Μύ Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly make for an offbeat trio of cows, trying to save their farm from repossession, in the "energetic animated caper" Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ On The Range. Critics were divided over Disney's latest effort to revive its flagging animation house, but worldwide audiences were almost unanimous in their disinterest - perhaps under-whelmed by the old-fashioned look of the film compared to recent CG blockbusters.
Chewing The Cud
Co-directors Will Finn and John Sanford present four deleted scenes in their raw, storyboard form as well as providing introductions. It's a quirky batch of scenes, but the most bizarre sees Slim (Randy Quaid) hatch a plan to hypnotise an army of cows into storming Washington DC so he can steal the presidency. "We thought it couldn't lose!" says Sanford. "But everyone else thought we were crazy."
You can then hear more from Sanford and Finn in Trailblazers, a cosy featurette where members of the crew sit around a campfire and swap stories about the making of the movie. Cameras also follow the artists through the research phase, which mostly involved sitting in fields drawing cows, but also provided them with a neat excuse to go on a cattle drive in Wyoming. Footage of Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench et al at work in the sound booth is also included and, surprisingly, Cuba Gooding Jr manages to escape injury despite throwing himself about like a headless chicken. It's just as well, since the stars are also called upon to lend their voices to the bonus cartoon A Dairy Tale - a fun retelling of The Three Little Pigs.
Milking It
Aside from the 'making of' featurette, there's disappointingly little in the way of backstage insight - unusual for a Disney release. Art Review is a fairly dry and uninspiring montage of stills and storyboards with commentary by the film's principal designers, so it's left to the audio commentary to fill in the gaps. Fortunately Sanford, Finn and producer Alice Dewey offer some entertaining insights, among them Sanford's revelation that "Roseanne Barr does her own belching". Dewey helpfully adds, "She can belch the whole alphabet."
In the Games & Activities section, The Joke Corral (essentially an animated joke book) should put a smile on young faces. However, the YodelMania memory game is quite dull and cumbersome, while YodelMentary is a superfluous (albeit nicely animated) look at the history of yodelling. And the less said about The Beu Sisters' music video the better.
While Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ On The Range doesn't make for a very beefy package on DVD, pint-sized movie fans shouldn't be too disappointed.
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