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Re: Fun & Fancy Free

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:30 pm Image

FUN AND FANCY FREE (1947):
Written By: Homer Brightman, Eldon Dedini, Lance Nolley, Tom Oreb, Harry Reeves & Ted Sears

-Another mostly forgotten film, Fun and Fancy Free contains two stories, narrated by famous puppeteer Edgar Bergen and two of his puppets (who the f*ck would want to watch a guy and two puppets narrate a film? That'd NEVER sell!). One is Sinclair Lewis's Little Bear Bongo (in which a circus bear learns the meaning of how to fight, and wins himself a mate), while the other is Mickey and the Beanstalk, featuring Disney's "Big Three" heading up the beanstalk. Both features were originally going to be separate things, but Walt felt that since the animation was unsophisticated compared to the usual, that they should instead be packaged together. Notably, the film would be the last regular appearance of Walt himself as the voice for Mickey Mouse- he no longer had the time to perform him after this.
This was something I actually got to watch a lot as a kid, as my parents had recorded it one night off of the Disney Channel on VHS and it became something they'd play for me to kill time. Mickey and the Beanstalk is definitely the more popular of the two shorts, as few people remember Little Bear Bongo, though I don't actually have a problem with that.

Little Bear Bongo isn't really anything to right home about, and it's got a really weird unintended message to it. See, Bongo is this circus bear that escapes and goes to live in the wild, and is completely unfamiliar with bear culture. It takes him a while, and eventually finds a love interest, who seems to return the affection, until she slaps him in the face. Bongo is heartbroken by this, leaving while the other bears are confused by Bongo's reaction. Later, Bongo sees a bunch of bears slapping each other in the face, to a song that goes "But a Bear likes to say it with a Slap", indicating that in bear culture, being slapped in the face is a sign of friendship, acceptance and affection. Bongo realizes what this means and goes back to said love interest, who is in danger at the moment.

So the message of the story is that you should be open to learning about other cultures before judging them too harshly . . . and that sometimes when people slap you, what they really mean is "I love you". So domestic abuse, the animated short?
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Re: Song of the South

Post by Ares »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:33 pm ImageImageImage

THE SONG OF THE SOUTH (1946):
Written by:
John Chandler Harris (original stories), Dalton Reymond, Maurice Rapf, Callum Webb

And now we come to the most controversial and well-hidden of the entire Disney ouvre. This is effectively a Live Action Film that just has a handful of shorts (totalling 25 minutes in length) featuring Br'er Rabbit and friends, based off of the old Uncle Remus folk tales told by black slaves in the pre-Civil War Era United States. Walt Disney LOVED those tales, and wanted to do honor to them. It features Uncle Remus as a worker at a plantation-something-or-other in Georgia post-reconstruction, teaching little lessons to young Johnny (Bobby "Peter Pan" Driscoll) by way of some old folk tales about the clever Br'er Rabbit in his trials against Br'er Fox and Br'er Bear.

Fearing that the movie could turn out "Uncle Tom"-ish, Walt hired on Maurice Rapf, an outspoken left-wing Jew, who was cynical of the project, to co-write, "because I know that you don't think I should make the movie". Unfortunately, personal issues between the makers caused Rapf to be taken off the project. James Baskett was hired on to play numerous parts (despite offering only to be a talking butterfly), and Walt became enamored with his abilities- he plays Uncle Remus and Br'er Fox.

The live actions scenes are... a pretty solid example of what child actors were like before an entire industry sprang up to make sure the boys all had their middle names spoken with their other two and everyone was given classical training. ie. the kids are over-acting like crazy, loud and whiny. It was pretty much the standard of the day. As for the racism... I just don't see it, and neither do many people.

