Not a Princess

You can't create something like the Disney Princess franchise without creating a bit of controversy about membership. Above are some of the characters who weren't made Princesses for one reason or another. I spoke about Eilonwy and Kida. I'll cover some of the characters in the above picture with a couple of omissions and I'll also add some that aren't there in the following post.

Basically there seem to be arguments to make any female character that is featured prominently in a Disney animated feature into an official Disney Princess. I'll go through the non human ones, with one exception first.

This is in order Faline (Bambi. I picked a shot of her as a fawn first meeting a young Bambi, because it's so cute), Lady (Lady and the Tramp), Perdita (101 Dalmatians), Duchess (The Aristocats) and Nala (The Lion King). I could have also included Miss Bianca from The Rescuers and The Rescuers Down Under, but I've never really seen anything that suggests she be made a Princess.

Disney don't generally make non human characters into Princesses, and all of the above are not anthropomorphic, they're animals, who look and to a certain extent behave that way. Both Faline and Nala can make a case for being royalty as they both marry princes or kings. Despite their rather noble sounding names neither Lady or Duchess really have any claim to nobility.

Now I said there was one exception and here she is:

The cute vixen Maid Marian from Disney's version of Robin Hood. She differs from the others in that she's anthropomorphic. I've seen some excellent artwork with her as a Princess, and I'd personally like to see her added to the Pantheon. She has some claim to royalty being the ward of a king, too.

The others are in order (this is by no means a complete list, just the ones I felt deserved a bit of focus):

Alice from Alice in Wonderland. I've never really got the push to make her into a Princess. She's quite happy being a girl who had an amazing adventure. She may like to play at being a Princess, but she would never presume to be coronated (apparently that's what Disney call it when they make a character officially a Princess).

Wendy Darling from Peter Pan. Wendy is very much like Alice; a young girl who had an adventure. I think she's happy having known Peter Pan and seen Neverland and has no great desire to be a Princess. There's probably a good argument to add Tigerlily, though. She's probably got more claim to the title than Pocahontas.

If you're talking about Peter Pan you can't not talk about Tinkerbell. She's arguably become the most famous cast member of the film, being used as a sort of mascot for the company. She was actually part of the Princess lineup at one stage, but then Disney realised that she was marketable outside of that and gave her the Disney Fairies franchise. She's not a Princess there in Pixie Hollow either, she's a tinker or inventor I believe, who has adventures with her fairy friends.

For mine Esmeralda from The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the next viable human Princess. She misses on one fairly vital category. Royalty of some shape or form. I've seen it argued that she's a Princess amongst her own people, but there's no evidence in the film or the book it was based on to suggest that this is the case. However Disney do make exceptions on occasion. Mulan is one, and the non inclusion of Eilonwy and Kida despite being bonafide Princesses, are others.

Megara from Hercules could be another. In Greek mythology she is a Princess, although that's not made clear in the film she's in. If she marries Hercules she could also lay a claim of sorts. He's the son of Zeus who is King of the Gods, so that makes him Prince of the Gods and by extension Megara Princess of the Gods. It's a shame she was never added to the line up, because she's a got a distinctive look and I found her a multi layered character.

Jane Porter from Tarzan. In some respects Tarzan was King of the Jungle and that would make Jane the Queen. She sounds suitably regal too, voiced as she was in the film by Minnie Driver using her 'posh' English accent.

I really liked Lilo in Lilo and Stitch, but I think it's pushing it a bit to claim that she or her sister are Hawaiian Princesses. There's no indication of that in the film.

Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It Ralph would make an awesome Princess. I've chosen to use a picture that shows her as she was for most of the film, because it just fits the character better than the over the top Princess costume she had for a bit later in it. She did immediately disqualify herself from Princesshood by declaring herself President and promising to let the position be voted on in the future. In my head canon she's too young yet to be considered as a Princess in the Pantheon, but could do so in the future when she's a bit older.

Robin Hood 1973

Personal Overview: I was well acquainted with the Robin Hood legend before I saw this version of it. I’d read a number of retellings and seen a couple of films, definitely the Errol Flynn one.

This was another one my parents took me to see at the drive in. It was a summer release that year and all of my friends at school were playing Robin Hood after the holidays and we played the Disney version, with Robin being a fox, King John a cowardly lion, the Sherriff of Nottingham a wolf, etc…

I’m not sure whose idea at Disney it was to reimagine Robin Hood as an animated adventure featuring anthropomorphic animals instead of people, but it was actually a good one. I still think this is the best filmed version ever made, Errol Flynn’s old movie runs it a close second.

It is possible that the mess that was The Sword in the Stone convinced Disney that they did better with cartoon animals than they did with drawn people and that’s why they took the tack they did.

It was a masterstroke really, though and they managed to touch on pretty much every area of the legend.

Hero/es: the wily fox Robin of course, although Friar Tuck (an American badger), Little John (a bear, once again voiced by Phil Harris), Maid Marian (a cute vixen, apparently even though she is technically a Princess she can’t become a member of Disney’s Parade of Princesses because she’s fox, how speciesist!) and her friend Lady Cluck (a feisty hen) all have their moments of heroism.

Villain/s: there are three genuine villains and this is the first time I can remember seeing three that deserve the title. One is of course the cowardly thumb sucking Mama’s boy Prince John (a rather scrawny looking maneless lion. I do wonder if there was any genuine historical research behind the comment about Richard being their mother’s favourite, because while Eleanor of Aquitaine is not acknowledged at all in this, Richard was most definitely her favourite). Then there’s his advisor, the snake Sir Hiss, who owes almost everything in his creation to Kaa two films earlier and the Sherriff of Nottingham, who was rather jarringly voiced with a broad American accent by Disney favourite Pat Buttram.

Cuteness Factor: this one is just dripping with it. The idea of doing a version of Robin Hood entirely featuring cartoon anthropomorphic animals is very cute and very Disney, but even over and above that were the impoverished rabbit family and their friend the bespectacled turtle. You can almost hear the audience sigh every time the young hero worshipping (Robin) rabbit appears on screen.

Animation: the backgrounds in this appeared more solid and there was one sequence where Robin escapes from a burning castle which is worthy of addition to any list of action movie sequences. Mostly the animators contented themselves with seeing how many various animal species they could draw and how apt they could make their roles.

Final Words: although this one really isn’t regarded as a high point for the franchise I loved it as a kid and I still love it now. It plays around a lot with the legend, but it’s huge fun and it doesn’t fall into the trap that more recent adaptations have, in that it never takes itself too seriously. It possibly more than anything cemented Disney’s reputation in this period as the company that did those funny animal cartoons. Oh special mention must go to Peter Ustinov for his turn as Prince John and King Richard, I hadn’t thought it was possible for a voice actor to chew scenery before that, but he did a great job and clearly enjoyed the hell out of himself.