Aladdin and the King of Thieves, Kronk's New Groove, Mulan II. What do these movies have in common? They were all produced by DisneyToon, Disney's discount studio. It's sort of like the underworld of animation.
I'm sure you've heard of Frozen 2 and Wreck-it-Ralph's upcoming sequel. But did you know Disney Animation Studios has only ever made one sequel for themselves before? The Rescuers Down Under is that exception. Other than that, all of those Disney sequels you watched as a kid, those were made by DisneyToon. It's no secret that most of them were pretty bad, but the fandom stands divided on whether or not we should actually be allowed to love them anyway.
So I said to myself, hey, you know what would be fun? Look up all those movies and remind yourself how many there were, and just how bad they were. Remember every formulaic story and contrived plot point, every character the animation made look suddenly deranged, and how many Disney songs are out there that are much more annoying than Let it Go. Doesn't that sound like fun?
So here's what I did. Instead of putting myself through each movie and ruining the fond childhood memories attached to many of them, I combined Rotten Tomatoes's scores with IMdb's, and aggregated those with some nostalgic bias, compiling this only slightly arbitrary ranking of every one of DisneyToon's efforts to bring ruin on all of Disney's best characters.
Let's start at the bottom of the barrel.
30. Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003)
To be honest, scraping the bottom of the barrel is exactly what Disney was doing with this "movie." Originally conceived as a TV series that, for whatever reason, bombed, Disney decided to recycle the test episodes, slap up some overarching story to patch them together, and repackage it as a direct-to-video sequel, figuring their fans would buy anything they're selling. (Which, as all my Disney brothers and sisters know, is absolutely true.)
This story brings Mr. Whitmore and the rest of the surviving crew back to Atlantis to recruit Milo and Kida to investigate a series of mysterious anomalies around the world, Scooby-Doo style. Though it might have made a decent television series, and does manage to be mildly entertaining, it's still the most carelessly and ineffectively slapped-together TV mashup "movie" I've ever seen.
29. Fox and the Hound 2 (2006)
While Todd and Copper are still young, they run off to the local fair, and Copper joins the Singin' Strays, and Todd spends the rest of the movie feeling jealous and left out. They make up and Copper decides to give up a life of fame and fortune so he can stay with his best friend (and nearly kill him a few years later). More than any other DisneyToon sequel I can think of, this movie really lacks, and even undermines, the emotional impact of the original. No, just no, don't do the thing; stay away from this movie if you can help it.
28. Mulan II (2004)
Mulan and Shang are getting married, but they're not quite seeing eye-to-eye. Enter Mushu, who needs Mulan to stay single if he's going to keep his guardian privileges in her family temple. In the midst of the wedding plans they receive an urgent mission to marry off the Emperor's daughters to the princes of an antagonistic nation. Trouble ensues when the three comedy relief soldiers from the first movie fall in love with the princesses, and Mulan teaches everyone that love is all that matters. This has to be the most contrived, most sickeningly sappy of all the DisneyToon sequels.
27. Kronk's New Groove (2005)
This wasn't a mess of episodes from a cancelled series carelessly slapped together. This was just a movie carelessly slapped together. As much as I love Kronk, and Patrick Warburton, building a film around a comedy relief backup character is rarely a good idea; especially when the story meanders from one unbelievable episode to the next, barely held together by a limp narrative tied up in a pretty bow.
26. Cinderella II: Dreams Come True (2002)
Once again, while it appears to be patched together from another animated series, in fact, it was just made that way. But it sold extremely well, so, maybe dreams do come true.
25. The Jungle Book 2 (2003)
Here's the epitome of what makes DisneyToon movies so bad: poor animation and formulaic, derivative stories. But you do have to give credit to Disney for this: nobody else could get away with making a direct sequel to an almost 50-year-old movie. That timelessness is why we love Disney, right?
