Disney Daze: Home on the Range

Home on the Range (2004)

Disney Animated Classic Number 44

Starring: Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, Meg Tilly, Cuba Gooding Jr, Randy Quaid, Carole Cook and Steve Buscemi

Directed by: Will Finn & John Sanford

Rating: ★

It’s the mid-00s, and by this point, Disney has already churned out some terrible Disasters in what I like to refer to as ‘the Disney Dip’. But after what could have been a lifesaving throw in the form of Brother Bear, Disney, in all their wisdom, decided that a movie about three cows would be a good idea.

Was a film about three cows ever going to be a success?

Okay Disney. Let’s think this one through, shall we? Cows. In the Wild West. Who set out to save their farm. Just because someone thought that the title, named after a popular patriotic country song might sound good, doesn’t mean that basing an entire story around it would make an entertaining movie.

I would just like to point out to my regular readers that at this point, I am in a state of despair.

Watching Home on the Range was not an enjoyable experience, and what made it worse was knowing that this wouldn’t be their foulest mistake: that was still to come.

Whoever was coming up with ideas over at Disney studios was seriously grasping at straws. Cows. In the Wild West. Seriously? Cows? Who do cows appeal to? Is there any little boy or girl who would want to go and see a movie about talking cows trying to save their farm? And worst still, these cows are voiced by Roseanne Barr, who obviously doesn’t get to say any of her infamous dirty one liners, miscast lovey extraordinaire Judi Dench (why would there be an English cow in the Wild West?), and Bride of Chucky Meg Tilly. Do any of these three actresses appeal to young children? I think not. Do any of them appeal to parents of young children? I doubt it. So already, we have a big problem.

If Barr had been allowed to sass-mouth expletives at the rest of the cast, then I would have paid to see it, because this film would have been amazing.

But she doesn’t, so it isn’t. 

Mrs Calloway, Maggie and Grace: don't mess with them!

Home on the Range begins with a song called Home on the Range, as we are introduced to the sprawling Wild West wilderness. But it isn’t the world famous one; it’s just another song with the same name. But if you did want to hear the other, more universally renowned version, one of the cows sings it later on.

After seeing a CGI enhanced animated desert, we are introduced to Maggie (Barr), a cow who is sold to a small farm called Patch of Heaven, as her own farm goes bankrupt due to notorious cattle rustler Alameda Slim (Quaid) stealing all of the other cows. The song about Patch of Heaven is actually a very nice and catchy country ditty, as the owner, Pearl (Cook), dances with her farmyard animals as she sings. Within the farm, there are various ‘comic relief’ characters that serve no purpose to the plot except to be ‘cute’ and/or ‘funny’ which none of them succeed in being.

Maggie, Mrs Calloway and Grace set out to save the farm, Patch of Heaven

When Maggie, a former show cow, enters the Patch of Heaven, she struts in whilst heavy metal music bellows and then begins a stand-up routine in which she plays with vegetables. After pulling an ear of corn out of someone’s ear (this is the point when you are meant to laugh- don’t worry: I didn’t either), she starts spontaneously burping, and some irritating piglets join in with her. So within five minutes of the film beginning, the script writers have already been reduced to writing jokes about bodily functions.

This is the level we are at, people.

Welcome to the Disney Dip.

The main villain, Alameda Slim. More about him later on...

After being subjected to these terrible jokes, I paused the movie and took a brief moment to ask myself an incredibly pertinent question. Who exactly is Home on the Range aimed towards? Maybe very young children may get something from it, but a farm in the Wild West… what sort of concept is this??

I was still wishing that Roseanne might talk about her vagina or the menopause, but no such luck.

It was never going to happen.

No vagina jokes here, I'm afraid...

Instead of raunchy feminist rants, we get very weak slapstick, and then the terrible plot begins to take shape. Pearl is going to lose the farm at an auction. She’ll lose her home, farm and livelihood, but instead of selling a few of the animals to save the rest of them, she would rather not separate any of them as they are her ‘family’ which means that she is actively responsible for making herself homeless and ensuring that all of her animals will die. Even though her decision is highly illogical, we are meant to be on her side because, minutes earlier, she danced with her farmyard animals.

Maggie’s plan is to go to the county fair and win money, so along with Mrs Calloway (Dench) and Grace (Tilly), they go into the local town, Chugwater, where they meet a horse called Buck (Gooding Jr) who has ADHD and slow motion Kung Fu fights with imaginary bandits. While they are there, the three cows have a bar brawl with elderly transvestite saloon girls (I’m seriously not joking), and then fight one another. I would rather watch Dame Judi Dench and Roseanne Barr brawl with one another in real life: at least that would be worth watching.

Animated cows: not so much.

