Disney Creatures Of The Farce - Television Tropes & Idioms

It's all sweet and light... until it's not.

Walt Disney is famous for characters who are a Friend To All Living Things, which always lead to a signature moment. This is the moment where for some reason, sweet woodland critters help the heroine with tasks that birds and deer wouldn't normally do. Maybe the animals hang around just to chirp a sweet song to make the heroine smile while she's working. Or maybe they show up to celebrate a particularly happy moment with their Friend. Usually accompanied by some whimsical musical arrangement or singing (expect the animals to sing back). This moment is common in the early Disney Animated Canon (and some live action too).

It's actually so well known, that it's become a Stock Parody. A popular moment to include in Western Animation, for the fairly obvious reason that most animators grew up idolizing Disney movies, and either are completely disillusioned now, or want to poke a little fun at their first inspiration. But it can show up in live-action film and television as well, since Disney's influence is quite far-reaching.

The moment will happen the same way as described above. Except that, very likely, something horrible will happen to the creatures. Or the creatures will turn the tables and do something horrible to the human character. Or maybe nothing unusual happens at all, but it's obvious that the show is referencing this classic Disney moment (although very likely, such a moment is Older Than They Think, Disney is the most iconic example).

Note that to fit this trope, it has to be a clear reference to the classic Disney moment

(the video is in Russian because the Walt Disney Company won't allow English versions on YouTube). If it's just a character who does horrible things to animals after seeming to befriend them, that's either a Subversion of Friend To All Living Things, or a straight play on Enemy To All Living Things.

Examples:

Advertising

A Jeep ad referenced and parodied this when various woodland creatures climb into an SUV and sing "Rock Me Gently" with the driver.

Film

A classic example is in Nine To Five, when Lily Tomlin's character is fantasizing about poisoning her boss, with a group of Disney-esque animals watching and encouraging as she prepares to do so. Watch it here. She's even wearing a Snow White costume!
Giselle in Disney's Enchanted starts off as a straight example of Friend To All Living Things, but when she ends up in the Real World and summons cockroaches, pigeons, flies and rats to clean the apartment...
In Shrek, Fiona ends up cooking the bird the bird she was singing with, after it explodes when she hits a high note.
- Done again in the third movie, when (Shrek's version of) Snow White, who illustrates this page, sends the mob of animals she gathers charging at some guards, to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," no less.
Not Another Teen Movie has a nude Areola, the foreign exchange student, singing out her window and having Disney-style cartoon birds appear and sing with her.
Look at me, my breasts are perky, yes?
Disney even parodies themselves, in Hercules. Whenever Artemis appeared, she would be surrounded by animals like this... until they started getting in her way and tripping her, at which point she would start yelling at them to leave her alone.

Webcomics

In the earlier strops of College Roomies From Hell, Marsha has this in spades... and hates it, as she can't enter a park without getting swarmed, though the whole thing seems to have fallen by the wayside due to Cerebus Syndrome.
- This gets used to a particularly creepy effect following her Freak Out, when she starts attracting swarms of bats.

Western Animation

Of course, The Simpsons had to do it at least once. In The Movie, the woodland critters help Marge and Homer undress before they retire to the bedroom. The creatures stick around a little too long and are quite horrified with what happens next.
- Not once, but twice. In the episode "Homer the Heretic", after Homer finds religion (albeit a religion he made up), he strolls his garden serenely and animals flock to him. Cut to later, when they're still flocking around him while he's taking a shower, and he asks "Guys, can you give me five minutes?"
American Dad: Roger asks Francine to make a dish using an adorable bird. We see her in the kitchen, with the bird flying around her head while it mimics everything she sings. Then in a flash, she grabs the bird and drowns it in the pot of water on the stove, with a creepily apathetic look on her face.
In Drawn Together, Princess Clara (an Expy of Disney Princesses) has the ability to summon woodland creatures to join her when she sings a song. In the episode "Requiem for a Reality Show", after half the cast is denied food privileges after losing a contest, Spanky and Wooldoor resort to tricking Clara into singing her song again so they can hunt the gathering animals for food.
The Woodland Critters from South Park are a subtler, but clear parody of this... Stan realizes this when they tell him they want to bring about the birth of the Anti-Christ (a much less-subtle Take That at Disney).
In one episode of Fairly Odd Parents, Vicky becomes nice for an episode and summons a hundred or so animals to help her clean. Then she turns back into her normal shrieking self and scares them all out of the house. There is much shattering of glass involved in their leaving.

Crying Indian

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