Reception and Cultural Impact:
-The film is INSANELY controversial, and Disney has kept it vaulted since the 1980s, because it's become super-notorious (Disney parodies often mention it, like that Saturday Night Live "Vault" gag-fest, where the lyrics to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah are changed to include "-Zip-a-dee-ay! Whites are su-per-i-or in ev-er-y way!"), so one would expect it to be pretty bad. Hell, it's got a short entitled Br'er Rabbit and the TAR BABY!! But really, it's pretty tame. It even uses less "black dialect" than the infamous Black Crows in Dumbo (though you'll hear some "Sho'nuff"s and the like). I think the only really iffy stuff is the fact that all the blacks working at the plantation are all depicted in the typical "Southern depiction of blacks", in that they're all cheerful, singing happy folks who love to work and tell tales (black activists note with no small degree of cynicism that when blacks were enslaved, they were stereotyped as people who LOVED work; once they became free, suddenly they were lazy and shiftless). So it's more of a stereotype/cliche than anything- the stereotypes certainly aren't really NEGATIVE in this case. Essentially it just glorifies the era and makes it sound cool and fun... which really wasn't the case for a lot of folks.

Granted, it's hard to win with a movie like this (as I'll note with The Princess and the Frog). People are either going to be looking for racism because they LIKE blacks, or because they hate them (keep in mind this is twenty years BEFORE the South banned a bunch of TV broadcasts of a Star Trek episode because of the Uhura/Kirk kiss). I mean, is a black person singing a traditional black folk song REALLY racist? Despite the controversy, it was re-released several times (like most Disney movies in the time before the Disney Vault and Home Video), the last being in 1986 when the criticism got too high (hell, even in its day, the National Negro Council picketed its openings). Despite THAT, the film ended up gaining immortality in the Disney Parks as the setting for the world-famous SPLASH MOUNTAIN, the wettest ride with the biggest drop in the parks. This is really odd nowadays when you consider that it's entirely likely that 99.9% of all children have never seen Song of the South in their entire lives, and most people never will. To kids, its probably just another "random ride", like Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain or the Matterhorn Bobsleds- all iconic rides that were never based around official Disney characters.

In the end, the film is now more well-known for BEING controversial than for any of its own merits (which, to be honest, aren't many- it's BORING). If it weren't for Splash Mountain (which, to be certain, never mentions the movie at all), it'd probably be even MORE obscure. Honestly, I'm kind of shocked they had one of their biggest-name dark rides be inspired by what is a pretty low-tier film in Disney history. Like... the movie was forty-three years old by the time the first Splash Mountain opened (California, Florida & Tokyo all have one), and featured characters that don't show up on any other Merch- why THAT movie? But then, the Disney Parks of the 1980s were less "Base things off of the current Big Thing" and more interested in throwing in random attractions that fit into certain areas- in this case, they were a solid fit for the "Bear Country" thing going on in Disneyland at the time. Famous "Imagineer" Tony Baxter came up with the idea while stuck in traffic, wanting to attract guests to the then-empty Bear Country, and make use of the audio-animatronics from the unpopular America Sings! attraction. Michael Eisner wanted it to be named after upcoming film Splash, because of course he did.
Yeah, the outrage about this film is disproportionate to the actual contents. The worst thing you can really say about it is that it's kind of boring and there aren't enough Br'er Rabbit shorts. It's not set before or during the Civil War, it doesn't endorse slavery, etc. The worst thing you can really say is that it's one of the first examples of the "Magic Negro" trope TV Tropes mentions, where you have the wise black man imparting wisdom and saving the poor white people from their faults, which is patronizing to black people and implies some sort of victim status for whites. But as the last 5 years have shown, the perpetual outrage crowd has always been there, they just now have the social media to really make themselves heard.
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Re: Song of the South

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:33 pm THE SONG OF THE SOUTH (1946):
Written by:
John Chandler Harris (original stories), Dalton Reymond, Maurice Rapf, Callum Webb

And now we come to the most controversial and well-hidden of the entire Disney ouvre.
Controversial: yes.

Well-hidden: I'm not sure I'd agree. Because of the controversy, people remember it. Plus there are people who genuinely like the film. Sure, Disney tries to keep it under wraps, but I have seen DVDs of it for sale at conventions by the guys who sell "rare and hard to find" DVDs.
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Re: Song of the South

Post by Jabroniville »

Ken wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 9:13 pm
Jabroniville wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:33 pm THE SONG OF THE SOUTH (1946):
Written by:
John Chandler Harris (original stories), Dalton Reymond, Maurice Rapf, Callum Webb

And now we come to the most controversial and well-hidden of the entire Disney ouvre.
Controversial: yes.

