MsMojo has done countless Disney related countdowns including the sad and scary moments that wrecked us as kids. A lot of the comments mention "Fox and the Hound" and rightfully so. Two particular goodbye scenes tear me up just to even think about.
But "Lady and the Tramp" is my personal kryptonite, always has been as far back as I can remember.Hopefully somewhere along writing this, I can figure out why. Certain things in music and movies have left me emotionally compromised over the years. That’s not a new concept for me. But with this— I think I know the issues I have and understand why, but that doesn’t change my feelings.
So I’m gonna just proceed ahead as if you’d already seen the movie. If you don’t want to be spoiled, feel free to stop reading.
...
For starters, the music. Except for “we are Siamese” and “he’s a tramp”, most of the songs hit a sad chord with me. Maybe it’s the old quality of the singers that they had in a lot of old Disney movies. But the fact there’s a jailhouse blues song before Lady gets brought in— what were they thinking? Plus the scene where they hint very strongly about a dog being taken to be euthanized. That last part went over my head as a kid but yikes...
A couple of scenes where Lady is whining or crying- it’s difficult for me to hear. The beginning when she’s just a puppy and they’re banging from the second floor to tell her to stop. They do eventually get the message and let her sleep with them. It’s a common thing with new puppies. Heck, Dodger (the yellow lab we got when I was 10) was like that when we first got him. He has such bad separation anxiety when we left him alone. It continued until he was an adult. Once we had to live in a hotel room because we were moving and the new house wasn't ready yet. We couldn't leave him alone to go out to eat because he just started whining endlessly.
But worse is later in the movie after she’s rescued from the pound, Tramp comes to see her and she tells him to go away. She found out from Peg in the pound that he has a reputation for having multiple girlfriends and she was still traumatized from being in there. Them fighting and her sobbing after- omg so sad.
Similar arguments happen in romcoms all the time, but they’re just par for the course. They don’t feel like the end of the world— most of the time.
The baby being introduced- as a kid, you don’t fully grasp the whole concept of it. From a dog’s POV, it’s probably a scary thing cuz they don’t know what to expect. Except for some things to change. Everything turns out ok and the lullaby scene is really sweet. But it still hits some emotional chord. Maybe cuz it reminds me of my mom doing that when I was little. I have no memory of anything particular, but I do know I wasn’t ok with having a new sister because I’d have to share attention. It took several years until we got as close as we are now, but it is a difficult adjustment period.
I wouldn’t call Aunt Sarah a villain but the moment the people leave to go away somewhere— also why are they leaving, especially leaving a new baby behind? That’s never explained. Lady heads them off at the door and is just as confused as I am—- anyway, things start to spiral out after that. Mainly because Aunt Sarah is not a dog person.
I’m amazed I don’t hate cats because of her cats in this movie. And I think I like Siamese cats because of this movie. But those cats were jerks!
The cats cause all kinds of trouble and damage and they get her blamed for it. And they fake injury too. What the hell!
I hadn’t seen the recent live action version (and I’d be up for it) but they redid the cat scene to get away from Disney’s history of insensitive stereotyping. But yeah, those cats were jerks.
They and aunt Sarah did result in lady spending more time with tramp and falling in love with him but did it have to come with so much trouble?
The beaver at the zoo that helps get the muzzle off Lady was a great character I kinda forgot about amid all the unpleasant stuff.
Then there’s the last 20 minutes. From the point Lady is thrown into the pound to the final credits, it’s an emotional roller coaster of sad and scary moments.
That scene with the rat getting into the house. And of course it’s storming outside- why it is always storming when something unsettling happens?
The strange thing is I don’t really like babies and I don’t want kids but anything that involves one of them getting hurt or worse- it’s very unsettling. I was all excited for the new Perry Mason series on HBO and I didn’t like how it all revolved around a baby getting killed and his parents being put on trial for it.
So yeah- that scene genuinely freaked me out as a kid the way a lot of other scenes in old Disney movies unsettled other people if it didn’t immediately go over their heads.
For starters, the music. Except for “we are Siamese” and “he’s a tramp”, most of the songs hit a sad chord with me. Maybe it’s the old quality of the singers that they had in a lot of old Disney movies. But the fact there’s a jailhouse blues song before Lady gets brought in— what were they thinking? Plus the scene where they hint very strongly about a dog being taken to be euthanized. That last part went over my head as a kid but yikes...
A couple of scenes where Lady is whining or crying- it’s difficult for me to hear. The beginning when she’s just a puppy and they’re banging from the second floor to tell her to stop. They do eventually get the message and let her sleep with them. It’s a common thing with new puppies. Heck, Dodger (the yellow lab we got when I was 10) was like that when we first got him. He has such bad separation anxiety when we left him alone. It continued until he was an adult. Once we had to live in a hotel room because we were moving and the new house wasn't ready yet. We couldn't leave him alone to go out to eat because he just started whining endlessly.
But worse is later in the movie after she’s rescued from the pound, Tramp comes to see her and she tells him to go away. She found out from Peg in the pound that he has a reputation for having multiple girlfriends and she was still traumatized from being in there. Them fighting and her sobbing after- omg so sad.
Similar arguments happen in romcoms all the time, but they’re just par for the course. They don’t feel like the end of the world— most of the time.
The baby being introduced- as a kid, you don’t fully grasp the whole concept of it. From a dog’s POV, it’s probably a scary thing cuz they don’t know what to expect. Except for some things to change. Everything turns out ok and the lullaby scene is really sweet. But it still hits some emotional chord. Maybe cuz it reminds me of my mom doing that when I was little. I have no memory of anything particular, but I do know I wasn’t ok with having a new sister because I’d have to share attention. It took several years until we got as close as we are now, but it is a difficult adjustment period.
