re: 2 Seldom brought up Disney movies: Robin Hood and The Sword In the Stone

These movies are amazing. Robin Hood in particular is one that I appreciate more as an adult than I ever did as a kid.

While Walt Disney was still alive, the company seemed to focus on making good movies with broad appeal that could simply stand on their own merit. Their early 90's efforts like Lion King and Aladdin mostly followed along that same line, but by the time they got around to movies like Pocahantas and Mulan, it seemed like they had become obsessed with the 5-to-12-year-old girl demographic, and had further broken it down by race to make sure they had a princess for every conceivable shade of skin color. I guess you can't argue with their success, because they're making money hand over fist, but their output definitely feels far less genuine than it once did.

Go to Disney World and you can easily see this market breakdown in action. The Magic Kingdom is aimed almost totally at young girls these days. My girls loved it, don't get me wrong, but I was thinking while we were there, when my son gets older, what is there here that he would really find engaging, other than a few fun rides? Meanwhile, when we went over to MGM, that park seemed to be aimed primarily at young boys, since it is given over mostly to Pixar and (now) Star Wars. It's just an interesting dichotomy that I noticed.

Maybe I'm just jaded and old enough now that I see through the "Disney magic" to the marketing schemes behind it. Maybe those schemes were always there and I never noticed them before recent years, or was still young enough that I didn't want to notice them. But it doesn't feel that way.

Have an up vote.

Oo-De-Lally by Roger Miller in the very beginning has to be one of the most memorable Disney songs ever. Having him narrate the movie was a great call.

Robin Hood and fox and the hound were my 2 favorites growing up

I must have watched Sword in the Stone 100 times growing up. Also my favorites as a kid:

Like some others in this thread, I grew up in the Disney Dark Age, between 1970 and 1985.

I've never seen the Sword in the Stone. I might just dial it up tonight.

Robin Hood, though, is probably my second-favorite Disney movie, after Beauty and the Beast.

A lot of kids my age, growing up, missed out on a huge library of Disney movies, because they weren't in theaters, and slow to release on VHS. Next thing you know, you're 17 years old, haven't seen Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, etc... and you have no plans to.

Kind of sucked.

I watched most of the classics with my kids. Never really had them when I was a kid, myself.

Love Robin Hood.

That song they would sing was so catchy...

Robin Hood and Little John walking through the forest..
Oood a lolly Oood a lolly golly what a day..

I really loved Robin Hood.

The Sword in the Stone was just an abrupt ending to me. Merlin spends the whole movie training Arthur to simply not use what he has learned throughout the movie to pull a sword out of a stone.