Well-hidden: I'm not sure I'd agree. Because of the controversy, people remember it. Plus there are people who genuinely like the film. Sure, Disney tries to keep it under wraps, but I have seen DVDs of it for sale at conventions by the guys who sell "rare and hard to find" DVDs.
“Vaulted since 1986” is pretty well-hidden by Disney standards. Even considering how the Vault their stuff for years at a time... a business-inspired move (Eisner fought home video HARD, thinking it would kill business, since Disney made so much money on rereleases) that may have given DreamWorkd their biggest leg up, as you could find Madagascar’a latest atrocity in every store on Earth, while Disney’s biggest classics went hidden from generations of children.
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Brer Rabbit

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

BR'ER RABBIT
Played by:
Johnny Lee
Role: Trickster
PL 3 (48)
STRENGTH
-2 STAMINA -1 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 2 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 1 AWARENESS 1 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+6)
Athletics 8 (+6)
Deception 3 (+6)
Expertise (Survival) 2 (+3)
Insight 3 (+4)
Perception 1 (+2)
Persuasion 2 (+5)
Stealth 0 (+8 Size)

Advantages:
Evasion, Improved Initiative 2

Powers:
"Small Size" Shrinking 8 (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) [17]
(-2 Strength & Speed, +4 Defenses, +8 Stealth, -4 Intimidation)

Speed 3 (4 mph) [3]
"Raised in the Briar Patch" Movement 1 (Environmental Adaptation- Briar Patches) [1]

Offense:
Unarmed +2 (-2 Damage, DC 13)
Initiative +8

Defenses:
Dodge +4 (DC 14), Parry +6 (DC 16), Toughness -1, Fortitude +0, Will +5

Complications:
Motivation (Messing Around)- Br'er Rabbit likes to just mess around and have fun. He enjoys leading his enemies on wild goose chases, and loves making them look stupid.
Enemy (Br'er Fox & Br'er Bear)- Both of these Critters seek to consume Br'er Rabbit's flesh.

Total: Abilities: 8 / Skills: 24--12 / Advantages: 3 / Powers: 21 / Defenses: 5 (48)

-Br'er Rabbit is a lackadaisical screwer-arounder who messes with people and tries to avoid Br'er Fox's own schemes. He's a consummate liar, but not THAT skilled at it, since his foes are both pretty stupid- Br'er Fox is pretty idiotic, and Br'er Bear is essentially brain-dead and utterly easy to fool.
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:33 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Brer Fox

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

BR'ER FOX
Played by:
James Baskett
Role: Wile E. Coyote, Cartoon Critter
PL 4 (33)
STRENGTH
1 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 3
FIGHTING 5 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE 0 AWARENESS 0 PRESENCE 0

Skills:
Athletics 2 (+3)
Deception 2 (+2)
Intimidation 5 (+5)
Perception 1 (+1)
Stealth 2 (+5)

Advantages:
None

Offense:
Unarmed +5 (+1 Damage, DC 16)
Initiative +3

Defenses:
Dodge +4 (DC 14), Parry +5 (DC 15), Toughness +2, Fortitude +3, Will +3

Complications:
Motivation (Eatin' Br'er Rabbit)- Br'er Fox is obsessed with cooking Br'er Rabbit, frequently going into drooling detail over how he'll fry and SKIN his sentient, talking nemesis.
Relationship (Br'er Bear)- Br'er Bear is good for muscle, but he's stupid on a level that's most impressive.

