Disney Creatures of the Farce

Someday her prince will come... and give her a proper burial.

Walt Disney movies are known for including a character (often the heroine) who is a Friend to All Living Things, which always leads to a signature scene where the sweet woodland critters mobilize under her command to help out with the chores. Sometimes it's just a few birds chirping a sweet song to make her smile while she's working; other times the whole group turns up en masse to celebrate a particularly happy moment. The music for the scene will be light and whimsical, and if the heroine sings, the animals will join in too.

When you see a Stock Parody of such a moment, it's this trope.

Writers, particularly in Western Animation, like to throw this kind of parody in for the fairly obvious reason that most of them grew up idolizing Disney movies and either are completely disillusioned now or want to poke a little fun at their first inspiration. But this trope, like the original, can show up in live-action film and television as well, since Disney's influence is quite far-reaching.

The parodic scene will generally start the same way as described above and then take a sharp turn into audacity or tragedy (e.g. the heroine lures the critters in to cook and eat them). Other times the usual formula plays out straight and the joke is that the writers have copied a scene without even pretending they didn't take it straight from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. (Even though gentle or pure characters attracting animals is Older Than They Think, Disney films are the most iconic examples for most viewers.) In shows with particularly high trope content, the woodland critters may not appear at all, leaving the heroine puzzled or annoyed by their absence.

Note that to fit this trope it has to be a clear reference to the classic Disney moment. 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 example of Enemy to All Living Things.

Compare Disneyesque.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One Dunkin' Donuts commercial featured animated bluebirds, whistling a happy tune at a construction site (and on the city bus).
• A Jeep ad referenced and parodied this when various woodland creatures climb into an SUV and sing "Rock Me Gently" with the driver.
• One Progressive ad shows a florist happily talking to animated flowers, birds, and butterflies. The scene immeidately goes into Mood Whiplash once a talking puddle admits to seriously injuring one of the florist's customers, at which point the illusion ends.

Anime & Manga

• In Yui's flashback about her past with Yukari in Yuyushiki, Yukari seems to be a parody of Disney Princesses (out of her background), including the Friend to All Living Things aspect. She's clearly disturbed by the attention the animals give her.

Fan Works

• Cursed: Doctor Strange, fed up with Loki, gives him the "Disney Princess Curse". Cue animals following Loki around (and, not being a virgin, he really wants to know why there are unicorns there). Loki seems to take it in stride, and puts milk out for the cats that keep popping up in his lair. It's the people randomly bursting into song he can't stand, anyways.
• After Halloween in Sons and Daughters of Sineya, Willow unthinkingly starts singing while doing chores. Since she went as a Disney princess for Halloween, this summons a bunch of local animals to help her clean, something which rather freaks her out even if they were surprisingly helpful, including three raccoons using the vacuum. Giles shrugs the whole thing off once he learns that Willow is only summoning local animals and thus won't upset the ecology.

Films — Animation

• The Disney Animated Canon even parodies themselves:
  • In Cinderella, our heroine attracts only the spiteful family cat, who proceeds to romp around her clean floor with dirty paws and ruin her work.
  • 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. And Meg is perfectly aware that the friendly animals approaching her are really the demons Pain and Panic in disguise.
    Meg: I thought I smelled a rat.
  • Oliver & Company. Georgette attracts a flock of bluebirds to act as a combination of attendants, chorus, and starstruck fans during "Perfect Isn't Easy". And Georgette is no sweet young thing; she's a beautiful but brassy... poodle.
  • The Emperor's New Groove: A squirrel tries to befriend Kuzco, but the latter, Jerkass that he is, tells the former to get lost. The squirrel gets its revenge later. By the end of the movie, the squirrel's joined up with Kronk instead.
  • Tangled: Rapunzel is able to charm Maximus, the fierce horse belonging to the captain of the guard. Flynn, playing the straight man, can't believe that a guard's horse is thumping its leg like a dog.
• My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Legend of Everfree: Fluttershy, upon finding out she can now talk to animals, accidentally lets the word spread among avians, who promptly swarm her. She ends up with half-a-dozen songbirds and two owls perched on her spread arms (and one on her head). Despite never meaning this to happen, she stays polite to them ("It's nice to meet all of you, too.") and looks endearingly awkward as Sunset questions her about this.
• In The Road to El Dorado, Miguel views the war horse that tags along as a special friend, talking to it and getting it to help him out on their quest. When Miguel isn't watching, the horse is much less kind to Tulio, including literally biting him in the ass at one point.
• Shrek:
  • In Shrek, Fiona ends up singing with a bird... then she accidentally causes it to explode with a high note, so she cooks its eggs for breakfast.
  • Done again in Shrek the Third. During the attack on the castle, Snow White first gathers a mob of woodland animals by singing happily, then switches to Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" to send them to attack the guards.
• In The Simpsons Movie, the woodland critters (including an entire flock of bluebirds and a very Bambi-like deer) 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.
• Trolls: When they're camped for the night, Poppy starts singing to relax and an annoyed Branch demands she stop so he can sleep, saying he like silence. In order to troll him, Poppy starts singing "The Sound of Silence", and is soon accompanied by a host of small woodland creatures and even the plants.

