YMMV / The Sword in the Stone

• Accidental Innuendo: Madame Mim saying, “So you want to play rough, do you? Alright, Merlin! I’ll smash you good, you old crab!” ^note  For context, Mim (as a rhino) is trying to ram Merlin (as a crab) into a tree during the wizard duel.
• Adaptation Displacement:
  • It was based on a book?!
  • Dutch Disney comics feature a Madame Mim story roughly once every month. None of these mention Arthur or Merlin, and they all take place in the Present Day. She's friends with Magica De Spell. Mim has a bad case of Villain Decay in these stories, to the point that some other writers have pretty much thrown her origin as a villain out of the window and made her a good guy.
  • It happens in Italian Disney comics as well, where she keeps her Italian name of 'Maga Magò' ((Female) 'Magician Magicò').
• Adorkable: Arthur/Wart is clumsier than a three-legged giraffe, but he's so good-natured and he tries so hard at everything he does that you can't help but root for him.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Non-deathly version (luckily). The female squirrel who falls in love with Arthur was at first so stalking, annoying and persistent that you can't wait to get rid of her. Then again when she finally realizes that Arthur was a human the whole time, she genuinely and desperately cries at the loss of her love interest. It's hard to not feel a little sorry for her. Even Arthur, who tried to avoid her the whole time, feels sad for her. He may not be in love with her, but at least he was sympathetic to her.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Ector and Kay really feel any sort of sincere regret for the years of mistreatment they showed Arthur or were they just afraid of retribution now that their whipping boy is the new king?
  • Did Ector only see Arthur as an obligation he had to take care of, or did he actually care for the Wart in his own pigheaded way and only realize the extent of his mistreatment later?
• Best Known for the Fanservice: If you look up Madam Mim on a photo website of any kind, you'll notice that half her pictures will be her in her beautiful lady form instead of her usual ugly hag self.
• Broken Aesop: The film tries to have a "Knowledge is the real power" message delivered by Merlin to Wart both throughout the film and in the ending, but almost nothing in the film supports it because Wart is a Pinball Protagonist who has no control over anything that's going on around him, and his problems are almost always solved by Merlin's magic anyway despite Merlin saying magic can't solve all his problems (even if they do unwittingly tend to cause as many hardships as they solve, Merlin is basically doing the real work for Wart, even if he sincerely is trying to make a point to him) and he doesn't even get his happy ending by using anything he learned from Merlin—in fact, Wart ends up doing the exact opposite of what Merlin wanted by willingly accepting a degrading position as Kay's squire instead of focusing on an education. It was by sheer luck that he ends up going to London and turns out to be the one worthy of pulling out the sword, making him King of England right then and there.
• Draco in Leather Pants: As mentioned before, Madame Mim's popularity in comic books often renders her a good guy. In fact, when she is friends to Magica de Spell, she is invariably the Token Good Teammate. Most of the stories she's in deal with people seeking her help, with the people in question being various fairytale characters or obnoxious villagers who blame Mim for everything that goes wrong. Also, she's still often mischievous and evil-ish, such as when dealing with a government official looking to tear down her forest to make way for a road.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Let's just say that the movie is not about a nameless female squirrel's doomed romantic pursuit of a shape-shifted Arthur. Back in 2008, 4chan's /co/ board rediscovered her, dubbed her Hazel, and then the fanfics and fanart flooded in.
  • Madame Mim herself. While she's officially the only villain, she's also a Plot-Irrelevant Villain who appears during the third act without any previous mention or foreshadowing and has roughly ten minutes of screentime. However, her entertaining and creative Wizard Duel with Merlin made her one of the most well-known and well-remembered parts of the movie.
  • Sir Bart himself. Despite his short two scenes in the finale, he was well-liked among the fandom not only for his epic deep voice by Thurl Ravenscroft, but also for being a reasonable and fair-minded knight who is one of the only characters to come to Wart/Arthur's defense and the other knights to let the boy have a shot at pulling the sword from the stone.
• Fan Nickname: Fans of the girl squirrel have nicknamed her "Hazel".
• Fanon: The Hazel story◊ from 4chan's /co/ (a bit suggestive, so probably NSFW). Many /co/mrades accept it as legit canon just because they want that squirrel to have a happy ending.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The Dutch love Madame Mim. She's one of the most often seen Disney characters in the Netherlands. She's pretty popular in Sweden as well, where people who know her invariably learned about her from the comics.
  • The movie itself in Italy. Mostly due to Superlative Dubbing.
  • The Latin American dub is also one of the best-known sources of Arthurian Lore in Latin America thanks to its own Superlative Dubbing. Unlike many other classics it was widely available on VHS during the '90s instead of locked in the Disney vault because of its So Okay, It's Average reputation at Disney, which ironically helped keep it in the popular consciousness while other Disney classics available on VHS at the time were seen as too "girly" (such as the Disney Princesses films) or too scary (like Pinocchio, Dumbo, Fantasia or The Black Cauldron).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Merlin wouldn't be the last genius with an avian companion named Archimedes.
  • Sir Ector is basically a precursor of Vernon Dursley.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The 60th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray disappointed fans hoping for a physical release of the 2019 4K remaster. Instead, it repackaged the digitally-destroyed 50th Anniversary Edition with poster-inspired cover art and a code to stream or download the improved master in 1080p.
