Then something strange happened. As the 80s wore on and it looked like Disney would never recover, a film called The Little Mermaid came along and rewrote history. Suddenly, the studio was vital again, and their outflow was, again, amazing: Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Hercules and Tarzan. With each new film, breakthroughs were being made and it looked like hand drawn animation was back in a big way. Then something called 'Pixar' arrived on the scene. The desktop denizens addicted to the computer-based approach to cartooning were making waves in the world of kid vid. And when their first film, Toy Story, became a bankable blockbuster, the dynamic was altered forever. Suddenly, the old fashioned way of making animated movies seemed archaic. And when audiences balked at such stale offerings as Treasure Planet and Brother Bear, Disney was suddenly a dinosaur. Oddly enough, they apparently agreed. With the release of Home on the Range in 2004, the studio announced it was abandoning the traditional animated film forever. After watching this cow-based comic western, one wonders if such a determination was premature...or far too long in the making.

The DVD:
Maggie is a show cow who is uprooted when her owner, Abner, can no longer afford to keep his farm. She ends up being taken in by the kindly Pearl, who runs the little Patch of Heaven ranch. There, Maggie meets head heifer Mrs. Calloway and Grace, a slightly befuddled bovine. Among the other animal residents are Ollie the pig, Larry the duck, Audrey the chicken and Jeb the goat. While Pearl's place appears to be an actual Earth-bound example of its namesake, all is not well. Pearl owes money to the bank, and if she can't raise $750, the farm will be foreclosed upon. Desperate to save their situation, Maggie comes up with an idea. The cows will go off to town, stall the foreclosure, and wait until the State Fair, where Pearl's critters are sure to win the first prize. But when they learn that there's just not enough money in pageantry, the mooing milkmaids come up with a different idea. They will hunt down and capture notorious cattle rustler Alameda Slim and collect the reward. What they don't know is that Slim has a special way with a steer that means certain doom for the trio. But these spunky udder queens will do anything to save their little Home on the Range.

Okay, granted, Home on the Range is harmless. It's nowhere near the classic territory of other recent Disney titles like Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast. But don't let all the negative hype and questionable criticism fool you. This fun family feature is vastly superior to almost any other non-computer generated mainstream animated movie currently making the rounds. If you adore such drivel as Cats Don't Dance or All Dogs Go to Heaven, Home on the Range plays like friggin' Allegro Non Troppo. And while those dipstick dinosaurs from The Land Before Time seem to generate sequels as rapidly as rodents produce offspring, this cornpone comedy from the once - but perhaps not future – king of all pen and ink entities is original and opulent in its artistry. But Home on the Range is also half-baked, derivative, uninviting and occasionally outright ridiculous. It appears to be a movie made on the cheap, with one eye on the character design and another on the bottom line. Sadly, the accountants seem to have won this round since, at a short 67 minutes, this movie barely gets going before the plug is pulled. The narrative is rushed, the lead roles are painted in overbroad, obvious strokes and our villain is one of the weakest examples of cartoon evil every caricatured across the silver screen.

It's clear from its conceits that Home on the Range is dispensing with the classic Disney design book – both stylistically and plot wise – to craft an ironic, twisted take on the standard foreclosure-based oater. There is a very distinct look to the animals here, a retrograde exploration of 50s angular approach married to recognizable iconography. What this means is that nothing here really resembles its nature-based doppelganger – pigs are more like pencil erasers than porkers and the chicks are all oversized heads and stick figure legs. Thankfully, our bovine beauties are kept as close to the real thing as possible, with only minimal manipulation of their genetic blueprint. As for the humans, we get the typical ridiculous facial hair, exaggerated features (big noses and large asses are apparently in this year) and irregular postures that supposedly signify comedy. But perhaps the more interesting element in Home on the Range's look is the lack of celebrity recognizability. Looking over an image of our cow heroines, it's almost impossible to conceive of voice-over artists Jennifer Tilly, Roseanne Barr and Dame Judy Dench in the roles. Same goes for Cuba Gooding, Jr. as the kung-fu fighting horse, Buck. Usually, animators strive to place a small bit of an actor's facade into the final appearance of an entity. But aside from the obvious nod to Steve Buscemi in Wesley's peculiar puss or the slightest hint of G.W. Bailey in the long jowl look of the sheriff's dog, Rusty, the animals have personality, just not from the famous individuals bringing them to life.

