Home On-The Range

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***Home on the Range*** is the 45th full-length animated feature film in the ***Disney Animated Canon***, and was released on ***April 2***, ***2004***. It tells a tale of three dairy cows in the wild west who search for a wanted criminal to save their farm from going bankrupt.

## *Home On-The Range*

### Directed by

Will Finn
John Sanford

### Written by

**Screenplay and story:**
Will Finn
John Sanford
**Story:**
Micheal LaBash
Sam Levine
Mark Kennedy
Robert Lence

### Produced by

Alice Dewey Goldstone

This movie received mixed reviews from film critics and is notorious for being an absolute commercial failure (despite the cult following it gained on home video releases). It is often blamed for putting traditional hand drawn animated films out of business, considering its quality consensus-wise, and the fact that it was the last traditionally-animated Disney film released in theaters, until ***The Princess and the Frog*** and ***Winnie the Pooh***.

## Plot

In 1889, Maggie is the only cow left on the Dixon Ranch after Alameda Slim (a cattle rustler capable of stealing 500 cows in a single night) stole all the rest of Dixon's cattle. Mr. Dixon sells Maggie to Pearl, a kind and elderly woman who runs a small dairy farm called Patch of Heaven. The local Sheriff arrives to tell Pearl that her bank is cracking down on debtors. Pearl has three days to pay the bank $750, or her farm will be sold to the highest bidder. Hearing this, Maggie convinces the other cows on the farm (Grace, a happy-go-lucky character, and Mrs. Calloway, who has had leadership gone to her head) to go to town to attempt winning prize money at a fair and meet her new friends there.

While the cows are in town, a bounty hunter named Rico (whom Buck, the Sheriff's horse, idolizes) drops a criminal off and collects the reward. Stating he needs a replacement horse to go after Alameda Slim while his own horse rests, he borrows Buck. When Maggie find out that the reward for capturing Slim is of exactly $750, she convinces the other cows to try and capture him to save Patch of Heaven. That night, they hide among a large herd of Texas longhorns, when Alameda Slim appears. Before any of them can do anything, Slim beings a yodeling song which sends all the cattle (except Grace, who is tone deaf) into a trance that causes them to dance madly and follow Slim anywhere. Luckily, Grace is able to bring Maggie and Mrs. Calloway back to their senses by letting the wagon go down to them just before Slim closes the path behind him with a rockslide to stop Rico and his men from chasing him.

As Rico discusses with his men what his next move will be, Buck starts talking with Maggie, Grace, and Mrs. Calloway as old friends and miming actions. This causes Rico to believe Buck is frightened by cows, and sends Buck back to the Sheriff. Buck escapes, determined to capture Slim for himself to prove his worth. Maggie, Grace, and Mrs. Calloway are left behind, but they meet a peg-legged rabbit named Lucky Jack, who leads them to the Slim's hideout mine. At the mine, Slim reveals that he has been stealing all cattle from his former patrons. When his former patrons can't support their land anymore, he buys the land when it is auctioned off, under the guise of the respectable-looking Mr. O'del, using the very money he gets from selling the cattle he stole. After arriving to Slim's hideout, the cows capture Slim. They run off with Slim's accomplices and buyer in pursuit on a steam train. When the chase stops, Rico arrives and is revealed to work for Slim. Slim dons his Yancy O'del costume and leaves the cows stranded in the middle of the desert with the train, while he goes to attend the auction. However, after Buck redeems himself to save the cows and defeat Rico, Wesley, and the Willie Brothers, the cows arrive using Wesley's train to the farm and expose Slim with the help of the animals in Patch of Heaven. Slim is arrested by the police, and Patch of Heaven is saved by the reward money.

A few weeks pass, and at the county fair most of the livestock on Patch of Heaven have won prizes. 'Lucky' Jack Rabbit moves in with Jeb the Goat, and two longhorns, Bob and Barry, and Slim's charming and gentlemanly steed Junior the Buffalo arrive unexpectedly to live at Patch of Heaven, expanding the farm.

