130) The AristoCats

Watched The Aristocats with L. and Cody this weekend.  I'd not seen it before, which is surprising because it was brought to us by the same people who brought us some of my favorite Disney classics including: The Jungle Book, The Sword and the Stone, Robin Hood, 101 Dalmations.  Many things occurred to me while watching this movie:

• The movie is not as good as the others mentioned above, but still had the charm of an old school Disney movie.  The main characters were nothing special, but there are two hound dogs that are greatness and a drunk goose named Uncle Waldo, who was just weird.
• After the movie was over, Cody mentioned a handful of other old school disney movies that I have not seen, and now I am excited to check those out.  These include: The Rescuers, The Black Cauldron, Oliver and Company, The Great Mouse Detective
• Made me wonder if people are sharing the old school movies with their kids.  I have heard and understand discussions surrounding the Disney Princess ideal and how this is detrimental to young girls.  Part of me understands this, but part of me realizes that most girls I know grew up with Disney movies and they turned out fine.  I feel like the problem is less the movie and more about mothers treating their kids like Disney Princesses to such a degree that the child cannot separate the ideal from reality.  But I could be wrong about that.
• But there are several old school Disney movies that do not have princesses and I feel like fewer children today are watching these.  My sample size consists of all the 22-25 year olds that I have worked with over the last few years who have never heard of the classics mentioned above.  
• My plan is to start my kids off with the older ones, because once they see the computer animation, they will have a hard time going back to the older ones.  My kid MUST be able to sing the songs in Robin Hood with me so that when I am in a good mood I can say, "Oodelahlee Oodelahlee Golly What A Day!"
• When Cody was growing up, he watched Disney movies back to back to back on a continuous loop.  Before he had his own TV (the smaller one with a built in VCR) I was lucky enough to watch The Jungle Book more than 6000 times.  As a result, I have the movie completely memorized and I think the songs in this movie are the best of all the Disney movies.