On the storytelling level, Home on the Range also wants to be different. As long as there have been movies, there has been the pending foreclosure and the wicked, moustache-twisting landowner just waiting to dispossess some poor helpless soul. Leaving it to the animals to save the farm may seem original, but it's really just the same old sagebrush recaptured in a decidedly cud-chewing manner. True, making the female characters the strong protagonists does help to differentiate the film from other cartoon creature plots, but it also saps away any suspense. We know Disney would never endanger these cows (even if they, long ago, killed Bambi's mom) and as a result, the ending is almost assuredly a given. Frankly, the movie makes no bones about it, or attempt to circumvent it. Then there is the musical approach. Unlike other Disney films (including many of the most beloved) the characters don't break into song (except for Alameda Slim, but more on that later). Instead, the music is reserved as kind of a Greek chorus, commenting on the action and/or setting the scene for emotion or exposition. Howard Menken's tunes are excellent, capturing the spirit of singing cowboy corniness pitch perfectly. While the lyrics occasionally let the sentiment soar into the overly saccharine, and the overall compositions aren't as instantly memorable as the scores for Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid, it still adds a nice counterpoint to the animated anarchy going on.

But the music also adds to one of the major miscues in the entire film. There is an exact moment where Home on the Range goes askew, a precise set of frames that derails this semi-successful story and turns it tenuous. Indeed, once this scene plays out, the movie is lost in its own insularity in a manner from which it almost never recovers. Sadly, to discuss it, one needs to delve into spoiler-ville, so if you don't want to ruin one of the film's major revelations, skip to the next paragraph now. You see, we are initially told that bad guy Alameda Slim is the most magnificent cattle rustler in the west, and that he has a special secret which magnifies his efficiency. Well, it turns out that Slim's amazing ability is...yodeling. That's right. Yodeling. That Alps via the Appalachians squelch squeaking that resembles injured cats crooning in a combination of ecstasy and agony. Seems that cows are instantly hypnotized by Slim's throat warbling and will follow him anywhere, including into his convenient mountainside hideout. Now, if you buy the big overblown production number given to describe Slim's skill (reminiscent of the psychedelic workouts Disney designed in the late 1960s), then the rest of the movie will move along wonderfully. But if this narrative challenge causes your logical tolerances to twitch, then Home on the Range has officially flummoxed you – maybe even to the point of no return. Certainly, the ability to novelty croon is not the most menacing aspect to a bad guy's personality, and since we have no real threat present, it just comes across as a gag. And the last thing you want from your lead antagonist is a dumb, not devilish, persona.

Still, there are some worthwhile elements here. SCTV's Joe Flaherty turns the disgruntled goat Jeb into a super sourpuss on stump legs, his face one elongated snout full of snarls. There are lots of 3-D elements here, computer generated backgrounds and layers that give the frame a fullness and a depth that really works. Combined with the brilliant backdrops (really keeping the painted desert feel to the old west) and the rainbow bright palette, the movie is a terrific piece of opulent eye candy. But for the most part, Home on the Range is just a partial-success. It does rely far too heavily on the Disney desire to have several set pieces in each film (like a pointless barroom brawl or a overlong mind shaft roller coaster ride) and some of the comedy is clever, even if it is relying on tried and true archetypes (Jennifer Tilly's new age mantras grow groan-worthy very quickly). But the main problem here is that Home on the Range is a film overstuffed with filler. There are several characters – the ambiguous bounty hunter Rico, the jutting jawed Willie Brothers – that are decidedly distracting and not really necessary to the plot. And the film seems obsessed with breaking convention just for the heck of it. Kids will adore this mammal-power movie. But in the great two-dimensional tradition of Disney film, this is more of a cow pie than a prime cut.

