History Main / Disneyfication

* Actually [[SubvertedTrope mostly subverted]] with ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'', as [[NeverTrustATrailer the trailers made it look like]] it would do this to ''TheSnowQueen''. While the final film is almost completely different from the book, the only particularly dark element actually ''removed'' is [[{{Satan}} the devil-troll]] and his evil mirror. Disney compensates by adding much ''more'' dark elements to the story than are in the original tale: the film's protagonists are notably older than the ones in ''The Snow Queen'' and go through much deeper psychological turmoil than they did, [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds especially Elsa.]]
** But the trope is accurate here, too. The film is somewhat dark, what with Elsa and [[ParentalAbandonment Anna's]] issues, but it removed some elements just because of how different it is: Gerda, the heroine of the original story, has to deal with her best friend suddenly becoming cruel and callous for no apparent reason. He disappears, and she goes off, entirely alone, hoping to find him. She doesn't get anything approaching a permanent ally until more than halfway through the story. On the way, she's kidnapped by a witch, threatened by violent robbers, and nearly freezes. There's also no explicit, conventional romance subplot, which they added and played around with in the movie.

* Disney actually went back and did this to an attraction in [[DisneyThemeParks Tokyo Disney Sea]]. The SinbadTheSailor attraction went from a telling of all of Sinbad's daring adventures and the dangers he faced along the way though in a rather stylized Mary Blair fashion to a sanitized TastesLikeDiabetes version with a happy Alan Menken song, Sinbad given a clean shave and a tiger cub sidekick, and all the monsters becoming Sinbad's friends or helping him along the way that brings to mind "it's a small world".

** Even more strangely, the Disney movie is actually ''darker'' than the novel in a few respects; gypsy genocide isn't on the agenda at all in the book, nor is Paris burnt to the ground.

* {{Film/IntoTheWoods}} is a mixed bag. It's less risque than the [[Theatre/IntoTheWoods original production]], but nonetheless contains many dark themes and plays around with them. For instance, [[spoiler: the affair with the Prince and the Baker's Wife]] is kept intact, albeit with ambiguity of how far it went. In addition, the sexual subtext between The Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood are kept in and made creepier with the fact that an actual little girl played her, rather than an adult in a costume. However, [[spoiler: Jack's mother's death]] is not as grisly as the original production, and [[spoiler: Rapunzel does not die]] in this version.

* [[Film/IntoTheWoods]] is a mixed bag. It's less risque than the [[Theatre/IntoTheWoods original production]], but nonetheless contains many dark themes and plays around with them. For instance, [[spoiler: the affair with the Prince and the Baker's Wife]] is kept intact, albeit with ambiguity of how far it went. In addition, the sexual subtext between The Big Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood are kept in and made creepier with the fact that an actual little girl played her, rather than an adult in a costume. However, [[spoiler: Jack's mother's death]] is not as grisly as the original production, and [[spoiler: Rapunzel does not die]] in this version.

* ''Disney/{{Bambi}}.'' ([[AdaptationDisplacement Yes, it was based on a novel]]). True, Bambi's mother dies in the film, but its tone still is significantly lighter than the novel's (it was written for adult audiences), which was much darker and more brutal, including graphic death scenes. They also never included Bambi's cousin Gobo's death. [[KissingCousins And they failed to mention Faline was his cousin!]]

* ''TheBlackCauldron'' mishmashed plot elements from LloydAlexander's book of the same name with his earlier ''The Book of Three'', gave the amalgamated villain an annoying sidekick, turned the truculent dwarves into cute little pixies, and made beast-man Gurgi the very definition of TastesLikeDiabetes. No songs, though, and about 15 minutes of the film were removed for concerns about being too "dark" (said scenes were presumably more true to the book). Disney itself acknowledges the failure of this movie nowadays, and wishes they could give their fans a more book-accurate version. Why they don't, given that they still own the adaptation rights to the series, is anyone's guess.

* ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'' not only has a HijackedByJesus style, but also implies that the Greek gods had wholesome family values, when in the original mythologies, having sex with mortals was pretty much a boredom-relieving exercise.

