I gave the first Right Stuf tape--you know, one with *REAL* Kimba episodes on it--to my wife's friend, for her 6-year-old daughter (let's call her June). Well, June loved it. What can I say, the kid's got taste. June's mother loved it, too, because June can watch it without getting scared out of her mind like she does when she watches The Lion King. June's father, on the other hand, for some reason felt compelled to tell the kid that Kimba was just ripping off The Lion King. What, is this guy on the Disney payroll? Is he living in some backwards timeflow where the "1966" on the tape box DOESN'T mean that Kimba came first? Is the sacred name of Disney so freakin' important that it must take precedent over your own kid's happiness?
Some people are just weird about Disney crap. And my reaction to that mindless devotion is what led me to inextricably link "Disney" and "crap" well before my first viewing of The Lion King (where at one point I jumped to my feet, pointed at the screen, and yelled, "I KNEW IT! I *KNEW* THEY WERE GOING TO RIP OFF THAT PART!!"). I guess that makes me weird about Disney crap, too, but in the opposite direction. I just don't understand the mindless devotion--and it's very common.
Don't get me wrong... I don't hate you if you happen to be a fan of some Disney stuff. (By the way, I've discovered the key to the arguments over The Lion King: people who saw Kimba before they saw The Lion King know quite well how Disney ripped off the earlier production; people who saw The Lion King first don't know or don't care. It's very similar to a phenomenon I noticed in regards to pop music and remakes of hit records.) I'll even admit that The Lion King contains some incredibly beautiful animation--it's a pleasure just to watch the lions *move* in some scenes--even though I am by no means a fan of the Disney style of drawing big cats' faces. It's the "Disney is God" attitude that I keep running into that rankles me; it allows an awful lot of garbage to get foisted onto kids, and it deprives them, in cases such as Kimba, of far superior original works.
Thanks for putting up with my little rant. I hope you find some good Kimba memories on my pages, and I'll keep adding to them as I get time to do the work.