The Video:
Presented in a 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, Home on the Range looks remarkable. The colors are vibrant, the contrasts are clean and the overall look is artistic and aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes, a CG shot can announce itself blatantly (the mine shaft sequence comes to mind) but the combination of tradition and technology works well here.

The Audio:
There is a great deal of atmosphere and mood in the aural attributes of Home on the Range and the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound. While not amazing in its channel challenging sequences (mostly, effects and animal noises occupy the immersive spaces) the sonics are clear and crisp. The music is especially represented well in the highly polished, professional mix.

The Extras:
Hoping to enhance the added value of what is basically a simple animated film, Disney loads this DVD with tons of extras. First we get a full-length audio commentary featuring writers/directors Will Finn and John Sanford, along with producer Alice Dewey. Almost every secret, story change and special situation is highlighted in this alternative narrative track and the casual, conversational style of the participants is pleasant. While we would have welcomed even more of the behind the scenes insights (since the enclosed, 16 minute documentary on the making of the film is nothing more than a overdone publicity puff piece) into how the film went from a hero based comedy called Sweating Bullets to the animal based Range, this feature is fascinating. So are the deleted scenes, even if they are more or less mislabeled. While not really sequences so much as storyboard ideas for sections of the film, it is still fun to see the concepts – Slim running for President, the butterfly marriachi band that used to narrate the film – come to half-life. The filmmakers introduce each installment and describe why they were eventually removed from the film. The last featurette discusses the inspiration for much of the artwork in the movie, and for the images alone, it's worth the price of admission. But more importantly, it's intriguing to hear a debate over the use of natural and stylized looks when rendering something based in real life.

For the kiddies, there's lots of entertainment-oriented extras as well. On the "Games and Activities" menu, you can choose a Simon-like Yodel Memory Game, or pop the DVD into your ROM drive to create your own ear-piercing vocal variables. There is also a Laugh-In style section of gags called The Joke Corral which presents the characters cracking wise and playing for yucks. There are previews for other Disney titles and a music video by some teen pop balderdash known as The Beu Sisters. But the best bonus here is a Flash-animation version of "The Three Little Pigs" using patchwork versions of our animal characters from the film. It's funny and highly inventive and captures the equally irreverent flavor of the film magnificently.

Final Thoughts:
One hopes that Disney was only joking when they announced a moratorium on traditional animated movies. So many childhood memories are tied up in the cartoon versions of Peter Pan, Ariel and the big blue Genie that to turn everything digital seems unfair to that legacy. If Home on the Range is an example of what we can expect from the traditional drawing department, there is hope for the genre yet. True, this is a lesser title in the Disney lexicon, a work of simple silliness aimed at bringing a smile to your face without much deeper meaning. And one could argue that the lack of new ground being broken proves that pen and ink is a dead art form. But animation is not just about technological advances, it's about magic and memories. One day, a few years from now, people may even point to a Pixar production and sneer "It wasn't as good as Toy Story 2". Just because one way of doing things is on an upturn doesn't mean you just abandon tradition. Indeed, Home on the Range should not be the death knell for 2-D cartooning. It's just a momentary lapse in inspiration. Someday, someone will come along and revitalize the standard, straightforward hand drawn animated film. Here's hoping that Disney is not standing on the outside looking in. They still have a lot to offer and this minor, if still amusing, movie is proof of that potential. Apparently, unless the characters can immediately take their place upon the pedestal of classic House of Mouse icon, the studio no longer has any use for them, and that's a shame. Home on the Range may be flawed, but it's still good clean fun.

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