May Jafar (the returned version) have mercy on your sleep-deprived soul if you mistake Tinker Bell's friend Silvermist for Vidia. (Vidia is her frenemy, you absolute dolt.) These are the pieces of esoteric Disney facts and lore you learn almost by accident as a parent, because your child might not remember the name of their uncle who works as a diving instructor in Mauritius, but damn straight they know the full back story of King Triton — they've spent far more time in the company of the latter.
Becoming a Disney-specific pop culture master is something that happened to me between watching Toy Story every day for two weeks straight and realizing, to my horror, that our library carried Pocahontas 2 and my daughter wanted to borrow it. Part of it is just constant exposure to the content, and part of it is survival, because the Sophia The First soundtrack is good and long. In the age of Disney+, you *will* come to know all the straight-to-TV sequels and obscure backstories for all your faves.
So just how deep are you into Disney lore? Give yourself a point for every piece of below trivia that you already knew. Warning: things get hairy in Disney's expanded universe...
Obscure Disney Lore, A Partial List
- After Ariel's mother died, King Triton banned all music from the kingdom.
- Aladdin's father is the leader of the infamous Forty Thieves and his name is Cassim and he's a total zaddy.
- Tiana is left-handed.
- At one point during "Be Prepared," voice actor Jim Cummings (a regular Disney collaborator most famous for his role of Winnie the Pooh) takes over for Scar voice actor Jeremy Irons. (It's right after the line "you won't get a sniff without me!" Listen and you'll never not hear it.)
- Tinker Bell has a boss/mentor named Fairy Mary.
- Marshmallow is lonely and comes to live in Arendelle in a story included in one of the Frozen compendiums.
- Rapunzel and Flynn are among the guests attending Elsa's coronation in Frozen.
- Details of Rapunzel's future adventures can be seen on the mobile in her crib as a baby: her chameleon friend Pascal, Maximus the horse, a duckling (as in the Snuggly Ducking), the bird outside her tower window, and one of the thugs dressed up as a cherub.
- Barbie and Ken had their first kiss on their Hawaiian staycation in Toy Story short, Hawaiian Vacation.
- You have extremely mixed feelings about Maestro Forte, the villain from Beauty and the Beast: An Enchanted Christmas. On the one hand your fear keeps you awake at night, because he's a psychotic anthropomorphic pipe organ who tries to kill our heroes. On the other hand, he's voiced by Tim Curry, so...
- Elsa sneezes up little brothers called "Snowgies" for Olaf in Frozen Fever.
- In Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, Ariel grows up to be just like her father, forbidding her land-born daughter the opportunity to go to the ocean.
- The same movie features "Ursula's crazy sister!" per Sebastian.
- Lilo's older sister Nani has a Mulan poster in her room in Lilo and Stitch.
- Lilo's creepy-ass doll is named Scrump.
- Jafar captures Genie in Return Of Jafar.
- In Hunchback of Notre Dame 2: The Secret of the Bell, Quasimodo gets a girlfriend named Madellaine who has the absolute audacity to whine about being too pretty... to Quasimodo.
- Lady and Tramp have a son and name him Scamp.
- Lion King 2: Simba's Pride brings back Simba, this time played by Matthew Broderick, to watch over his daughter Kiara, who falls in love with Kovu, an Outsider who thankfully is not Scar's son (because Disney knows its hardcore fans will dive into genealogies).
- Pocahontas travels to London, attends a royal ball, and seemingly falls in love with someone who is not John Smith.
- Zootopia's Duke Weasleton and Frozen's Duke of Weselton were both voiced by Alan Tudyk.
- Past the end credits of Moana, Tomatoa has not gotten up off his back yet, and he's jealous of Caribbean conductor Sebastian.
- Many pieces of classical music now have lyrics thanks to Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers.
- You have found the Pizza Planet truck in every Pixar film... or at least looked it up because you knew it had to be in there.
- There is a very familiar toy in the office of Finding Nemo's Dr. P. Sherman.
- The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning revealed Ariel's mom's name (Athena) as well as what happened to her (she was squished to death by a pirate ship, which is a badass way to go).
- The real wedding of the century wasn't Will and Kate or Harry and Meghan, it was Mulan and Shang in Mulan II.
How Did You Do?
0-5: Poor unfortunate soul.
Or, depending on how you look at it, extremely fortunate soul whose children haven't forced you to watch straight-to-DVD sequels.
6-10: The bare necessities.
You know about how Simba saved the Pride Lands the first time, and you're just going to assume things go a bit Empire Strikes Back in the sequel.
11-15: The usual morning lineup.
You've drawn a line from one Disney franchise to another, but you still don't know the deal with Jafar.
16-20: You can go the distance!
A laudable 7/10 theories you held about Frozen 2 going into the theater turned out to be plausible, thanks to all your knowledge of the Disney canon.
21-27: Ruler of ALL THE OCEAN.
There are fans, there are super-fans, but you? You can draw the entire family tree from Mufasa and Scar on down. Congratulations/I'm sorry.