* ''Disney/{{Hercules}}'' not only has a HijackedByJesus style, but also implies that the Greek gods had wholesome family values! Remember, in the original myths, every god is up to sexual hijinks at one point or another.

** In the original myth, not only was Heracles the product of an extramarital affair (with a mortal woman, Alcmene), but Hera loathed him and tried multiple times to torture and kill him. At one stage, she inflicted a madness on him that drove him to murder his children and his first wife, Megara - and it was Heracles who had to carry out penance for this in the form of the Twelve Labours.

** Also, in the original story, the sea witch was a TrueNeutral character. In the movie, [[BigBad Ursula]] is the source of many a 90's kids [[NightmareFuel/{{Disney}} nightmares]].

* Disney's so-called adaptation of Mary Norton's ''Literature/BedknobAndBroomstick'' dropped the original book's ''entire plot'', and instead created a new one from whole cloth involving Eglantine Price's attempt to learn magic solely in order to help the British effort in WorldWarTwo. Along the way, a medieval sorcerer became a modern con-man, an island of {{Talking Animal}}s was added apparently just to give Disney's animation division something to do that year, and a climactic battle scene of magically powered suits of plate armor versus a Nazi invasion force replaced the book's much more low-key conclusion. Oh, and they made it a musical. A major plot element complete with its own musical number, critical to the climax of the film, was conjured up out of a random two-word phrase ("substitutiary locomotion") that appears only once in a minor conversation on which the children eavesdrop in the book. And on top of all that, they pluralized both nouns in the title for no obvious reason.

* ''{{Asterix}}'' does this for TheRomanRepublic and the Roman conquest of Western Europe. Plenty of PoliticallyCorrectHistory is used - for instance, the historical Gauls were big fans of human sacrifices and killed enemies often in highly disturbing ways to serve as a deterrent, but the Gauls in the comic are big-hearted, childish party animals who love a good, friendly brawl and to poke fun at authority, and NobodyCanDie is in full effect (save for a single HoistByHisOwnPetard death in a particularly dark story). Slaves in the comic are usually shown in such a way that the horror of being literally owned by another human being is [[BlackComedy nullified]]; the gladiators in one story all decide they prefer playing parlour games to fighting; the pirates, while not quite ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything, are way too incompetent to actually get any pillaging done; and the complicated politico-sexual mess between Cleopatra, Caesar and Mark Antony is completely glossed over in favour of excising Mark Antony and making Caesar and Cleopatra a happy (if prone to bickering) husband and wife, with Cleo being something of a softening influence on him. Brutus, one of Caesar's eventual murderers in RealLife, is portrayed as ObviouslyEvil and just there for DramaticIrony HorribleJudgeOfCharacter jokes.

* Creator/RudyardKipling's ''Literature/JungleBooks'' (yes, two of them) depict the orphaned Mowgli growing into a strong and intelligent young man whose jungle upbringing will make him something of a NobleSavage. Baloo was a serious, wise old animal, rather than fun-loving comic relief. Kaa the python, while large, intimidating, and alien, is one of Mowgli's ''allies'', not enemies. Hathi the elephant is wise and powerful and when he tells Shere Khan to clear off ("How Fear Came"), the tiger does so -- he is not a pompous ass who fancies himself a Victoria Cross-winning British Army colonel. There is quite a lot of violence, too. At one point Kaa hypnotizes a troupe of monkeys into becoming his helpless (ahem) dinner guests; later on Mowgli and the wolves kill Shere Khan by a stampede of water-buffalo over him. (In the Disney version he doesn't even die!) The story "Red Dog" has Mowgli cause the marauding dogs of the title to be attacked by millions of angry bees; those who jump in the river to survive are attacked by Mowgli with a knife; and those left then face Mowgli ''and'' his enraged wolf pack. And incidentally, Mowgli does most of this while he's naked. It should come as no surprise that none of the violence or nudity makes it into the Disney version, but Disney not only censors the story but effectively throws out every last original plot thread. A documentary on the DVD explains how Disney's writers "improved" on the original, but in fact it becomes clear that what they really did was to whittle away at the original storyline until there was almost nothing left except for a few almost coincidental similarities. They can't even pronounce Mowgli's name right. ("''Mow'' rhymes with ''cow''", says Kipling.)

