The Ballad of Nessie is a 2011 animated short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, directed by Stevie Wermers-Skelton and Kevin Deters and produced by the same team that made How to Hook Up Your Home Theater.
Narrated by Billy Connolly, the short is Disney's take on the Loch Ness Monster in the form of a gentle creature named Nessie who lives happily in a small pond. But after her pond is destroyed by a greedy land developer named MacFroogle, Nessie is forced to search for a new home. Facing rejection at every corner and constantly told to keep a Stiff Upper Lip, Nessie eventually gives up and cries. However, her tears help provide her with a new home in the newly formed Loch Ness, teaching the lesson on the importance of crying.
This short opened for Winnie the Pooh (2011) and was included on its DVD/Blu-ray release. It is now available as part of the "Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection".
Tropes:
- Accidental Good Outcome: Nessie cries due to being homeless but ends up making Loch Ness, ending on a lesson about how It's Okay to Cry.
- Big Bad: MacFroogle, the man responsible for destroying Nessie's old home, requiring her to find a new one.
- Cathartic Crying: Nessie, after a long and exhausting journey to find a new home, finally allows herself to cry. This leads her to cry Loch Ness over the course of a few weeks.
- Companion Cube: Nessie's rubber ducky, MacQuack.
- Crying a River: After Nessie finally cries, her tears fill up the valley and become Loch Ness.
- It's Okay to Cry: What Nessie learns in the end. It even provides her a new home.
- Laser-Guided Karma: MacFroogle, the greedy tycoon developer, builds a massive mini-golf course over Nessie's old pond. This forces Nessie to look for a new home. After Nessie's crying created the Loch Ness, MacFroogal's golf course is shown destroyed from the flood, leaving MacFroogle himself to cry over his destroyed land.
- Man in a Kilt: MacFroogle is a villainous example of such.
- No Sympathy: Throughout the short, whenever Nessie was on the verge of crying due to being homeless, rather than showing compassion to her plight, every animal she met would scold her for showing tears and tell her to keep a stiff upper lip.
- Ocular Gushers: Nessie does so by the end of the short. The narrator tells us that she cried for weeks on end. And in the end, her tears are what fill up the land and create Loch Ness, making her happy once again.
- Punny Name: MacFroogle is a pun on "frugal", referencing the Thrifty Scot trope.
- Shout-Out: A seagull tells Nessie to "be a brave heart."
- Signs of Disrepair: At the end of the short, the letters from MacFroogle's "MacFroogolf" sign fall off to form "MacFool".
- Stock Ness Monster: Nessie.
- Stiff Upper Lip: Whenever Nessie is on the verge of crying, an animal will pop up to tell her to "Chin up, now. Pip, pip."
- Tuckerization: Nessie's original pond was on the moors of Glenkeane, referencing Disney animator Glen Keane.
