Disney History Lesson: The Princess and the Frog

Are you reeeeeaaaadyyy for The Princess and the Frog?

The Princess and the Frog was released on December 11th 2009. The story is based off of Der Froschkonig oder der eiserne Heinrich (The Frog Prince/Iron Heinrich in German) written by The Brothers Grimm in 1812 as Tale 1 in their book, Grimms' Fairy Tales.

The movie takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana in the 1920's while the original story take place in Germany during the 1500's.

The Princess and the Frog was the last Disney movie (thus far) to be traditionally animated (hand drawn).

Tiana is voiced by Anika Noni Rose except during her childhood where she is voiced by Elizabeth M. Dampier. She is portrayed as being 19 years old in the movie. She is the first "modern" Disney Princess. This is due to the fact that she has a job, is working toward a career goal, maintains interracial friendships, encounters automobiles, is raised in a still-existing city, is surrounded by jazz music which is still a popular form of music today, and owns more than one outfit (11 in total).

Prince Naveen is voiced by Bruno Campos and is portrayed as being approximately 20 years old. Naveen is the prince of a fictional land called Maldonia. Disney purposely created the unknown country to make Naveen racially ambiguous and therefore show how a person's race isn't an important part of life.

Maldonia was based off of the real-life countries of Maldives and Macedonia, Greece. In the movie the country was said to have the official language of Maldaquesh which Disney derived from the Italian language. Naveen also mentions that in Maldonia there are two numbers between 28 and 29 called twenty-badini and twenty-cazini. Naveen's name means "new" in Indian. And if you look closely at the newspaper at the beginning of the movie when "Down in New Orleans" is being sung you can see that it says "Maldonia cannot be found on the map".

The Princess and the Frog explains the existence of the second star to the right which ties it to Peter Pan (but you'll have to watch the movie yourself  to find out why :D ).

For a full list of cast members click here
For more movie fun facts click here

That's all for now! I hope you're reeeeaaaadyyy for the next Disney treasure we'll uncover!

Disney History Lesson: Frozen

Winter is fast approaching. December 21st is just about a week away. In honor of that I decided to uncover the mysteries of the the most successful movie ever...the Oscar winning Frozen!

Frozen was based off of Snedronningen (The Snow Queen in Danish) written by Hans Christian Anderson on the first day of winter (December 21st) in 1844. The original story is very very VERY different from the movie adaptation. So much so that it's not really based off of the fairy tale but off of a faint whisper of an idea from it. I am not exaggerating when I say that it is an incredibly far cry from the initial written story.

The Snow Queen was one of Hans Christian Anderson's longest and most popular stories. It is frequently incorporated in his "best works" collections and has been redone in the form of an illustrated children's book numerous times. The story was split into seven parts and was about the struggle between good and evil whereas the modern day rendition is centered around the importance of love- not just romantic love but the love that is shared between family members. If you want to compare Frozen to the original story then you can get a copy of The Snow Queen from Barnes and Nobles or the public library or click here for the digital copy. There have also been several animated movies and live action films that are more accurately based off of The Snow Queen such as; the Universal Studios English dubbed version of Snezhnaya Koroleva made in 1957 as an animation and 1966 as a live action film in Russia, The Snow Queen animated feature made in England in 1995, Snow Queen made in 2002 by Hallmark as an American television movie production. There was also a Japanese anime series adaptation made in 2005, a Finnish adaptation named Lumikuningatar in 1986, and even an episode in the anime series Sailor Moon that was dedicated to the story. The list goes on and on.

Walt Disney initially wanted to make an animated movie adaptation of The Snow Queen in 1937 but due to countless complications the film's concept was put aside for later. Over the next 70 years the production of The Snow Queen was heavily disputed in Walt Disney Studios before it was finally put to work in 2011. There the story was renamed Frozen and the plot began to take a significant shift from the fairy tale. The movie was released on November 27th 2013 and became an immediate success. Frozen made an approximate total of $1.274 billion and no other movie has EVER made that much money. It also won an Oscar for best animated feature and best original song for "Let It Go". It has also won a total of 56 awards from numerous associations and 87 nominations. Frozen's soundtrack album was also on top of the billboard chart for weeks which also makes it the most successful movie soundtrack ever.

For a more in depth explanation of the history and success of Frozen check out the video below-

Frozen is indisputably the most successful movie of all time and its Snow Queen origins are a timeless classic that have and will be admired for generations. I personally love Frozen and if anyone has yet to see it then they need to see it like now...no really I mean RIGHT NOW.

Well that's all for this history lesson! If you run out of things to do during your holiday break or you're just looking for an amazing movie to watch then I can not over emphasize how much you should watch Frozen. Have a wonderful winter!

If you're interested- Click here for a full list of cast members