## Development

Home on the Range was originally conceived as a supernatural western titled *Sweatin' Bullets*, some time during the mid 1990's when the ***Disney Renaissance*** was in full swing by directors ***Mike Gabriel*** and Mike Giaimo. In this version of the film, Alameda Slim and the Willie Brothers were a gang of ghostly rustlers who plotted to kill various herds of cattle in revenge for having been trampled to death years before. The one thing standing in their way was a brave young calf and Lucky Jack, a rabbit who's foot was stolen by Slim years ago. It was most likely changed due to the villains' origins being trampled by cattle/buffalo may have went to a very high PG or even a PG-13 rating due to a possible chance of blood being shown.

Similar to how *Kingdom of the Sun* became *The Emperor's New Groove*, the film was entirely reworked into a comedy by Will Finn and John Sanford who replaced Gabriel and Giaimo, going with a '50s UPA inspiration for the character design. Although it was originally considered to be the last traditionally animated film to have been released by Disney (as the studio would be switching to computer animation), they would give the technique a comeback for 2009's *The Princess and the Frog*, which was a critical and commercial success, despite not performing well enough to fully convince the studio to make traditional hand-drawn animation one of their big priorities once again.

## Cast

* Roseanne Barr as Maggie
* Judi Dench as Mrs. Calloway
* Jennifer Tilly as Grace
* Cuba Gooding Jr. as Buck
* Randy Quaid as Alameda Slim
* Charles Haid as Lucky Jack
* Estelle Harris as Audrey
* Carole Cook as Pearl Gesner
* Charlie Dell as ***Ollie***
* Patrick Warburton as Patrick
* Steve Buscemi as Wesley
* Edie McClurg as Mollie the Pig
* Bobby Block, Keaton Savage, and Ross Simanteris as the Piggies
* Joe Flaherty as Jeb
* G. W. Bailey as Rusty
* Charles Dennis as Rico
* Richard Riehle as Sheriff Sam Brown
* Lance LeGault as Junior the Buffalo
* Mark Walton as Barry and Bob
* Sam J. Levine as The Willie Brothers (speaking)
* Ann Richards as Annie
* Dennis Weaver as Abner
* Randy Erwin as Alameda Slim (yodelling)
* Bill Farmer as Donkey
* Roger L. Jackson as Tommy the Ox
* John Sandford as Rooster
* Peter Siragusa as Clem
* Joe Whyte as Vulture
* Bruce A. Young as Morse, Cowboy Rider and Morris
* Roger Yuan as Chinese Rider

### Additional Voices

* Michael Bell - Cowboy, Saloon Patron #1
* Tim Blevins - Singer, Fly #1
* Bob Bouchard -
* Tami Tappin Damiano -
* Debi Derryberry - Saloon Woman #2
* Randy Erwin - Alameda Slim (yodelling), Saloon Patron #2
* Troy Evans - Saloon Patron #5
* Linda Griffin -
* Pam Hamill -
* Leslie Jordan - Fly #3, Photographer
* Linda Kerns - Saloon Woman #3
* Kevin Ligon - Fly #2
* Mickie McGowan - Saloon Woman #1
* Jordan Orr - Firework Boy #1
* Wilbur Pauley - Singer
* Phil Proctor - Man on Train
* Evan Sabara - Firework Boy #2
* Garnett Sailor - Man, Saloon Patron #4
* Peter Samuel - Singer, Saloon Patron #3
* Jim Ward - Saloon Patron #6

## Reception

While the film has earned mixed reviews from critics at the time of its release (according to a 54% rating the film has earned on Rotten Tomatoes and a 5.4 rating on IMDb, which makes it the worst Disney animated canon review), it was (and still is to this very day) despised by the vast majority of the Disney animation press and fan base, being considered both one of the worst animated films of all-time, not just by Disney fans, but from various movie critics as well, and is often debated against *Chicken Little*, ***The Black Cauldron*** and/or ***Strange World*** as the worst film of the Disney canon; though it should be noted *The Black Cauldron* has become the least hated out of all four movies due to it having the largest fan base along with *Chicken Little* (which is a bit less hated than the others, but received a score of 37% on Rotten Tomatoes) and *Strange World* (which has the highest score on Rotten Tomatoes but received the most negative reviews from the audience, and is the only Disney Animated Canon film that received a grade lower than "A-" from CinemaScore). Despite this, the film was successful when released on home video to make up for its loss at the box office.