* ''Anime/GrimmsFairyTaleClassics'' plays this trope straight with the Cinderella episode. Based on the Grimms' version, it does not contain the part where the stepsisters cut off their feet (nor do they get their eyes pecked out), and Cinderella's pigeon friends talk. The magic tree is cut down on the orders of the WickedStepmother rather than the father. Generally, though, the series averts the trope. A few darker stories were featured (the darkest being "Bluebeard"), while several non-evil characters on the show are KilledOffForReal (including the tree in "Cinderella").

* ''[[WesternAnimation/HappilyEverAfterFairyTalesForEveryChild Western Animation: Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child]]'' mellowed down most of the fairytales they adapted. For instance, their "Literature/TheLittleMermaid" adaptation is closer to the source than the Disney movie, but in the end the Mermaid marries the Prince anyway.

* ''{{Anastasia}}'' manages to show the Russian Revolution [[HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection without mentioning Communism]]. Instead, Rasputin is plucked out his historical context for use as a pure EvilSorcerer (ignoring his ''complex'' relationship with the Romanovs), and given an annoying talking bat as a NonHumanSidekick. They didn't even mention Lenin, the Soviets and the Bolsheviks when they attacked the Czar's palace!

* Actually [[SubvertedTrope mostly subverted]] with ''Disney/{{Frozen}}'': the only particularly dark element ''removed'' from [[TheSnowQueen the original story it's loosely based on]] is [[{{Satan}} the devil-troll]] and his evil mirror. Disney compensates by adding much ''more'' dark elements to the story than are in the original tale: the film's protagonists are notably older than the ones in ''The Snow Queen'' and go through much deeper psychological turmoil than they did, [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds especially Elsa.]]
** Also it's worth noting that in the credits it is stated that Disney/{{Frozen}} is inspired by TheSnowQueen rather than an adaptation of it.

* "''[[CuteyHoney Cutey Honey Flash]]''" changed the original story from a violent and sexy ActionGirl series into a [[ShoujoDemographic shoujo]] MagicalGirl series, quite similar to SailorMoon.

* The first 4 seasons of ''WesternAnimation/ThomasTheTankEngine'' has some examples of how the adaptations from the ''Literature/TheRailwaySeries'' have softened. One example includes from the novel "Resource and Sagacity", where Oliver falls into a turntable thanks to the troublesome trucks and was given a stern talking to by The Fat Controller, Donald, and Douglas whom the latter two were angry that he had broken their turntable. In the television version "Oliver Owns Up", The Fat Controller was more forgiving towards Oliver and advised him on how to handle trucks better and the other engines felt sorry for Oliver and hope that he comes back from the works to be mended.
** Just about all of the U.S. narrations of the episodes seem to be more lighter and lenient than the UK narrations. In the episode "The Sad Story Of Henry/Come Out, Henry", the UK version has The Fat Controller bricking Henry in a tunnel "for always and always and always", but in the U.S. version, The Fat Controller bricks Henry in a tunnel "until he's ready to come out". Also in the ending of said episode, the UK version has the narrator asking the audience if they agree that Henry deserved his punishment while the U.S. version has the narrator asking the audience how can Henry overcome his fear of the rain.
* ''Family Guy'' uses this trope in the episode "Road to Multiverse", in which Brian and Stewie visit a universe in which everything has been Disneyfied.

* ''ArthurAndTheMinimoys'' was an international hit and yielded two sequels, but the American release of the first film, retitled ''ArthurAndTheInvisibles'', failed miserably at the box office. This might be because the American release completely removed the romantic subplot between Arthur and Selenia.