We also see another staple of DisneyToon, which is recycling a cast of very talented backup voice actors, like Jim Cummings (Sterling Halloway's worthy successor), Jeff Bennett, Haley Joel Osment (who voices Mowgli here, though we all know him better as Sora), and John Goodman, none of which are bad choices (although Goodman makes a poor replacement for Phil Harris). But Tony Jay as Shere Khan? Yes please.
The story is basically Disney's The Jungle Book all over again: Shere Khan is back, and Baloo wants Mowgli to live in the wild with him rather than go back to the man village. Add Mowgli's girlfriend and her little brother, who feel more like they're from Peter Pan than an Indian village, and subtract King Louis, and you've got a funless rehash.
24. Belle's Magical World (1998)
This "midquel," assumably set somewhere during the "Something There That Wasn't There Before" montage, is another Disney Channel reject that ended up getting recycled into a spurious movie. I've never actually seen it, so I can't judge if it's remotely enjoyable or not; the one possible virtue I can imagine it possessing is the chance to explore Beast's castle more and meet a new cast of servants who have been, if you will, objectified by their master; such as Webster the dictionary (voiced by the ubiquitous Jim Cummings), Crane the paper (voiced by the nearly as ubiquitous Jeff Bennett) and a quill, LePlume (Rob Paulsen, who's just as ubiquitous, by gosh).
23. Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002)
Hunchback was one of the most moving, and easily the darkest of the Renaissance films, and its ending was bittersweet. While the movie was still far from the source material, as most Disney films (often thankfully) are, it at least honored Victor Hugo's, shall we say, miserables tone. In stark contrast they give us this glorified TV short so Quasimodo can have the Disney fairytale ending nobody ever asked for.
I've never seen it and I don't want to. Quasimodo falls in love with a conwoman, and she decides to go straight for him, but when some of her colleagues steal a bell to ruin the love festival, he blames her. I'm not making this stuff up.
22. Return of Jafar (1994)
In case you hadn't guessed, Jafar has returned, as an all-powerful Genie, and he's out for revenge. He kidnaps the Sultan, frames Aladdin for murder, and other fun evil. In the end, Iago saves the day and becomes one of the good guys.
DisneyToon's first Disney sequel, and their second movie, it's really just an extended pilot for the Aladdin TV series. Viewed as such, it's not terrible. Besides its discount animation, its biggest drawback is Genie's severe lack of Robin Williams's voice.
21. Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997)
This is one of the few DisneyToon movies I remember enjoying. I'm only a little ashamed to say I can remember the refrain to "As Long as There's Christmas," a saccharine but beautifully composed song. I also remember a musical cherub dream sequence reminiscent of Dumbo's pink elephants.
Since being cursed on Christmas, Beast has banned the holiday in his castle, but Belle's determined to bring it back. Not a very compelling plot until the villain enters: the haunted pipe organ, a truly intimidating villain something like a gay Phantom of the Opera, voiced by the inestimable Tim Curry. Yes, Tim Curry. Sold? No? What if they brought Angela Lansbury back, and threw in Bernadette Peters for good measure? Should we be surprised that it won two WAC Awards and was nominated for five Annies, plus one nomination from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Films?
20. Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998)
At the end of Pocahontas, we weren't entirely sure if John Smith would live or die. Well, in the first scene of Pocahontas II we learn that he did, indeed, live . . . only to die in the first two minutes (but don't worry, he's secretly still not dead). With John Smith MIA, Pocahontas is acquainting herself with John Rolfe, while pleading her case with the King and Queen against Ratcliffe, and learning to be a noblewoman. There is some legitimate conflict, as Ratcliffe is a no-good dirty schemer, and some emotional struggle as Pocahontas tries to choose between John and John. Still, compared to Pocahontas's struggle to stand the middle ground between two races at war, this movie is more like an episode of The Bachelorette.
Fun fact: John Smith, voiced by Mel Gibson in Pocahontas, is voiced by Donal Gibson in this movie, Mel's discount younger brother.