## Soundtrack

Main article: Home On-The Range (soundtrack)

## Trivia

* During the scene where Slim is about to write his name on the deed to the Little Patch of Heaven, we see that the date is May 4th, 1889. However, the audition for Patch of Heaven was dated on September 24.
* This was the third-to-last traditionally animated feature in the Disney animated feature canon, followed by ***The Princess and the Frog*** and ***Winnie the Pooh***.
* This is one of the two posters along with Disney's live-action hockey film ***Miracle*** to be seen from the episode, *Opposites Attract: Part 1* on ABC's ***8 Simple Rules***.
* According to the trailer, Maggie originally fed a piggie an apple from a barrel. This was likely a work-in-progress footage, because in the final version, Maggie pulled the apple out of the piggie's ear.
* This had the last trailer to be narrated by ***Mark Elliott***.
* This had the last video release to have a THX certification, but the THX trailer was only included on the DVD, not the VHS.
* This is the last Disney film released on VHS and to be widely issued in that format as Disney's next film *Chicken Little* had a VHS release, but was rare and released as a Disney Movie Club exclusive.
* This is ***Alan Menken***'s only project in the Disney post-Renaissance era (aka the Second Disney Dark Age). His next project, ***Tangled***, was released in the Disney Revival.
* This is the last animated movie from Disney to use the 1.66:1 aspect ratio, although the 2.35:1 aspect ratio is used for Buck's dream sequence.
* The film is often accused for putting traditional hand-drawn animation out of business in North America's cinema industry. However, traditional animation is actually still thriving in some European countries and Japan; mostly due to the popularity of both Cartoon Saloon's *The Secret of Kells* and *Song of the Sea*, film adaptations of popular cartoon shows from channels like Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network and various anime shows, particularly in Japan's case. That, and the actual reason why traditional animation isn't as common anymore is due to the fact that films like this have failed to achieve the same critical and commercial success as the computer-animated films from Pixar and DreamWorks (that were considered innovative for their time), which in turn, has convinced the industry (even Disney) that hand-drawn animated films are no longer that worth producing, if they will not turn out as popular as more superior computer-generated films, in terms of success and reception.
	+ On a similar note, traditional animation still thrives in the entertainment industry in America, but it is only used for television-based cartoons like *Adventure Time* and *The Simpsons*.
* In the documentary ***The Pixar Story***, it's revealed that when the Disney company was dysfunctional and one of the storytelling executives rejected the idea of computer animated features, this movie was proposed while *The Brave Little Toaster* was in production. This poor choice is the main cause of Disney's Second Dark Age after the infamous falling out between Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
* This the second Disney film to star both ***Jennifer Tilly*** and ***Steve Buscemi***, the first was Pixar's ***Monsters, Inc.***
* When the cows encounter Buck again, Maggie mockingly refers to him as the "Stallion of the Ci-moron". This is a reference to the Dreamworks Animated film *Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron*.
* The film was rated PG because of a comment Maggie makes about her udders. ("Yeah, they're real. Quit staring!")
* It is the only Disney film to not feature a cameo at any point in any scene in the film.

## External links

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Template:Home On-The Range

1. ↑ http://mrfun.squarespace.com/blog/2012/8/29/sweating-bullets.html
2. ↑ http://fyeahfailedcartoonpilots.tumblr.com/post/142030512794/sweating-bullets-home-on-the-range-directed