* A particularly egregious case occurs in ''WesternAnimation/TheKingAndI''. The king's advisor Kralahome is turned into the BigBad. Animal sidekicks are omnipresent, and they serve little actual purpose in the story. The slave girl Tuptim is given as a love interest to King Mongkut's eldest son instead of Mongkut himself to avoid the implications of a fifty-something man interested in a teenage girl. The King's multiple wives are omitted too. Comedy is put in the movie in exchange for the stuff taken out. And yet the film includes a rather stereotypical caricature in the form of the villain's sidekick. The estate of Rogers and Hammerstein was not pleased with the film, and as a result it no longer allows animated adaptations of its musicals.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1n_87vVcCo The Mighty Kong]] is a version of King Kong with musical numbers (done by The Sherman Brothers no less), a boy and his monkey, the voice of Ariel, and dancing animals.

* Many films based on ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' apply elements from ''Through the Looking-Glass'', and [[Disney/AliceInWonderland the 1951 classic]] is no exception. Here the Queen of Hearts gets the AdaptationalVillainy treatment.

* Many films based on ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' apply elements from ''Through the Looking-Glass'', and [[Disney/AliceInWonderland the 1951 classic]] is no exception.
** Though interestingly averted in the case of the Queen of Hearts. While her book version did order beheadings left and right, she was generally shown as being blustering and clueless. Her husband secretly pardoned most of the people she condemned, and the Griffon told Alice that "It's all in [the Queen's] fancy, you know. They don't actually execute anyone". In the final trial scene, Alice even tells off the queen and dismisses her and the rest of the court as a pack of playing cards, before waking up. The same holds true for the Red Queen and the Duchess, who were both [[CompositeCharacter combined with]] the Queen of Hearts. In the case of the former, Alice ends the dream by "capturing" and shaking her. In the case of the latter, Alice quickly realizes that the casual threat to have her beheaded is empty. In the Disney version though, the amalgamated Queen of Hearts is portrayed as a genuine threat, extremely terrifying, and left with no hints that her threats are empty. The trial ends with Alice running for her life from the Queen and her soldiers, and wakes up while dreaming that she's [[MindScrew desperately screaming for her sleeping self to wake up]].

[[TropesAreTools This isn't always a bad thing, though.]] Done properly (i.e. not [[TastesLikeDiabetes too cute]] or dumbed-down), the Disneyfied property can be just as entertaining as the original or even better (for example, if you're not a fan of {{Downer Ending}}s, or if they've improved boring parts and given the characters personality, or fixed a PlotHole). The actual tales themselves are often too short to adapt properly, and the expanded versions can be hit and misses. The reworked Disney versions lead to AdaptationDisplacement and SadlyMythtaken, with most people being unaware that the original fairy tales might have even contained [[IncrediblyLamePun grimmer]] aspects. Visual representations of the fairy tales are often strongly influenced by Disney--Literature/SnowWhite is seen [[Disney/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs wearing a dress with primary colors and a red bow in her hair]], Literature/TheLittleMermaid with [[Disney/TheLittleMermaid red hair, a green tail, and a purple seashell bra]], and so on.

Named for its most notorious practitioner, Disney studios, although it actually started [[OlderThanTheyThink before the Victorian Era]]. Ironically, the TropeMaker would be Creator/TheBrothersGrimm, who despite the TropeNamer for {{Grimmification}}, actually were the first ones to make fairy tales more suitable for children. The violence and sex were actually toned down tremendously from the originals.

** An interesting case is with the witch's death. In the original story, the queen is exposed for her crimes at Snow White's wedding to the prince, and is burned to death. In the Disney film she is chased to the top of a cliff by the dwarves; as she tries to send a boulder down to crush them, the cliff is struck by lightning, [[DisneyVillainDeath she and the boulder fall off]], and she is presumably crushed and eaten by vultures. While the latter is seemingly darker than the former, keep in mind, this way it is nature getting revenge on the witch, not any of the heroes. (The Witch does survive in the comics, though her later activities are less malicious.)
* ''Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame''. You wouldn't think Creator/VictorHugo's [[Literature/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame original novel]] would be suitable fare for a children's movie. Despite being one of Disney's darkest movies, they still made it much nicer than the book - Esmerelda was nicer, Phoebus was nicer, Quasimodo was nicer, there was a clearer line between good and evil, and the good guys didn't all die or kill themselves at the end.