Buck is the best character and probably should have been the protagonist

They quickly leave town for some reason, and after suffering through more dry, obvious jokes, we are introduced to some horny bulls that try to chat up the bootilicious bovines but won’t take no for an answer. Then Slim and the Willies- the unfortunately named villain and his cronies- pop up, and Slim sings a song about being a cattle rustler. It is at this point that my jaw literally dropped. Just in case you thought that Home on the Range couldn’t get any worse, I assure you: it does. You see, Slim is able to steal cattle because he hypnotises them with his yodelling.

Yes, that’s right: yodelling.

So while the orange rhinestone encrusted villain sings an entire song about how much he loves to yodel, simultaneously an elaborate psychedelic dance sequence- involving multi-coloured cows and bulls- takes place. Please re-read that sentence. Multi-coloured hypnotised cows dancing alongside a cattle rustling yodeller. There’s a very clear reason why I named this point in Disney animated history the Disney Dip.

This image perfectly describes my reaction after watching the yodeling sequence

We quickly discover that Slim is a cattle rustler because, to him, yodelling is an art form and you better not forget that or he’ll attack you with a branding iron. This is the level of character development/motivation that the scriptwriters deemed appropriate: the villain is doing his entire evil scheme of stealing cows and buying all the land in the local area because the people who live there don’t appreciate his singing talents.

Worst villain motive, ever. 

Alameda Slim, in action, hypnotising cows by yodeling, just in case you didn't believe me

The Willies are stupid and annoying sidekicks who are meant to provide comic relief but don’t.

I wasn’t laughing.

The miserable jokes that they roll out include ones about Old MacDonald and the chicken crossing the road. Yikes. Then a flash flood hits the desert plains and a tidal wave knocks into the three cows. Even though this makes no sense, at least we get some form of actual action based entertainment as they run from the storm. As they hide, a sad song about whether or not the sun will ever shine again plays over the top. This is the ‘emotional’ part of the cows’ journey, as everyone misses those they care about.

A desert Shaman, a jackrabbit called Lucky Jack, who (get it?) isn’t lucky at all (as he’s disaster prone- LOL), then assists them, and they find the stolen bulls, and then try to rescue them. Finally, something interesting happens, as every character is dragged into a mine car chase that looks brilliant and is actually successful at being entertaining and exciting. This is the only bit of the entire movie worth watching.

Buck has a real Kung Fu fight, and the cows then attack the villainous humans, somehow manage to drive a train back to Patch of Heaven, catch Slim and save the day. Their farmyard friends also assist, as they brutally assault Slim, which is meant to be funny.

But I wasn’t laughing.

If you saw a variety of farmyard animals including pigs, cows and horses attacking a man in real life, it would be terrifying, and horrifically disturbing. But he’s a villain, so in Disney world, that means that it is justified.

I didn't know that cows could drive a train...

The horny bulls, having been rescued by Maggie, Mrs Calloway and Grace, then miraculously reappear and continue to pester them. Maggie tells them to have a cold shower, which is the most sexual joke Home on the Range has to offer, but even though the bulls are sleazy and disgusting, they end up with the women anyway, because it wouldn’t be a happy ending unless every single female character is paired off with a male one. How strange and rape-y. 

Then the film ends.

I’ve written quite a lot already, but strangely don’t quite know how to write a succinct summary of how I felt about Home on the Range. The animation was superb, and it had a few good moments, one good character (Buck) and some upbeat songs, but literally nothing else going for it.

Home on the Range is a pure Disney Dip, Disney Disaster. This must have been the point in history when Disney decided to go against everything that made them what they are, universally beloved, in order to just reel off ‘original’ ideas to churn out movies, no matter how terrible they were.  

Home on the Range is a piss poor effort Disney. Piss poor. And for once, the audience and critics of the time agreed with me. Home on the Range was generally panned, and ended up being a commercial flop. Is that really a surprise?

Is it really a shock to know that Home on the Range was a flop?

It is not a shock to discover that Home on the Range had so many story and production problems that it was pushed back a year- swapping release dates with Brother Bear. The annoying thing is that, with a lot of work, Home on the Range could have been alright. It could have been a success, if it had been tweaked effectively. Sadly, it wasn’t, as it languished in development hell for almost ten years.

Home on the Range. A Disney animated classic about cows. Seriously. Cows. It’s something that I just can’t quite get my head around. It would have made more sense to make the valiant Buck as the main character, and focused on him trying to catch bandits as he explored the Wild West. At least that would have appealed to somebody in the great world wide wilderness.

Sadly, Home on the Range was udder rubbish

Home on the Range was supposed to be the last ‘animated’ Disney movie ever (but wasn’t), as CGI was supposedly the way forward. And as we know, the two CGI films that followed continued the Disney Dip trend of basing an entire movie around a very weak idea stretched to its absolute limit.

What makes the whole thing worse is that many people would be right in thinking that there couldn’t be a worse Disney animated classic then one about cows.

But sadly, they would be wrong. Very wrong.

Because Disney just kept making one terrible decision after another, and Home on the Range was a forewarning of worse to come.

Much worse.