YMMV / Home on the Range

• Applicability: The song "Will the Sun Ever Shine Again?" can be seen as a painfully accurate metaphor for depression.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: A relatively mild example of this, but it's still often viewed by many as an overly kid-friendly run-of-the-mill Western with more familiar gags and puns than one cares to count. The fact that the main heroes happen to be cows likely didn't intrigue viewers either.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Maggie is probably the most polarizing Disney protagonist since Taran. Some find her to be very sympathetic and a quite strong female protagonist, others find her brash personality to be quite annoying. It pretty much boils down to how you feel about the film.
  • The Willie Brothers. While there are some who find them to provide genuinely funny moments, there are others who find them to be run-of-the-mill "idiot henchmen" stereotypes with annoying drawls.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The entire scene in the saloon bar, where the cows barge in and crash a saloon show, dressed up as girls. This has no impact on the plot whatsoever and is promptly forgotten about.
• Bile Fascination: While certainly not considered the worst animated film out there, its extremely poor reputation and relative obscurity in the Disney Animated Canon has attracted the attention of fans who want to see why it was accused of killing traditional animation.
• Critical Backlash: Despite the flak, there are a sizable number of people who really like it thanks to good animation, good songs, and an enjoyable villain. There are even some people who think that, while it is one of Disney's weaker films in their animated lineup, it is far from the worst animated film out there.
• Critical Dissonance: While it is one of the most reviled films among Disney fans, its critical reception is rather mixed. On Rotten Tomatoes, it is only #6 of the lowest scoring films in the Disney Animated Canon, scoring higher than other Disney films that have much larger fanbases, such as Robin Hood (1973), Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Brother Bear.
• Cult Classic: Has gained a small fan following who claim it doesn't deserve half of the hate it gets.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Even those that otherwise aren't too fond of the movie have singled out Lucky Jack as one of the best things about it. Reasons generally include his appealing design and his being a Nice Guy.
  • Junior, Slim's pet buffalo, is surprisingly well-liked despite having such little screentime.
• Evil Is Cool: Alameda Slim is one of the few things some people remember fondly about the movie, mostly due to being genuinely funny.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content:
  • Some fans in recent years have said they would've preferred the "Sweating Bullets" draft instead, which involved supernatural elements with Slim and the Willies being originally undead cattle rustlers who led livestock off to their deaths to increase their ghostly herd. A timid cowboy and later a bull calf were the main protagonists.
  • A Deleted Scene showed that Slim was going to use the cows as an army in a hostile takeover plan to become the next president of the United States. This was cut because the people of Disney believed that it was too silly. However, genuine fans of the film have gone on record saying that they would've liked how this idea played out and that it would have actually been fitting, since the movie itself has a rather silly tone to it.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Maggie and Slim is the film's most popular pairing.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Randy Quaid's role as the evil outlaw Alameda Slim can be a bit more uncomfortable due to the many lawsuits and criminal problems Quaid and his wife Evi have recently faced.
• Mis-blamed: Home on the Range, flawed as it may be, was not responsible for Disney's decision to stop producing hand-drawn animated films, as much as it was the end result of a decade's worth of mediocre returns on their hand-drawn films, which were repeatedly clobbered by CGI newcomers both financially and critically. After Treasure Planet became the studio's biggest financial bomb ever, in light of Monsters, Inc., Shrek and Ice Age all becoming the top-grossing animated films ever, Disney decided to jump on the CGI bandwagon and scrambled to finish this film as quickly as possible to do so.
• Moe: Grace is probably the most adorable cow you'll ever see in a Disney film.
• Questionable Casting: Quite a few of them, especially that of Judi Dench as a dairy cow. Some were also quite puzzled at Roseanne Barr being cast in the lead role.
• The Scrappy:
  • Not too many people like Buck due to his selfish and egotistical personality.
  • Barry and Bob are not well-liked, even among fans, due to their pointless and idiotic nature.
• So Okay, It's Average: Far from one of the worst animated movies ever, but widely considered an underwhelming one by Disney standards. While it had adequate animation, acting and music, the premise of bounty-hunting cows proved a little too contorted for many people.
• Strangled by the Red String: Maggie and Bob. Considering she's openly disgusted by the bulls in every earlier encounter, it comes out of nowhere.
• Sweetness Aversion: The movie's poor reputation is partly pinned on this. While it isn't the worst example by most standards, by Disney Animated Canon standards it's agreed that this movie aims far more for the kid side of the equation, even when the Demographically Inappropriate Humor is taken into consideration. It's balanced out some by a few slower and more emotional moments ("Will the Sun Ever Shine Again?" being a standout) and some intense scenes, but the movie still generally has happy tones all around, and even the overall art style of the movie mirrors more like a picture book illustration rather than a Disney movie. The fact the movie starts with a sickeningly sweet musical number about how things are all sunshine and rainbows on the farm doesn't help that at all.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: As co-director John Sanford will gladly tell you, the film took just as much effort to make as any of Disney's other animated features and was anything but a lazy effort, despite whatever impression the film's poor reputation might give you. Alan Menken is clearly giving his all in the films score on top of that.
• Uncertain Audience: Possibly one of the key reasons behind this film flopping and its current reputation among Disney fans is that it didn't quite seem to have a clear idea what demographic it was trying to cater to. On the one hand, its rather corny and silly story and abundance of lighthearted musical numbers can give off the impression that the film was trying to cater to a considerably younger audience than usual for Disney. But on the other hand, the film also has a rather "hip" feel to it that comes across as Disney trying to have it copy the Dreamworks Animation films of the era. The end result proved a fairly messy film that is generally considered one of Disney's weakest works, if not the weakest.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: For such a kid-friendly film, there are some not so subtle moments that might prompt a double-take. One infamous line, said to have given the movie its PG rating, is a closeup of Maggie's udders and her saying "Yeah, they're real. Quit staring." (a reference to woman's breasts)

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