** In the original myth, not only was Heracles the product of an extramarital affair (with a mortal woman, Alcmene), but Hera loathed him and tried multiple times to torture and kill him. At one stage she inflicted a madness on him that drove him to murder his children and his first wife, Megara - and it was Heracles who had to carry out penance for this in the form of the Twelve Labours.

** Of course, much like ''The Hunchback of Notre Dame'' the film is still noted for being much grimmer than the average Disney affair, most notably retaining the villain's {{Karma Houdini}}s (and even adding another in the case of Foulfellow). There are few LighterAndSofter adaptations that depict hundreds of children being captured, transformed and [[TheBadGuyWins successfully]] sent to a FateWorseThanDeath.

* ''Literature/MaryPoppins'' began as a series of seven books about a quite snarky and unpleasant magical nanny. Particularly towards the final books, the series become increasingly bizarre and increasingly interested in mythology, mysticism and herbalism (as was [[AuthorAppeal its author, P. L. Travers]], a devotee of Theosophy). It's all a far cry from the [[Film/MaryPoppins Disney film version]], which Travers loathed.

* ''Disney/{{Pocahontas}}'' pretty much shredded everything we know about the historical woman. For one thing she was between 10 and 12 years old when she first met John Smith, making a romantic relationship unlikely at best. Her father had fifty wives and many children. She was taken to Jamestown as a hostage and married before her trip to London, and no Armada was threatening to annihilate her people. John Smith was not a Prince Charming type, but in fact an unattractive, short man with a giant woolly beard. Just about the only bit they got right was her saving Smith from execution, and even that is considered by some historians to be the enactment of a ritual (and thus Smith wasn't in any real danger). [[UnreliableNarrator Still other historians suspect Smith of making up the entire story, since it doesn't appear until he wrote his memoirs, four years after her ''death'']].

* ''TheBlackCauldron'' mishmashed plot elements from LloydAlexander's book of the same name with his earlier ''The Book of Three'', gave the amalgamated villain an annoying sidekick, turned the truculent dwarves into cute little pixies, and made beast-man Gurgi the very definition of TastesLikeDiabetes. No songs, though, and about 15 minutes of the film were removed for concerns about being too "dark"(said scenes were presumably more true to the book). Disney itself acknowledges the failure of this movie nowadays, and wishes they could give their fans a more book-accurate version. Why they don't, given that they still own the adaptation rights to the series, is anyone's guess.

* Creator/RudyardKipling's ''Literature/JungleBooks'' (yes, two of them) depict the orphaned Mowgli growing into a strong and intelligent young man whose jungle upbringing will make him something of a NobleSavage. Baloo was a serious, wise old animal, rather than fun-loving comic relief. Kaa the python, while large, intimidating, and alien, is one of Mowgli's ''allies'', not enemies. Hathi the elephant is wise and powerful and when he tells Shere Khan to clear off("How Fear Came"), the tiger does so - he is not a pompous ass who fancies himself a Victoria Cross-winning British Army colonel. There is quite a lot of violence, too. At one point Kaa hypnotizes a troupe of monkeys into becoming his helpless (ahem) dinner guests; later on Mowgli and the wolves kill Shere Khan by a stampede of water-buffalo over him. (In the Disney version he doesn't even die!) The story "Red Dog" has Mowgli cause the marauding dogs of the title to be attacked by millions of angry bees; those who jump in the river to survive are attacked by Mowgli with a knife; and those left then face Mowgli ''and'' his enraged wolf pack. And incidentally, Mowgli does most of this while he's naked. It should come as no surprise that none of the violence or nudity makes it into the Disney version, but Disney not only censors the story but effectively throws out every last original plot thread. A documentary on the DVD explains how Disney's writers "improved" on the original, but in fact it becomes clear that what they really did was to whittle away at the original storyline until there was almost nothing left except for a few almost coincidental similarities. They can't even pronounce Mowgli's name right. ("''Mow'' rhymes with ''cow''", says Kipling.)