Everybody knows that Disney likes to include Easter Eggs in their movies, referencing their previous films, notable characters, and even the people who helped the company thrive. You could spend hours searching for all of the hidden Mickeys, and you probably still wouldn’t find them. Some are just thrown in for fun, but others require a lot of knowledge, focus, and skill to understand.
Here are ten of the most clever Disney references and homages throughout their many films. While some seem relatively minor, most have a larger thematic or historical meaning behind them. This adds depth to a practice (that many people disregard as meaningless fan service) and shows how much Disney employees love their company’s history.
- Wish references Sleeping Beauty with an extreme aspect ratio
- Pixar teases its upcoming films with Easter Eggs first-time viewers won’t even notice
- A version of Disney exists inside of Zootopia
- Rapunzel’s tower includes references to the princesses that came before her
- Belle visits Paris in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Dogs crossover between Disney movies with no regard for distance
- The villagers’ wishes are based on other Disney films
- Enchanted references Disney princesses in more ways than you’d expect.
- Beauty and the Beast transports Maurice from France to California
- Bambi’s mother lives on across the Disney multiverse
Wish references Sleeping Beauty with an extreme aspect ratio
Throughout Disney’s history, the technology of filmmaking and theatrical presentation has changed, which the centennial film Wish honored in a way that only true film nerds can appreciate. Back in the 1950s, Walt Disney wanted to make Sleeping Beauty seem larger than life, producing the film with a 2.55:1 aspect ratio. This was much wider than normal, with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences establishing 1.375:1 as the industry standard. While there were only a handful of other Disney films that used anything close to this aspect ratio again, they used it in Wish as a quiet homage to the film that cemented the Disney princess concept. While responses to the film itself were tepid, the return to the 2.55:1 aspect ratio proved the dedication the filmmakers had to Disney’s artistic history, subliminally urging fans to see the film as a modern-day Disney classic.
Pixar teases its upcoming films with Easter Eggs first-time viewers won’t even notice
While Pixar is known for putting recurring images like the Pizza Planet truck and the code A113 in all of their films, one of their most intriguing trends is including Easter Eggs that only make sense years later. One of the earliest examples of this is Monsters, Inc, which includes three clownfish references in honor of Finding Nemo, which debuted a year and a half later. Finding Nemo would then go on to reference both The Incredibles and Cars. These future references have continued into the present day, showing how good Pixar is at planning and communicating between film productions.
A version of Disney exists inside of Zootopia
Similar to how the Cars universe has car-themed parodies of real-world events, Zootopia includes two distinct examples of animal-themed Disney movies existing within the film itself. The first comes while Judy clicks through music on the bus. While the artists are animal-themed versions of popular music artists, the songs under “Gazelle” are almost all based on previous Disney songs, including “Let It Goat,” “Part of Your Wool,” “Can You Feel the Fur Tonight,” and “Ara-bunny Nights.” Near the end of the film, we also see a selection of Duke’s Officially Licensed Movies, which include Wrangled, Wreck-It Rhino, Pig Hero 6, Meowana, Floatzen 2, and Giraffic—a pun on the cancelled film Gigantic.
Rapunzel’s tower includes references to the princesses that came before her
Tangled was only the second princess movie to come out of Disney in over ten years, and the creators wanted there to be no doubt that Rapunzel was a Disney Princess. To prove it, her tower is filled with references to the Classic and Renaissance-era princesses. The easiest to spot is the spinning wheel from Sleeping Beauty, although you may also notice an apple, a slipper, a rose, and a seashell painted on the staircase. Directors Nathan Greno and Byron Howard also recommend looking at the bookstore scene, where you can see the opening storybook from Sleeping Beauty and a book cover based on The Little Mermaid.
Belle visits Paris in The Hunchback of Notre Dame
While many of the Easter Eggs in The Hunchback of Notre Dame seem arbitrary, one of the most intriguing is the presence of Belle during the song “Out There.” While both stories are set in France, the timelines definitely don’t line up. The Hunchback of Notre Dame takes place in 1482, while Beauty and the Beast is set nearly 300 years later, around the French Revolution. So why is she there? Perhaps because her introductory song is all about escaping her “poor, provincial town,” while Quasimodo urges ordinary people to “treasure every minute.” The contrast between these two characters is powerful, showing Belle escaping her world into a book while Quasimodo would do anything to join it.
Dogs crossover between Disney movies with no regard for distance
While human characters typically need a reason to cameo in another film, that rule does not seem to apply when it comes to dogs. 101 Dalmatians shows Lady and Tramp wandering around London, with Peg, Bull, and Jock in the background. Jock, Peg, and Trusty also made their way to New York City to show up in Oliver & Company, along with 101 Dalmatians’ Pongo. It may not make much sense geographically, but it’s definitely fun to see how many familiar faces you can find in any dog-centered Disney movie.
The villagers’ wishes are based on other Disney films
While the movie Wish is packed full of obvious Easter Eggs, the scenes depicted in wishes are more subtle references to Disney’s biggest hits. For example, two citizens of Rosas want to be able to fly like Peter Pan, while others dream of making Aurora’s dress from Sleeping Beauty or finding the perfect nanny like in Mary Poppins. Elsewhere in the film, the audience hears about a wish to have “hair down to your feet” like Rapunzel, and Valentino wishes for “a metropolis where all mammals are equal and wear clothes,” referencing Zootopia. The film is ultimately set up as a prequel to all Disney lore, so it’s fun to wonder if the set of fliers truly became Peter and Wendy, and if the other wishes come true in their own right.
Enchanted references Disney princesses in more ways than you’d expect.
While the fairytale aspects of Enchanted are easy to spot, there are multiple Disney princess references that appear during the real-world plotlines as well. For example, a reporter is named Mary Ilene Caselotti, drawing from the names of Mary Costa (Aurora), Ilene Woods (Cinderella), and Adriana Caselotti (Snow White). Costa and Woods both appear later in the film, adding to cameos from the voices behind Ariel, Belle, and Pocahontas. The most obvious of these is The Little Mermaid’s Jodi Benson, who portrays Robert’s secretary, Sam. Sam, of course, works for Churchill, Harline, & Smith, LLP, a law firm named after Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs’ composers Frank Churchill, Leigh Harline, and Paul Smith.
Beauty and the Beast transports Maurice from France to California
When Maurice gets lost on his way to show off his newest invention, he struggles to understand the faded signpost. But Disney fans definitely didn’t. From top to bottom, the signs read Saugus, Newhall, Valencia, and Anaheim. While Saugus may simply establish the crossroad in California, Newhall is the site of Golden Oak Ranch, a private filming and testing location that Walt Disney purchased in 1959. Fans are more familiar with Valencia, home of the California Institute of the Arts, and Anaheim, home of Disneyland. This is definitely a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reference, requiring you to know your Disney history to fully understand it.
Bambi’s mother lives on across the Disney multiverse
Anyone who watched Bambi as a child knows just how traumatizing it was to see Bambi lose his mother. Thankfully, Disney fans get to see her survive in other films, usually when a hunter is thwarted. For example, she is hunted down by Sir Kay in The Sword in the Stone and Shere Khan in The Jungle Book, both of whom fail to kill her. She also appears, sometimes alongside Bambi, in The Rescuers, Beauty and the Beast, and the Donald Duck short “No Hunting” as a symbol of tranquility in nature. While these films all take place in vastly different settings, there is something comforting about seeing Bambi’s mother be protected by the writers and animators in a way she was not in the original film.
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