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Before Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, they were pretty much all cr*p.
The only good pre-Menken cartoon musical was The Jungle Book and even that only has two good songs ("The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You"). Mary Poppins is strictly annoying earworms, and all of Snow White's lyrics are cutesy drivel ("Whistle While You Work"? Seriously?). "We Are Siamese If You Please"? Strangle me now. Even "When You Wish Upon A Star" is no hot stuff. It's okay, but if THAT was the defining song lyric of a multinational conglomerate there was something very wrong with the landscape.
Disney will rightly get credit for pioneering things in the animation industry that we take for granted. But that doesn't mean the actual quality of the material they put out was perfect. The recent Kang and Kodos Simpsons episode pointed out that Disney wasn't best, it was just first. There is a huge difference.
The only good pre-Menken cartoon musical was The Jungle Book and even that only has two good songs ("The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You"). Mary Poppins is strictly annoying earworms, and all of Snow White's lyrics are cutesy drivel ("Whistle While You Work"? Seriously?). "We Are Siamese If You Please"? Strangle me now. Even "When You Wish Upon A Star" is no hot stuff. It's okay, but if THAT was the defining song lyric of a multinational conglomerate there was something very wrong with the landscape.
Disney will rightly get credit for pioneering things in the animation industry that we take for granted. But that doesn't mean the actual quality of the material they put out was perfect. The recent Kang and Kodos Simpsons episode pointed out that Disney wasn't best, it was just first. There is a huge difference.