Total: Abilities: 22 / Skills: 12--6 / Advantages: 0 / Powers: 0 / Defenses: 5 (33)

-Br'er Fox is a scheming critter with a rapid-fire voice who sounds so much like Eddie Murphy that it's freakin' SCARY (considering how long ago this was before "Raw"). He's always hunting after Br'er Rabbit and trying to outwit him, but he finds himself undone either by Br'er Rabbit's wits, or the foolishness of his partner.
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Brer Bear

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

BR'ER BEAR
Played by:
Nick Stewart
Role: Thick-Headed Idiot
PL 7 (34)
STRENGTH
6 STAMINA 6 AGILITY 0
FIGHTING 6 DEXTERITY 0
INTELLIGENCE -2 AWARENESS -2 PRESENCE -2

Skills:
Expertise (Survival) 3 (+1)
Intimidation 7 (+5, +8 Size)

Advantages:
Equipment (Club), Fast Grab, Improved Hold, Power Attack

Powers:
"Natural Size" Growth 3 (Str & Sta +3, +3 Mass, +1 Intimidation, -1 Dodge/Parry, -3 Stealth) -- (10 feet) (Feats: Innate) (Extras: Permanent +0) [7]

Offense:
Unarmed +6 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Club +6 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Initiative +0

Defenses:
Dodge +2 (DC 12), Parry +5 (DC 15), Toughness +6, Fortitude +6, Will +1

Complications:
Motivation (Eatin' Br'er Rabbit)- Br'er Bear is interested in consuming the Critter as his partner is.
Relationship (Br'er Fox)- Br'er Fox is a good idea guy, but just doesn't trust Br'er Rabbit enough.
Responsibility (Gullible)- Br'er Bear is thick-headed, and tends to follow along with whatever somebody else says.

Total: Abilities: 12 / Skills: 10--5 / Advantages: 4 / Powers: 7 / Defenses: 6 (34)

-Unlike a lot of Big Stupid Sidekick characters, Br'er Bear is just as devoted to committing acts of evil (this being the eatin' of ol' Br'er Rabbit), but is generally foiled by his unimaginably low mental abilities. Br'er Bear is frequently easily-fooled by Br'er Rabbit's tall tales, and often forces the weaker Br'er Fox along, despite him disbelieving the rabbit's lies. It was Br'er Bear that forced Br'er Fox to go to Br'er Rabbit's "Laughing Place", and he got duped into jumping right into a beehive. He's much more powerful than Br'er Fox or Br'er Rabbit, but a bit dunderheaded. He was played by Nick Stewart, who was more famous for playing Lightnin' on the old Amos 'n' Andy TV series.
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Melody Time

Post by Jabroniville »

Image

MELODY TIME (1948):
Written By: Winston Hibler, Harry Reeves, Ken Anderson, Homer Brightman, Ted Sears, Joe Rinaldi, William Cottrell & Jesse Marsh

-The last of "The films nobody remembers", Melody Time features the usual mix of live action and animated segments, this time with a lot of Roy Rogers (then a very, VERY big deal to kids). It contains seven shorts, the most famous of which is probably the Johnny Appleseed one, though none of this was very memorable. It featured mostly popular music and simple tales (along with Donald Duck & Joe Carioca in one last partnership), so there's little artistic credibility at work.

Reception and Cultural Impact:
-The movie only made a mild profit, and wasn't critically respected, but did well enough. It was so little thought-of that it did not receive a video casette release until *1998*, which is shocking for a company always eager to churn out some profits.
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Ichabod & Mr. Toad

Post by Jabroniville »

Image
Image

THE ADVENTURES OF ICHABOD AND MR. TOAD (1949):
Written by:
Kenneth Grahame (The Wind in the Willows), Washington Irving (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow), Howard Brightman, Winston Hibler, Erdman Penner, Harry Reeves, Joe Rinaldi & Ted Sears

-Here's one I'd never even heard of until my family got a Disney Calendar- one of those small page-flipper ones where you got a different image & comment each day, often of scenes or trivia from the films. I was a bit surprised- my entire knowledge of The Wind in the Willows came from a British stop-motion animation series that aired in Canada during the "bad hours" of TV, so I saw an awful lot of it. I was never really enamored with the show (in fact, it was more of a default "oh well, I gotta watch SOMETHING, and this is what YTV is showing" kind of thing). I remember the jerky animation style and the theme song, but almost nothing else. It's real pretty, though.