Films — Live-Action

• A classic example is in 9 to 5, when Lily Tomlin's character is fantasizing about poisoning her Bad Boss, with a group of Disney-esque animals watching and encouraging as she prepares to do so. 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... yes, you read that right. Cockroaches and rats are a lot cleaner than most people give them credit for (both stay clean in much the same way as your average house cat does), but it's still pretty squicky. Watch the scene for yourself here.
• In the animated opening credits to Grease, ingenue Sandy is attended by deer and little birds as she rises and prepares for the day.
• In Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Maid Marian's singing causes a "happy little bluebird" to perch on her finger. Her sidekick Broomhilde points out that it left a "happy little doo-doo" when it departed.

Literature

• Discworld:
  • Mentioned in Soul Music when a skeletal, hooded, scythe wielding Death of Rats steps onto Susan's palm and it's compared to the scene where the princess sings to the woodland creatures, but "more of a PG rating".
  • Mentioned again in Carpe Jugulum when Agnes sings in tune with herself while getting ready for the christening of Queen Magrat's baby. The narration contrasts this with singing in tune with her reflection, noting that such behavior leads to singing along with bluebirds, and once that's happened "there's nothing for it but a flamethrower."
• In Peter S. Beagle's novel The Last Unicorn, a maiden sings near the woods to attract a unicorn, but the titular unicorn stays away. The maiden then tells her fiancé that clearly her singing would attract any unicorn if they still existed, so this must prove they don't exist and she is free to marry him. The Unicorn explains to her companions that she didn't appear because the princess had made impossible promises in the song, and seeing an actual unicorn would have put her under an obligation to keep them.
• Spellsinger: In Day of the Dissonance, a young girl is used in an attempt to lure in a a unicorn. It fails to work because the unicorn in question is gay.

Live-Action TV

• The Mr. Show sketch "Biosphere" features a lonely scientist on New Year's Eve unsuccessfully asking woman scientists to spend the night with him. In between each one, he talks with his animated animal friends for advice. His step-fairy godmother shows up with a solution in which the animals come on to him.
• Once Upon a Time's Snow White has an affinity with birds. Normally this is played straight, but in one episode, Snow's got a bit of amnesia that's made her a lot less pleasant (the Dwarfs eventually stage an intervention for her); it's first illustrated by her befriending a Bluebird of Happiness (humming "With a Smile and a Song") then trying to smash it with her broom.
• The Saturday Night Live ad for "Uncle Jemina's Pure Mash Liquor" has the title character (Aunt Jemima's husband) constantly surrounded by singing cartoon birds as he plugs his incredibly strong booze. They turn out to be a drunken hallucination.
• A Smack the Pony sketch features a live-action Snow White working in an ordinary office, with animated bluebirds flying around her head and cartoon bunnies skipping beside her, much to the annoyance of her co-workers.

Theatre

• Referenced in The Complete History Of America Abridged, when the soldiers in a World War I sketch take a look at the enemy positions:
  Reed: My God.
  Austin: We're outnumbered a hundred to one.
  Adam: By animals! There's Bambi and Thumper and Flower, and they're in 3-D!
• The Musical of Musicals: The Musical!!, though not at all parodying Disney or cartoons, has Jeune suffering from a mysterious condition similar to that of Johanna in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street or Cinderella in Into the Woods:
  I have little birds
  Flying 'round my head
  Why do the birds fly
  Around my golden hair?
  Are they building nests up there
  With twigs and springs and bits of twine?
  Who cleans the messes
  They leave in my tresses?
  Your guess is as good as mine.

