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Through the years, Disney’s animation studios have produced some memorable classics—from old favorites like Cinderella and .nightsandweekends.com/articles/11/NW1100076.php>Bambi to newer films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Other releases, however, simply came and went without much fanfare—like 2004’s not-so-wild west adventure, Home on the Range.
After her cattle farm is cleared out by notorious cattle rustler Alameda Slim (voiced by Randy Quaid), show cow Maggie (Roseanne Barr) is brought to live at the Patch of Heaven dairy farm. Not long after her arrival, though, the farm’s owner, Pearl (Carole Cook), gets an eviction notice. Unless she can pay back her debts in just three days, the farm and its animals will go up for auction.
Not wanting to lose another home, Maggie decides to save the Patch of Heaven. So she rallies the other cows—flighty Grace (Jennifer Tilly) and straight-laced Mrs. Caloway (Judi Dench)—and they head into town, planning to find a way to pay off Pearl’s debt.
Home on the Range isn’t really the typical Disney movie. It has cows instead of princesses and an egotistical horse (voiced by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) instead of a prince. And, in place of Disney’s usual magic and fantasy and memorable songs, you’ll find ranchers and wild west villains and a strange mix of down-home hoedown music and trance-inducing yodeling. So, really, it’s no big surprise that this one didn’t go down as one of Disney’s most popular releases.
Still, that’s not to say that Home on the Range doesn’t have its share of lovable little touches. While the characters look pretty cartoonish (and the style is sometimes reminiscent of an old Roadrunner and Coyote cartoon), the Old West backdrops are still beautiful, presented with touches of CGI, mixed in with good, old-fashioned, hand-drawn animation. And though Barr’s voice is grating and Gooding’s character is anything but charming, some of the other characters—like Dench’s prissy Mrs. Caloway, Steve Buscemi’s perfectly-drawn Mr. Wesley, and the trio of precocious piglets at the Patch of Heaven—manage to keep things entertaining.
Really, though, Home on the Range is best suited for younger audiences. The cartoonish animals—along with the silly story and the twangy music (not to mention the yodeling)—will still work relatively well for young viewers. They’ll get plenty of giggles from the talking animals, and they’ll easily overlook the story’s flaws. But it lacks the charm and memorable characters of the usual Disney film—so older kids (and adults) will quickly lose interest.