• Just Here for Godzilla: It has a fanbase among animation fans for its memorable character animation. Animators like Milt Kahl and Frank Thomas clearly had a lot of fun on the film, with Frank being responsible for the memorable squirrels sequence.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The fat female squirrel's reaction to Merlin changing back to normal has become a YouTube Poop fad.
  • From the same scene, Merlin's "There, you see?! I'm an ugly, horrible, grouchy old man!" has become a rallying cry for Stepford Smilers, or people with hidden shame or vulnerability in general.
  • Arthur holding the tea cup with a wide-eyed look is sometimes used for stoner-esque logic bombs such as "If you put a hole in a net, you'll actually get less holes"
  • Archimedes' hysterical laugh has been used as a Schadenfreude-esque reaction gif.
  • The frame where the younger Madam Mim acts seductively towards Arthur by touching the underside of the chin of his bird form has become associated with prospective pairings of young adult males and older/mature female partners.
• Moe: That little girl squirrel is way too cute.
• Narm:
  • Wart's stock shout of "Whoa, What, Oh!!" whenever he falls down, if only because of how many times it's used throughout the movie.
  • The fact that Arthur/Wart was voiced by three different child voice actors over the entire movie (including one (teenaged Rickie Sorenson) who was clearly considerably older than the other two (director Wolfgang Reitherman's pre-teen sons Richard and Robert)) makes for some jarring shifts in voice over the course of the movie, as all three have lines used in the final product. One part that's particularly silly is at the very end after Arthur becomes king and suddenly switches from conversing with Archimedes in Sorenson's older voice to calling to Merlin for help in the squeaky pre-teen voice of one of the Reitherman boys, then back again to Sorenson's voice after Merlin arrives.
• One-Scene Wonder: Madame Mim and, yes, the female squirrel.
• Popular with Furries:
  • The female squirrel has a lot of fans due to her cute design and personality.
  • The famous Wizard's Duel sequence is also quite popular with the furry fandom as well, particularly among transformation enthusiasts.
• Recurring Fanon Character: Hazel, a human version of the squirrel that fell in love with Wart while he was transformed into a squirrel, was created by a fan who wanted to give her a happy ending. She became popular in the fandom and is used in many fanworks. If one is familiar with the rest of Arthurian legend, it's easy to imagine that she would've been far better to Arthur than Guinevere was. (In fact, it's been pointed out that him ending up with her could have saved Camelot in the long run.) Some even suggesting she is Guinevere before being turned forever human at some point by Merlin so she can be with the boy she loves (That is, until Lancelot arrives).
• Signature Scene:
  • The squirrel scene. It has no relevance whatsoever to the main plot, but it is the scene most people will recall when it comes to this movie.
  • The Wizard's Duel. So much so that Disney made it a tradition to show it during the Halloween season.
  • The titular sword in the stone scene as well, especially when Arthur finally gets the respect and admiration he's always wanted, with reluctance obviously.
• Smurfette Breakout: A rare phenomenon of a film having two examples. The first is the female squirrel who is left heartbroken when Arthur turns back into a human. She's one of the most remembered things about the film, and many a Fix Fic are written in which she gets a happy ending. The second is Madame Mim, who only appears towards the end, and yet became a mainstay in the comics. She even Took a Level in Kindness to become slightly less evil as a result of her popularity.
• So Okay, It's Average: The general reaction to the film, both then and now.
  "A decent take on the legend of King Arthur, The Sword in the Stone suffers from relatively indifferent animation, but its characters are still memorable and appealing."
• Superlative Dubbing:
  • The Italian dub as mentioned above is quite popular.
  • The Latin American dub has an all-star cast of professional voice actors. Even the VA who dubbed Arthur/Wart (Salvador Najar) had 10 years of voice acting experience at that point lending a lot of sincerity to the role. The director also peppered the film with woolseyisms that make the dialogue even more memorable. It's no wonder why this film is the most well-known source of Arthurian Lore in Latin America.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: They had a full set of books to adapt from (as well as much other Arthurian legend material) and the film's ending leaves things on a rather open-ended note for more adventures. Despite this, it was ironically among the few Disney films not to get a sequel or follow up animated material of any sort.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Merlin when he scolds Arthur for accepting to be Kay's squire instead of pursuing his education under Merlin. The fact is, Arthur's seemingly low birth doesn't give him many options for a future in a medieval society, a fact Arthur himself angrily points out to Merlin, neither does he have Merlin's magic to compensate for it. Fans also point out Merlin's educational lessons while fun weren't actually helpful for Wart - even Archimedes had chided Merlin for trying to teach him sciences without even seeing if the boy was even literate first.
• Values Resonance: Arthur argues with Ector over Merlin's magic, with Ector dismissing it as wicked and dangerous despite knowing little about it (or perhaps even because he knows little about it), despite Arthur's attempts to show him otherwise. Arthur's line "Just because you can't understand something, it doesn't mean it's wrong" can be widely applied to other situations and is just as relevant and meaningful nowadays as it was in 1963.
• The Woobie:
  • The girl squirrel, whose poor little squirrel heart is smashed to pieces after Wart gets changed back into a human.
  • Arthur, Arthur, Arthur in spades. Even in the end, the poor boy's so confused.

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