Home on the Range


 * This article is about the film. For other instances of Home on the Range see Home on the Range (disambiguation).

Home on the Range is a 2004 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on April 2, 2004. The film is the forty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, and was named after the popular country song "Home on the Range".

The film stars the voices of Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, Jennifer Tilly, Steve Buscemi, G.W. Bailey, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Randy Quaid.

Plot
The story is set in the Old West (about 1966). Unusually for a Western movie (but not a Disney film), the main characters are female: three dairy cows, brash, adventurous Maggie, prim, proper Mrs. Caloway and ditzy, happy-go-lucky Grace (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly respectively), who must capture an infamous cattle rustler in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. (As Grace puts it, "Who better to catch a cattle thief...than a cow?") Aiding them in their quest is Lucky Jack, a feisty, peg-legged rabbit, while an overeager stallion named Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.) selfishly seeks the bounty – and the glory – for himself.

History
Prior to the film's release, Disney stated that it would be their last film in their animated features canon to use traditional animation. Although Disney animated films have featured some computer-generated effects for many years, Disney announced plans to move entirely to computer animation after Home on the Range, beginning with [2005]'s Chicken Little, and laid off most of its animation department. However, after the company's acquisition of Pixar in early 2006, new leaders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull decided to revive traditional animation, and announced the upcoming 2-D film, The Frog Princess. Still, Home on the Range is the final feature in the canon to use the CAPS system, which was first fully used in The Rescuers Down Under.

While critics did not generally like the film, which they felt was weak on plot, it was universally praised for Alan Menken's return to Disney animated features. The lyrics were written by Glenn Slater.

The film began pre-production after the release of Pocahontas in 1995. In August 2000, the film was announced as Sweating Bullets and scheduled for a fall 2003 release. The title was changed to Home on the Range in April, 2002.

This film was originally slated to have been released in November 2003, but story and production problems forced Disney to swap release dates with Brother Bear (originally slated for spring 2004) in December 2002. It was also expected to be given a G rating by the MPAA. However, sources inside Disney have indicated that a joke during the movie's opening sequence, one in which a cow's udder is subtly compared to surgically-enhanced breasts, resulted in the movie being slapped with a PG rating instead, possibly alienating some of Disney's general audience and lowering the studio's expectations of the movie at the box office. The studio also broke from its own tradition of releasing major films at either Thanksgiving or summer vacation (to maximize the family audience), releasing it on April 2nd. There also was some speculation that Michael Eisner who had a made a controversial decision to end production of hand-drawn, 2-D animation chose this ill-timed release date to prove his contention that traditionally animated films were no longer viable. The movie went on to make $50 million in the U.S. and became one of the lowest-grossing Disney animated features ever.

Trivia

 * This was the first Disney animated film to feature three female main characters. However, several of its predecessors included female heroes and villains (see Female protagonists in Disney animated films)


 * The film premiered on the Starz! cable channel on the night of April 2, 2005, exactly a year after its theatrical release.
 * This was the last traditionally animated Disney film released in theaters, although The Frog Princess is expected to be a return to the format.


 * In the Spanish version, the movie's name is Cowboy Cows.


 * In the Italian version the movie's name is Cows to the Revolt (Mucche alla Riscossa)


 * In one scene, Maggie insults Buck by saying something like, "Spirit: Stallion of the Ci-moron." Since this (title) was a Dreamworks film, this studio would always poke fun at certain Disney films on their own movies, so Disney returned the favor.

Soundtrack listing

 * 1) 	 (You Ain't) Home On The Range - Chorus
 * 2) 	 Little Patch Of Heaven - K D Lang
 * 3) 	 Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo - Chorus
 * 4) 	 Will The Sun Ever Shine Again - Bonnie Raitt
 * 5) 	 (You Ain't) Home On The Range - Echo Mine Reprise - Chorus
 * 6) 	 Wherever The Trail May Lead - Tim McGraw
 * 7) 	 Anytime You Need A Friend - The Beu Sisters
 * 8) 	 Cows In Town/Saloon Song
 * 9) 	 On The Farm
 * 10) 	 Bad News
 * 11) 	 Storm And The Aftermath
 * 12) 	 Cows To The Rescue
 * 13) 	 Buck
 * 14) 	 My Farm Is Saved/Little Patch Of Heaven - Finale
 * 15) 	 Anytime You Need A Friend