19. The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008)
When Ariel's mother passes away, King Triton is so depressed he bans music in Atlantica. Ariel, as usual, doesn't listen to Daddy. Meanwhile her evil nanny is after Sebastian's job, and gets it by imprisoning Sebastian and his secret band. In the end Ariel "sacrifices" herself to save Sebastian and almost dies when ... the nanny headbutts her? There is simply nothing about this movie that I can stomach.
18. Tarzan II (2005)
You know Stick from Daredevil? This movie is about him, except now he's a monkey and he trains Tarzan to scare people.
... Okay, not at all. But there's a resemblance, and that might make the movie more amusing for a few minutes. Otherwise, skip it. Even as a ten-year-old I found it stupid and unentertaining. Like most midquels, Tarzan II was just a bad idea, as it attempts to add character development that simply isn't supposed to exist. It doesn't fit into the context of the original movie.
17. Springtime with Roo (2004)
We can probably generally agree that DisneyToon's Winnie-the-Pooh movies are some of their best work. That said, I never liked this one, personally. It's a strangely twisted "Easter Carol" story, with Rabbit (of course) being the Scrooge of Holy Week. The story is an arrant cliche with nothing new brought to the adaptation concept outside of the Easter twist.
16. Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie (2005)
The sequel to Pooh's Heffalump Movie (which comes higher ranked on the list), this is about Lumpy the Heffalump's first Halloween. I'm surprised Halloween is even a thing in the Hundred-Acre Woods; there are, what, seven houses where they can trick-or-treat?
I've never seen this one, but it's noteworthy as the last time John Fiedler, the original and consistent voice of Piglet, voiced the character before he passed away. Oddly, he wasn't the only one who finished his Winnie-the-Pooh career here; the cast had been together since since Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, for three television series and six DisneyToon movies, not to mention a number of other projects (such as their voicework for Kingdom Hearts), but after Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie, they split up. When Walt Disney Animation Studios released Winnie-the-Pooh in 2011, Jim Cummings, as both Pooh and Tigger, was the only member of that cast to hang around.
15. The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000)
Ariel's gonna build a wall. It'll be great, it'll be fantastic. It's gonna be a great wall.
When Ursula's envious little sister promises to murder Ariel's child, she and Eric build a wall to cut off their kingdom from the sea. But Melody is obsessively curious, and every chance she gets she sneaks out under the wall and collects anything she can find from the ocean. Like mother, like daughter; so she ends up making a deal with the sea witch, who agrees to turn her into a mermaid on the condition that she steal King Triton's trident.
This is another one of those rare ones I actually enjoyed. I like Melody as a character, and her story is much more compelling than Ariel's. It explores some interesting themes, and puts The Little Mermaid into a "grass is always greener" context.
14. Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996)
Aladdin and Jasmine are about to get married, but their I-do's are interrupted by the forty thieves, who pillage the wedding under the leadership of Aladdin's father. The adventure that follows has a definite Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade flair, and provides a serviceably epic conclusion to the Aladdin saga. And possibly most exciting, Robin Williams returns as Genie.
It's actually quite impressive how Disney built the Aladdin franchise. It had never been done before, and it's only been done once since, with the Lilo and Stitch franchise. Nobody else has ever attempted anything quite like it. (What about Dreamworks, you say? Look at Kung-Fu Panda. Sure, there's a television series and a movie series, but they're so poorly linked, you have to believe they exist in separate universes. How to Train Your Dragon is the same way.) Even though other Disney movies, like Tarzan and kind of like Emperor's New Groove, got both television and movie sequels, they were never as cohesive or nearly as successful.
13. Lion King 2: Simba's Pride (1998)
This will be an unpopular opinion, so prepare for heresy. But I have to admit I really enjoyed Simba's Pride and ... maybe even a little more than The Lion King itself.
