| 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 Glenn Slater |
| Editing by | Mark A. Hester H. Lee Peterson |
| Studio | Walt Disney Feature Animation |
| Distributed by | Walt Disney Pictures Buena Vista Distribution |
| Release date(s) | April 2, 2004 |
| Running time | 76 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $110,000,000 |
| Box office | $103,951,461 |
Home on the Range is a 2004 American animated musical feature film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures on April 2, 2004, and was named after the popular country song "Home on the Range". The 45th feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics, it was the last traditionally animated Disney film until 2009's The Princess and the Frog, and the last Disney animated film to be released on VHS.
Set in the old west, the plot centers on a mismatched trio of dairy cows – brash, adventurous Maggie, prim, proper Mrs. Calloway and ditzy, happy-go-lucky Grace (voiced by Roseanne Barr, Judi Dench and Jennifer Tilly respectively) – who 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 horse named Buck (Cuba Gooding Jr.), eagerly working in the service of Rico, a famous bounty hunter, seeks the glory for himself.
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Maggie is the only cow left on the Dixon Ranch after Alamida Slim (a cattle rustler capable of stealing 500 in a single night) stole all the rest of Dixon's cattle. Mr. Dixon sells Maggie to Pearl, a kind and elderly woman that runs a small farm called Patch of Heaven.
The local Sheriff arrives to tell Pearl that her bank is cracking down on debtors. Pearl has three days to pay the bank $750, or her farm will be sold to the highest bidder. Hearing this, Maggie convinces the other cows on the farm (Grace, a happy-go-lucky character, and Mrs. Calloway, who has had leadership gone to her head) to go to town to attempt winning prize money at a fair.
While the cows are in town, a bounty hunter named Rico (who Buck, the Sheriff's horse, idolizes) drops a criminal off and collects the reward. Stating he needs a replacement horse to go after Alamida Slim while his own horse rests, he takes Buck. When Maggie find out that the reward for capturing Slim is of exactly $750, she convinces the other cows to try to capture him to save Patch of Heaven.
That night, they hide among a large heard of steers, when Alamida Slim appears. Before any of them can do anything, Slim begins a yodeling song which sends all the cattle (except Grace, who is tone deaf) into a trance that causes them to dance madly and follow Slim anywhere. Grace is able to bring Maggie and Mrs. Calloway back to their senses just before Slim closes the path behind him with a rockslide to stop Rico and his men from chasing him.
As Rico discusses with his men what his next move will be, Buck starts talking with Maggie, Grace, and Mrs. Calloway as old friends and miming actions. This causes Rico to believe Buck is frightened by cows, and sends Buck back to the Sheriff. Buck escapes, determined to capture Slim for himself to prove his worth. Maggie, Grace, and Mrs. Calloway are left behind, but they meet a peg-legged rabbit named Lucky Jack, who leads them to the Slim's hideout mine.
At the mine, Slim reveals that he has been stealing all cattle from his former patrons. When his former patrons can't support their land anymore, he buys the land when it is auctioned off, under the guise of the respectable-looking Mr. O'delay, using the very money he gets from selling the cattle he stole.
After arriving to Slim's hideout, the cows capture Slim. They run off with Slim's accomplices and buyer in pursuit on a steam train. Rico arrives. When the chase stops, Rico is revealed to work for Slim.
Slim dons his O'delay costume and leaves the cows stranded in the middle of the desert with the train, while he goes to attend the auction. However, the cows arrive using the train to the farm and expose Slim. Slim is arrested by the police, and Patch of Heaven is saved by the reward money.
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 CGI 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 2-D animated film, The Princess and the Frog. 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. 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. 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 2.
The film had a budget of about $110 million, making a U.S. box office gross of $50,026,353, and a worldwide gross of $76,482,461.[1]
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 55% of critics gave positive reviews based on 118 reviews. According to Metacritic, the film's average rating was 50%, based on 30 reviews. Users gave the film a 4.2/10 approval rating based on 12 votes.
| Home on the Range: An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack | ||||
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| Soundtrack album by Various Artists | ||||
| Released | March 30, 2004 | |||
| Label | Walt Disney | |||
| Producer | Alan Menken Glenn Slater |
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| Walt Disney Animation Studios chronology | ||||
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Home on the Range: An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack is the soundtrack to Disney's 2004 animated feature Home on the Range. It contains music written by Alan Menken and Glenn Slater, and vocal songs performed by k.d. lang, Randy Quaid, Bonnie Raitt, Tim McGraw, and The Beu Sisters along with the film's score composed by Alan Menken. The album was released on March 30, 2004 by Walt Disney Records.
A Dairy Tale is a 3-minute spinoff released in 2004. Mrs. Calloway tries to tell the story of the Three Little Pigs but is interrupted by Maggie, Grace, Buck, Jeb, Ollie and Audery, who tell the story in their own ways. The characters are featured in super deformed and 'storybook' style.