Video Games

• Ace Attorney:
  • Acro from Justice For All is shown with birds at random, even landing on his hands. Nothing happens to the birds, but he's the case's killer. Although, his "getting angry" animation consists of the birds quietly fluttering away, and once, when he thinks Phoenix doesn't have a leg to stand on (and Phoenix is beginning to entertain the same notion), one of his birds flies over to peck at Phoenix's forehead.
  • Trials and Tribulations's Dahlia Hawthorne is shown with butterflies around her at various points. Upon The Reveal, they burst into flames.
  • In Ace Attorney Investigations 2, animal (and human) tamer Simon Keyes's breakdown has the previously doting fauna each taking a turn to beat them up.
  • In Spirit of Justice, Queen Amara, upon her true identity being revealed, attracts a number of woodland creatures and even a tiger that all watch her with reverent awe. When angered, however, she delivers a terrifying Death Glare punctuated by a flash of lightning that scares the animals away. That said, she turns out to be Taking the Heat for the culprit and is genuinely kind-hearted.
• Olivia, the ultra-girly super-princess from Battle Fantasia, is accompanied into battle by doves. The character is a complete parody of Princess Classic tropes, so this naturally adds to it.
• In South Park: The Stick of Truth Princess Kenny can summon up a swarm of rats to attack his enemies by singing. However, if you fail the button prompts, the rats will turn on Kenny and devour him.
• Twisted Wonderland gives Silver this ability; this attracts speculation from the fandom that he is based on Princess Aurora.

Webcomics

• College Roomies from Hell!!!:
  • In the earlier strips, Marsha has this in spades... and hates it, as she can't enter a park without getting swarmed. Later strips use it much more sparingly due to Cerebus Syndrome.
  • This gets used to a particularly creepy effect following her Freak Out, when she starts attracting swarms of bats.
• This strip of Live Ain't No Pony Farm features Sarah having an epiphany amongst a rather silly looking bunch of woodland creatures. And then she intends to pet a fox with rabies...
• In Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic, the princess is doing the traditional "sing and attract woodland creatures" bit but the nearby goblins are essentially using her as bait.

Web Original

• Animals are inexplicably drawn to Achievement Hunter's Ryan Haywood despite his tendency to either murder them, trap them in holes, or name them Edgar.
• The Onion: "Ted Cruz Dressed For Campaign Rally By Swarm Of Loyal Vermin".

Web Videos

• Funny Or Die presents: "Disney's Princess Kesha". Starring Ke$ha as herself, even.
• If Disney Cartoons Were Historically Accurate: The princess's "friends from the forest" are revealed to be little cartoon Jews hiding from persecution from the village guards.

Western Animation

• 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.
• When Darkwing Duck is split into a good and evil version of himself, Darkwing's super-powered good side is eventually surrounded by woodland creatures that come out of nowhere.
• 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. She finds out when her singing reanimates their cooked remains. Then she kills the last of the critters so he won't tell the others.
• In Ever After High, as Apple White pledges to follow her fairytale destiny, she holds her arms out and bluebirds swoop down to perch on them.
• The Fairly OddParents!:
  • In one episode 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.
  • And again in another episode where the Cream Puff and Squirrely Scouts are racing to get up a mountain. The woodland animal help the girls along singing a cutesy tune in the process not to mention doing their hair and bringing gift baskets. However their helping and singing quickly gets out of hand and drives the girls nuts. When they finally snap, the animals turn on them.
• In the Guardians of the Galaxy (2015) two-parter "Black Vortex", Gamora gets stuck in a fairy-tale world with a band of cheerful cartoon forest animals.
  Gamora: I'm not who you think I am. I'm not a princess, and I definitely don't sing.
• On Jimmy Two-Shoes, Beezy starts reading Jimmy a Sickeningly Sweet pop-up book. By the time he finishes, several animals have gathered around, even though they're indoors.
• In Jinxy Jenkins & Lucky Lou, one of the annoyingly convenient things that happen to Lou is being hounded by a pair of overly-friendly bluebirds with a wreath of flowers. At least they lead to her literally running into Jenkins.
• In Kick Buttowski, Brad eats a whole tin of breath mints that gives him breath so fresh it attracts birds. The Stinger for the episode is an ad for the mints, with the disclaimer "Birds not guaranteed to appear."
• Of course, The Simpsons had to do it at least once. (Not even counting The Movie; see the Animated Films folder for that.)
  • In the episode "Homer the Heretic", after Homer finds religion, 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?"
  • In a four-story episode, Lisa (as Snow White) gets help making dinner from all the woodland animals; the birds chop the carrots, the squirrels bring food, and even the tortoise gets to take a nice bath in some boiling water.
• In the pilot of Sofia the First, the Woodland Creatures reveal (in song, no less!) that the only reason they help princesses out with their chores is to get some 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 Star vs. the Forces of Evil, we finally visit the dreaded St. Olga's Reform School For Wayward Princesses and find it's basically designed to brainwash its inmates/students into becoming cliched Princess Classic types. This includes lessons in singing along with the creatures of the forest; one student, Princess Smooshy from "Sleep Spells", is admonished by her instructor for eating a bluebird whole.
• Total Drama Pahkitew Island: Being a Disney Princess parody, Ella's singing attracts all sorts of woodland creatures, even pacifying the aggressive ones. This serves as an annoyance to Chris, who would rather see her get mauled. It's interesting to note that long after Ella gets eliminated, the island's wildlife is revealed to be robotic.

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