I honestly thought it had a great story that was, in fact, possibly more creative than its predecessor, in stark contrast to most DisneyToon films. Yeah, yeah, get out the pitchforks. I'm not dissing on The Lion King; it's a masterpiece. It's just that we've seen the Hamlet plot many, many times, and that plotline is not what makes it such a great movie. Now, to be fair, Simba's Pride is legitimately just Romeo and Juliet, but I found Kiara and Kovu's romance more plausible than Simba and Nala's and definitely more endearing, and the war between two lion clans is awesome. I also thought Kovu's struggle, while predictable, was moving. Unlike most DisneyToon movies, Simba's Pride actually wrestles with some real issues (racism or, at least, classism), driven by believable characters, and brings a fresh, different story, instead of rehashing its predecessor's plot. I really do love this movie.
12. Lilo and Stitch: Stitch has a Glitch (2005)
Entirely independent of the television series and accompanying movies, this sequel was intended to be more faithful to the original story's style and continuity. Stitch's genetic structure is decomposing, but Lilo's too focused on honoring her mother's legacy and winning a hula competition to notice. This resonating tale of love and forgiveness remind us (as nobody since Pokémon could) that if your best friend is dying, just cry and he'll come back to life.
11. Return to Never Land (2002)
Wendy's all grown up, and now she has children of her own who she's struggling to bring up in a London torn by the second World War. One night, Captain Hook kidnaps her daughter, Jane, and convinces her he's the good guy. Jane agrees to help him, and honestly, it's hard to blame her: Peter's a jerk, and Hook is a charming gentleman when he wants to be, so whose side would you be on? (Hashtag TeamHook.) Jane, however, who doesn't care much for class, becomes the first lost girl, sticking it to both Peter's sexism and Hook's chauvinism at the same time.
10. Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997)
You're smarter than you think, stronger than you feel, and braver than you believe.
I'm not ashamed to say those words still make me feel all tingly. With this advice, the adorable and endearing opening ends, establishing like nowhere else in the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise the relationship between Pooh and Christopher Robin, and establishing the motivations for the rest of the film. When Christopher Robin disappears, leaving a honey-smudged note behind him, Pooh and his friends set off to save him from S-C-H-O-O-L, pronounced "SKULL," as Owl explains.
If I had to pick a favorite from the list, this would be it. I was always a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh, and this touching, adventurous installment of his story remains the one I love the best.
9. Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure (2001)
Lady and Tramp have a son, Scamp, the rebellious troublemaker who wants to be a tramp. So he runs away and joins the Junkyard Dogs, where he meets a pretty puppy named Angel who dreams of being a house pet. They fall in love, and so I imagine she puts him straight again and they end up living happily ever after with his family. This is another one I've never seen. And there's only one reason I might even consider seeing it: the dog catcher, who seems to be a Don Knotts caricature.
8. Bambi II (2006)
In the tradition of Fox and the Hound 2 and Tarzan II, we're given another midquel that rewrites a beloved Disney character's childhood. I've never seen it, but it sounds like a deformed adaptation of P.D. Eastman's Are You My Mother?: Bambi, while fighting for acceptance from his distant father, is searching for a surrogate mother.
Apparently it did win an Annie Award for Best Home Entertainment Production; though I imagine that category's not overcrowded with masterpieces.
7. Brother Bear 2 (2006)
Nita (voiced by Mandy Moore, her first role in an animated Disney movie) is getting married, but the spirits don't approve; apparently, when she and Kinai were kids, they promised to marry each other, and Kinai presented her with a betrothal necklace in a tribal ritual. So they embark on a journey to the place of their betrothal to undo the promise. Spoiler alert: Nita changes her mind and has the spirits turn her into a bear. Though not quite as good as its predecessor, this is one of those few DisneyToons films that comes close to convincing you it's a real Disney movie, and I did enjoy it.
6. 101 Dalmations 2: Patch's London Adventure (2003)
Roger and Anita are moving their menagerie to a place in the country with more room, but in the chaos of the move Patch gets left behind. He tries to follow the moving van but gets himself lost instead, and bumps into his celebrity idol, the heroic Thunderbolt, who's secretly a cowardly, quixotic actor. Meanwhile, Cruella De Ville's out of prison and to satisfy her obsession she turns to modern art - and demands a canvas made of Dalmation puppy fur.