Peculiarly, the film is based around TWO separate mini-movies, rather than a series of animated shorts or a full-length feature (any other Disney film)- something Disney did a couple times. Each is about half an hour long, and thus is a more quickly-told story- the first is Mr. Toad's story about losing the Deed to Toad Hall to some conniving Weasels and a lying barman, and his whacky scheme to get it back. Toad is of course the most memorable part of the whole thing, acting like a classic Upper Class Twit and being an utter slave to his whims- almost pure Id. It's pretty okay, but the running time and small stakes befit a TV episode more than a feature film.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a pretty famous story, but it's done rather goofily here instead of the creepy adaptations that have come since. And wouldn't ya know, I have NO IDEA how this story really goes- I've never seen an adaptation of it before, and never read it in school or anything! So this is all new to me- creepy weirdo Ichabod Crane is funny-looking and easy to make fun of, and he & half the town get interested in Boobage McTaTas, the chestiest Disney character this side of Jessica Rabbit! It's kinda funny how Katrina here effortlessly manipulates the men of the town, turning them into willing slaves and trying to make the town's own Big Moose, Brom Bones, jealous by hanging off of Ichabod. Ichabod is actually a huge jerk- eagerly awaiting the demise of Katrina's rich father. It prevents it from turning into a "harmless nerd picked on by brutish thug" picture.

It's pretty funny, too- the whole thing's in pantomime with Bing Crosby narrating, and it's some GREAT slapstick and weird character moments. And The Headless Horseman makes the most of his two minutes of screen-time, chasing a terrified Ichabod and his horse all over the place. Fun stuff.

An odd pairing of movies, in that both progatonists are basically awful people- an unrestrained psycho with manic obsessions, and a gold-digging greedy weirdo as heroes? Odd stuff for Disney. The animation is overall quite poor by Disney Feature standards, essentially matching their TV & comedy shorts. Overall, I only really cared for the latter short, but this isn't really a hated feature. It WOULD, however, be completely overshadowed by it's successor in 1950- Cinderella.

Reception & Cultural Impact:
-Altogether, the most-remembered part of this whole thing is "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" at Disneyland (now gone from DisneyWorld, in favor of the shitty Winnie The Pooh ride), the oldest ride left from the park's opening, it's still a fun little mini-adventure, and gives people a good nostalgic twinge. One of the few things that is pretty much untouchable in Disneyland (which is notorious for wiping out attractions and starting over).
Last edited by Jabroniville on Thu Aug 23, 2018 6:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Fun & Fancy Free

Post by Jabroniville »

Ares wrote: Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:49 pm Little Bear Bongo isn't really anything to right home about, and it's got a really weird unintended message to it. See, Bongo is this circus bear that escapes and goes to live in the wild, and is completely unfamiliar with bear culture. It takes him a while, and eventually finds a love interest, who seems to return the affection, until she slaps him in the face. Bongo is heartbroken by this, leaving while the other bears are confused by Bongo's reaction. Later, Bongo sees a bunch of bears slapping each other in the face, to a song that goes "But a Bear likes to say it with a Slap", indicating that in bear culture, being slapped in the face is a sign of friendship, acceptance and affection. Bongo realizes what this means and goes back to said love interest, who is in danger at the moment.

So the message of the story is that you should be open to learning about other cultures before judging them too harshly . . . and that sometimes when people slap you, what they really mean is "I love you". So domestic abuse, the animated short?
Well, I think it's fair to say that "Animals are different from people" could be the moral of the story, not "accept abuse as a form of love" :). It's like how chimps raised by humans end up getting into trouble, because a tooth-baring grin common to human behavior is considered an aggressive threat display from chimps.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Evil Queen! Pinocchio! Chernabog! Bambi!)

Post by Jabroniville »

Some past comments about the recent Disney flicks from posters:
Crinos wrote:The Nostalgia chick actually did an episode on Song of the South, her main complaint was that it was a snore fest outside the cartoons.
HustlerOne wrote:I personally think the Evil Queen is the precursor to Maleficent. They're both beautiful powerful women except that both seem so cold and intimidating. That and they both transform into the hideous monsters that they truly are within. It says a lot about Maleficent that she ends up being the leader of the disney villains in kingdom hearts!