I wouldn’t call Aunt Sarah a villain but the moment the people leave to go away somewhere— also why are they leaving, especially leaving a new baby behind? That’s never explained. Lady heads them off at the door and is just as confused as I am—- anyway, things start to spiral out after that. Mainly because Aunt Sarah is not a dog person.
I’m amazed I don’t hate cats because of her cats in this movie. And I think I like Siamese cats because of this movie. But those cats were jerks!
The cats cause all kinds of trouble and damage and they get her blamed for it. And they fake injury too. What the hell!
I hadn’t seen the recent live action version (and I’d be up for it) but they redid the cat scene to get away from Disney’s history of insensitive stereotyping. But yeah, those cats were jerks.
They and aunt Sarah did result in lady spending more time with tramp and falling in love with him but did it have to come with so much trouble?
The beaver at the zoo that helps get the muzzle off Lady was a great character I kinda forgot about amid all the unpleasant stuff.
Then there’s the last 20 minutes. From the point Lady is thrown into the pound to the final credits, it’s an emotional roller coaster of sad and scary moments.
That scene with the rat getting into the house. And of course it’s storming outside- why it is always storming when something unsettling happens?
The strange thing is I don’t really like babies and I don’t want kids but anything that involves one of them getting hurt or worse- it’s very unsettling. I was all excited for the new Perry Mason series on HBO and I didn’t like how it all revolved around a baby getting killed and his parents being put on trial for it.
So yeah- that scene genuinely freaked me out as a kid the way a lot of other scenes in old Disney movies unsettled other people if it didn’t immediately go over their heads.
Even worse is that Tramp was the hero that saved him. But of course aunt Sara didn’t know so she calls the pound. As far as we’d seen, he just has a lot of fun living the life of a stray and doesn’t hurt anyone. But because he’s eluded the authorities for so long he’s public enemy #1 one so it sounds like they’re gonna kill him as soon as they get him to the pound.
Luckily, this is when the people get back and they let Lady back in the house so she can show them what really happened. It’s like they just brought Aunt Sarah to babysit for a few days and didn’t think to mention that Lady is harmless. They say it after the fact when she's adamant about not letting her into the nursery- again so much trouble could’ve been saved if things were better explained.
Finally- Jock and Trusty going after the van to save Tramp from the pound, it’s still raining and Trusty appears to get run over... oh my god! Everyone talks about Bambi’s mom getting shot ruining their childhoods. And apparently that reaction is why they decided to change the ending so he just has a broken leg.
And there’re new puppies and it’s all a happy ending?!
No! That doesn’t make everything okay!
Yeah, just thinking about that makes me bawl my eyes out. It’s a nice love story and I like a lot of the characters but I cannot reconcile that no matter how I old I get. The last time I watched the movie was 20 years ago or whenever Scamps adventure came out. And it was still a difficult watch for me.
Here’s something crazy—
I loved Scamp’s adventure. It was a great story and it was cool seeing more about Tramp’s urban legend status. Not for one moment did it make me bawl my eyes out. And as one of those direct to dvd Disney sequels it deserves recognition. And its own post.
Just a few bits of trivia I picked up...
I had no idea Peggy Lee actually did Peg's voice and a couple others. She's also the first "big star" to get cast in any Disney movie. So that's cool.
There's an FAQ on Imdb where someone asks if "more" happened with Lady and Tramp in the park. And apparently yes... the puppies at the end kinda allude to that fact. But it also goes on to say that Lady was in heat and that's why some stray dogs were chasing her when she runs away after getting muzzled. Wow, I wouldn't have picked up on that at all.
And this was something I forgot about because I hadn't seen the movie in a long time. The guys at the Italian restaurant allude to the fact that Tramp should settle down with Lady, seeming to be aware of the fact he'd brought other dogs there before. I knew he was a regular customer, but yikes... that kinda kills the mood a little bit, but we do realize soon enough that his feelings for her are genuine.
Also, apparently the movie was panned by critics who kinda called it "sentimental hogwash." I dont get why sentimentality is a bad thing. Although that could be why I don't like some of the scenes in the movie because it plays into that.
Ah, back to the beaver. The same voice actor went on to play Gopher in Winnie the Pooh. I thought that voice sounded kinda familiar... that's cool.
The voice actress who played Aunt Sarah was the mother of Jim Dear's voice actor...
The large dog in the pound was originally going to be a main character. Even to the point he and Tramp were going to be in a love triangle with Lady.
Reading the comment going back to Trusty almost getting killed... Walt Disney saw the scene and it shocked him. And he had them rewrite the ending so it wouldn't be a repeat of Bambi. But just reading the way it was written... they could have done more reanimation where they take out the part where he appears to be dead and Jock howls in mourning. Because I really didn't appreciate being faked out and suddenly everything is fine at the end.
...so that's about it.
I probably am making this out to be a much better thing than it is. But reading up on some of the trivia and reviewing what I wrote made it a bit easier. Writing it down the first time a couple times was difficult.
But it'll be nice to just launch this into cyberspace so I won't have to revisit it.
I'd be open for seeing the remake, though. The music will be different and some of the things I didn't like might have been redone to where I don't mind it as much.
But yeah... Oliver & Company, I'm fine. 101 dalamatians. I'm fine. For some reason, this movie always gets to me.
I thought maybe it was because it combined a lot of things that rub me the wrong way. Animals being in pain, physically or emotionally. Babies possibly coming into harm. Separation anxiety- that's something I had a difficult time with until I was maybe 7 or 8.
Or maybe I have a problem with these things because of this movie...
Either way, I'm done with it. Whenever I do get back to it, Scamp's Adventure will be fun to revisit.
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