5. Tigger Movie (2000)
I love Winnie-the-Pooh. Did I say that? Yes? Did I say Tigger is my favorite character? It might be partially Bill Watterson's fault, but I always liked Tigger best. He's funny, mischievous, loyal, and adventurous, traits I identified with; and maybe unconsciously I admired his independence. I think we could all learn something from how happily he embraces being the only Tigger. But this movie unpacks some of that only-one baggage he's carrying, when he goes searching for a family, only to realize that he already has one.
There's - *sniff* - there's something in my eye, that's all.
4. Cinderella III (2007)
When the Fairy Godmother loses her wand, Anastasia finds it and gives it to her mother. Lady Tremaine uses the fairy magic to turn back time and make Prince Charming choose Anastasia instead of Cinderella. I've never seen it, but I do know this: it's notable for bringing some deserved character development to the stepsisters. Particularly with Anastasia, who continues down the path she set in Cinderella II (literally all I remember about that movie) toward, ultimately, redeeming herself.
3. Piglet's Big Movie (2003)
Piglet's feeling unimportant and unwanted, so he runs away. Using an unoriginal plot device Gravity Falls only sort of stole, the others find Piglet's scrapbook and use it to follow him. But in the end, they get themselves into a bit of a scrape and it's Piglet who finds them, and saves their lives, proving once and for all that size doesn't matter.
2. Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005)
I've seen trailers and I've seen bits and pieces of the movie but I've never sat down and watched it start to finish. This one centers around Roo (again), who accidentally happens upon a Heffalump while the others are hunting for one. Afraid of what they might do if they find him (because Pooh's pop gun is real threatening), Roo has to keep his new friend a secret.
1. Lion King 1½ (2004)
In DisneyToon's boldest move ever, they decide to commit Disney sacrilege and desecrate one of its most highly esteemed films. It's DisneyToon's most derivative, most formulaic film ever, not just stealing The Lion King's plot and applying it to Timon, but stealing the movie's most iconic scenes and retelling them from Timon and Pumbaa's perspective.
And yet, somehow, it all works. Perhaps it's this movie's self-awareness and shameless self-satirization. It holds nothing sacred: it takes everything that makes most of DisneyToon's movies so terrible and ridicules it to the ground. It mocks Disney, it mocks The Lion King, it mocks itself; and somewhere in the midst of it all there's some faint strand of an actually original story that was worth being told.
This is not my favorite DisneyToon sequel, not by a longshot; mostly because I'm a pretty sentimental Disney fan, and this movie is unforgivably irreverent. But I will concede that out of all DisneyToon's many sequels, Lion King 1½ deserves to be called the best movie.
Conclusion
Some of these movies are actually pretty good, or at least highly enjoyable. I mentioned earlier that Disney fans tend to be of one of two camps: those that hate the DisneyToon sequels; and those that love them. I think we can all generally agree that they're all lower quality than their predecessors, but that leaves one important question unanswered: Does that mean we can't enjoy them anyway?
As for me, I like to believe that, yes, we absolutely can be allowed to enjoy the Disney sequels. It doesn't matter if they're good or bad. What matters is that, for many of us, they were a magical part of our childhood.
There are some sequels I can't stand, some I just don't care for, and some that hold a very special place in my heart. I'm not ashamed to love a movie that Rotten Tomatoes gives an approval rating of 33%. And I respect the opinions of people who hate Simpa's Pride or Pooh's Grand Adventure, just like I respect Princess and the Frog critics and haters alike, even though it's my favorite Disney movie.
So if you're like me, and there are some DisneyToon sequels you not only enjoy, but love, then don't worry, you're not alone; and it's okay that not everybody agrees with us. We're going to keep watching and enjoying the movies we love, the movies that make us happy. I'd like to see someone try and stop us.