Oh and Snow white really is the fairest because she actually smiles. You can tell she has a lot more likeable personality than just her cute looks. While the queen seems obsessed only with her outward appearance. Kind
of ironic that she makes herself ugly in order to become the most "beautiful".
re: my Complication of "Responsibility (The Rut)" for Bambi:
Shock wrote:This made me laugh. Especially that you chose to call it a Responsibility.
It's fun looking back on old stuff :). Keeping a log of them also comes in handy should Green Ronin ever die out, leaving their forums going god-knows-where.

Researching the Voice Actors for this stuff is interesting. Since these movies are so ancient, you won't find a lot of household names in them, but a handful of performers would definitely have been known to the audiences of their day. A few recurring players, too- many of them make multiple appearances in films, even in big roles. Phil Harris is probably the most infamous one, given his Baloo & Little John are literally the same, but there's a lot more.

In a way, it kind of reminds me of how performers were slowly "rewarded" with roles in other features. Susan Egan got the role of Megara made for her after she did so well as Belle in the Beauty and the Beast Broadway show. Idina Menzel was a bit player in Enchanted before landing Major Character status. Tony Jay won hearts as the evil Monsieur Dark in Beauty and the Beast, and was instantly given Frollo in Hunchback. Similarly, Cogsworth went over so well in the same movie that David Ogden Stiers was handed a headlining role as a Disney Villain in the next planned feature... Pocahontas. Well, it didn't ALWAYS work out well.

A similar thing happened in the olden times, as Madam Mim was the same VA who'd played bit roles in other features, like the Nanny in 101 Dalmatians, and one of the snobbish Lady Elephants in Dumbo was not only Lady Tremaine, but the woman who'd come to define Disney Villainy better than anyone else, before or since.
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Re: Ichabod & Mr. Toad

Post by Ken »

Jabroniville wrote: Thu Aug 23, 2018 4:24 am Image

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a pretty famous story, but it's done rather goofily here instead of the creepy adaptations that have come since. And wouldn't ya know, I have NO IDEA how this story really goes- I've never seen an adaptation of it before, and never read it in school or anything! So this is all new to me- creepy weirdo Ichabod Crane is funny-looking and easy to make fun of, and he & half the town get interested in Boobage McTaTas, the chestiest Disney character this side of Jessica Rabbit! It's kinda funny how Katrina here effortlessly manipulates the men of the town, turning them into willing slaves and trying to make the town's own Big Moose, Brom Bones, jealous by hanging off of Ichabod. Ichabod is actually a huge jerk- eagerly awaiting the demise of Katrina's rich father. It prevents it from turning into a "harmless nerd picked on by brutish thug" picture.
I read Washington Irving's story a few decades back, and the cartoon is actually pretty faithful to the short story. The main difference is in tone. In the book, the mood is more thriller/horror where in the cartoon things are played for laughs. While Ichabod does see marrying Katrina as a means to wealth, there's no indicator that Brom doesn't have the same thing on his mind. In short, she's rich, and she's hot, so she has young men vying for her.

The other main difference is that in the cartoon, the nature of the Horsemen is more vague. In the literary form, while never said plainly, it is reasonably clear at that the Horseman was Brom messing with his rival. In the animated short, they leave more open for interpretation.

Yeah, and none of the three lead characters, Ichabod, Katrina, or Brom, are particularly likable.
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Evil Queen! Pinocchio! Chernabog! Bambi!)

Post by Shock »

Jabroniville wrote: Thu Aug 23, 2018 8:11 am re: my Complication of "Responsibility (The Rut)" for Bambi:
Shock wrote:This made me laugh. Especially that you chose to call it a Responsibility.
It's fun looking back on old stuff :). Keeping a log of them also comes in handy should Green Ronin ever die out, leaving their forums going god-knows-where.
I don't remember that at all but it does sound like something I'd say :lol:
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Re: Jab's Builds! (Evil Queen! Pinocchio! Chernabog! Bambi!)

Post by catsi563 »

theres also the similar notion of the Horsemen being real in the original story as well. Irving did a great job really selling the mystery of whether the horsemen was a real or Brom leaving it to the readers imagination.

The horsemen in the animated version was terrifying though and to this day has one of the most distinctive villain laughs ever.
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