simply made no sense in terms of the original, badly written, often boring, and most often films that felt they had been made purely to wring money out of the pockets of parents. Hand drawn is expensive and time consuming, so why waste all that time and money producing crap to milk the original. Disney before Pixar was not producing decent films any more. Now don't get me wrong, sequels aren't always bad, look at Toy Story for Pixar, but the difference is that every Toy Story film was written brilliantly, they never felt like a cash in for the sake of it, each film felt like it was a progression, a fresh perspective ... now try and watch any Disney sequels, do they add anything to the original film? Or add anything new? No ... Disney squandered all it's talent and resources on trash and it cost them ... they lost their audience. So no Pixar did not kill hand drawn animation, Disney killed itself, and they were the only people putting traditional animation into US cinema, maybe if Disney had concentrated it's animation teams on making a great movie, then another rather than trying to make 4 or 5 pointless sequels, they would still be successfully putting out hand drawn. Even recently they were still all princesses, fairytales, and love stories to get prince charming ... the same story arcs as they did for snow white in 1937 and Cinderella in 1950, its 78 years since the original snow white and still Disney was doing the princess and the prince, just in 3d. I mean frozen, young heroine against the Snow Queen, Tangled, princess stuck in tower finds prince charming, even the last big hand animated feature was a Princess and a frog ... Enough already ... at least John Lasseter is concerned with great stories, so hopefully Disney will turn around its fortunes with him at the helm.

[TaoPhysiques]

Seriously? Fantasia 200, The Emperor's New Groove, and Atlantis were great movies. I am assuming that the reason the last two movies didn't reach high expectations is due to the fact that they aren't Disney musicals like the rest of the movies. 

I am not against CGI animted films, but Disney shouldn't disregard the tradition that even made them what they are today. I like A Bug's Life, Brave, Tangled, and Toy's Story, but I would love to watch some animated films. Hand-drawn animation films aren't dead. If they were dead, then there wouldn't be films dedicated to Pokemon, Bleach, and even Yugioh. 

If people neglect their past, then how do they expect to have a better future?

[mirandagarcia]

I was born in 1986. Yes I miss my 90s childhood.

[delirous]

The downfall of Disney happened when they stopped putting real composition in their music and animation industry changed. Cartoons all over every aspect wen through a Renissance in the 90s' People were going for the more realistic Japanese anime cartoons and stopped looking at Disney and other carnations of their products.

[AGB-]

You didn't mention that Jeffrey Katzenberg went on to become the CEO of DreamWorks. And DreamWorks was founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen. So two people responsible for the Disney Renaissance made one of it's biggest rivals.

[westide]

So it's the end of the decade now, I feel a follow up video should come out.

[BradyPostma]

2:06 - I actually read the book series that _The Black Cauldron_ was in. A cheesy, cutesy kind of fantasy. In later books, there's a toddler from a race of giants, so he's only about 8 feet tall.
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It's the only occasion I can think of where the second book got a film but the first book didn't. _(The Magician's Nephew_ doesn't count because _The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe_ was written first.)