Home on the Range (film)

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This article is about the film. For other instances of Home on the Range see Home on the Range (disambiguation).

Home on the Range
Promotional Poster for Home on the Range
Directed by	Will Finn John Sanford
Produced by	Alice Dewey
Written by	Will Finn John Sanford
Starring	Roseanne Barr Judi Dench Cuba Gooding Jr. Randy Quaid Jennifer Tilly Steve Buscemi
Music by	Alan Menken
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	April 2, 2004
Running time	76 min.
Language	English
Budget	$ 110,000,000
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Home on the Range is a 2004 animated feature produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on April 2, 2004. The film is the forty-fourth animated feature in the Disney animated features canon, and was named after the popular country song "Home on the Range".

The film stars the voices of Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench, Jennifer Tilly, Steve Buscemi, G.W. Bailey, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Randy Quaid.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

1 Plot
2 History
3 Box Office
4 Trivia
5 Soundtrack listing
6 Cast
7 Crew
8 See also
9 External links

[edit] Plot

Grace, Mrs Caloway and Maggie (from left to right)

The story is set in the Old West (about 1866). Unusual for a Western movie (but not a Disney film), the main characters are female.

A mismatched trio of dairy cows – brash, adventurous Maggie, prim, proper Mrs. Caloway and ditzy, happy-go-lucky Grace (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly respectively) – must capture an infamous cattle rustler, for his bounty, in order to save their idyllic farm from foreclosure. (As Grace puts it, "Who better to catch a cattle thief...than a cow?") Aiding them in their quest is Lucky Jack, a feisty, peg-legged rabbit, but a selfish stallion named Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.), eagerly working in the service of Rico, a famous bounty hunter, seeks the glory for himself.

[edit] History

Prior to the film's release, Disney stated that it would be their last film in their animated features canon to use traditional animation. Although Disney animated films have featured some computer-generated effects for many years, Disney announced plans to move entirely to computer animation after Home on the Range, beginning with 2005's Chicken Little, and laid off most of its animation department. However, after the company's acquisition of Pixar in early 2006, new leaders John Lasseter and Ed Catmull decided to revive traditional animation, and announced the upcoming 2-D film, The Frog Princess. Still, Home on the Range is the final feature in the canon to use the CAPS system, which was first fully used in The Rescuers Down Under.

While critics did not generally like the film, which they felt was weak on plot^{[citation needed]}, it was universally praised for Alan Menken's return to Disney animated features.^{[citation needed]} The lyrics were written by Glenn Slater.

The film began pre-production after the release of Pocahontas in 1995. In August 2000, the film was announced as Sweating Bullets and scheduled for a fall 2003 release. The title was changed to Home on the Range in April, 2002.

This film was originally slated to have been released in November 2003, but story and production problems forced Disney to swap release dates with Brother Bear (originally slated for spring 2004) in December 2002. It was also expected to be given a G rating by the MPAA. However, sources inside Disney have indicated that a joke during the movie's opening sequence, one in which a cow's udder is subtly compared to surgically-enhanced breasts, resulted in the movie being slapped with a PG rating instead, possibly alienating some of Disney's general audience and lowering the studio's expectations of the movie at the box office.^{[citation needed]} The studio also broke from its own tradition of releasing major films at either Thanksgiving or summer vacation (to maximize the family audience), releasing it on April 2nd. There also was some speculation that Michael Eisner who had a made a controversial decision to end production of hand-drawn, 2-D animation chose this ill-timed release date to prove his contention that traditionally animated films were no longer viable.

[edit] Box Office

The film had a budget of about $110 million, but only grossed $103,951,461.

[edit] Trivia

This was the first Disney animated film to feature three female main characters. However, several of its predecessors included female heroes and villains (see Female protagonists in Disney animated films)

The film premiered on the Starz! cable channel on the night of April 2, 2005, exactly a year after its theatrical release.

Home on the Range was originally to be the last traditionally animated Disney film released in theaters. This has however changed with the announcement of The Frog Princess.

In the Spanish version, the movie's name is Cowboy Cows (Vacas Vaqueras).

In the Italian version the movie's name is Cows to the Revolt (Mucche alla Riscossa)

In the Swedish version the movie's name is The Cow Gang (Kogänget)

In the Dutch version the movie's name is Panic on the Prairie (Paniek op de Prairie)

When Maggie and the others first arrive at Slim's hideout, they see Buck talking to the buffalo guarding the entrance. Upon seeing him Maggie says "Look, it's Buck: Stallion of the See-moron." This was a reference to the Dreamworks animated title Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron which was released two years earlier.

This is the last film in the Disney animated features canon to be released on VHS (though there were Disney films outside the canon released on VHS after, the last being Bambi II).

[edit] Soundtrack listing

(You Ain't) Home On The Range - Chorus
Little Patch Of Heaven - K D Lang
Yodel-Adle-Eedle-Idle-Oo - Chorus
Will The Sun Ever Shine Again - Bonnie Raitt
(You Ain't) Home On The Range - Echo Mine Reprise - Chorus
Wherever The Trail May Lead - Tim McGraw
Anytime You Need A Friend - The Beu Sisters
Cows In Town/Saloon Song
On The Farm
Bad News
Storm And The Aftermath
Cows To The Rescue
Buck
My Farm Is Saved/Little Patch Of Heaven - Finale
Anytime You Need A Friend

[edit] Cast

Actor	Role
Roseanne Barr	Maggie
Judi Dench	Mrs. Caloway
Jennifer Tilly	Grace
Cuba Gooding Jr.	Buck
Randy Quaid	Alameda Slim
Charles Dennis	Rico
Charles Haid	Lucky Jack
Carole Cook	Pearl Gesner
Joe Flaherty	Jeb the Goat
Steve Buscemi	Wesley
Richard Riehle	Sam the sheriff
Lance Legault	Junior
G.W. Bailey	Rusty
Patrick Warburton	Patrick
Estelle Harris	Audrey the Chicken

[edit] Crew

Crew Position
Written and Directed by	Will Finn John Sanford
Produced by	Alice Dewey
Songs by	Alan Menken Glenn Slater
Original Score by	Alan Menken
Associate Producer	David J. Steinberg
Art Director	David Cutler
Film Editor	H. Lee Peterson
Artistic Supervisors	Jean Christophe-Poulain (Layout supervisor) Christy Maltese (Background supervisor) Marshall Toomey (Clean-up supervisor) Marlon West (Effects supervisor)
Supervising Animator	Chris Buck (Maggie) Duncan Marjorbanks (Mrs Caloway) Mark Henn (Gracie/Welsey/Rusty) Michael Surrey (Buck) Dale Baer (Alameda Slim) Russ Edmonds (Rico/Willies/Horses) Sandro Lucio Cleuzo (Sheriff/Jeb) Bruce W. Smith (Pearl) James Lopez (Farm Animals) Shawn Keller (Lucky Jack)
Based on a Story by Character Design Artistic Coordinator Production Manager	Will Finn John Sanford Michael LaBash Sam Levine Mark Kennedy Robert Lence Joseph C. Mosier Dennis M. Blakely Tamara Boutcher